Adopting and developing a ‘cultural politics’ approach, this comprehensive study explores how Hollywood movies generate and reflect political myths about social and personal life that profoundly influence how we understand power relations. Instead of looking at genre, it employs three broad categories of film. ‘Security’ films present ideas concerning public order and disorder, citizen–state relations and the politics of fear. ‘Relationalities’ films highlight personal and intimate politics, bringing norms about identities, gender and sexuality into focus. In ‘socially critical’ films, particular issues and ideas are endowed with more overtly political significance. The book considers these categories as global political technologies implicated in hegemonic and ‘soft power’ relations whose reach is both deep and broad.
Table of Content
Foreword by Douglas Kellner
1 Introduction: the cultural politics of popular film
2 Frames
Part I: Security
3 Security: order and disorder
4 War and order
5 Disorder and fear
6 Fearsome monsters
Part II: Relationalities
7 Gender and intimate relationships
8 Romance
9 Bromance
Part III: Social critique
10 Against the grain? Socially critical movies
11 Questioning the critical
Part IV: Global agendas
12 The big picture: the ‘metropole’ and peripheral ‘others’
13 Responses from ‘the margins’
Index
About the author
Chris Beasley is Professor of Politics at the University of Adelaide
Heather Brook is Senior Lecturer in Women’s Studies at Flinders University
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