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This book investigates anxieties over the role of white masculinity in American society after World War Two articulated in post-apocalyptic film. Using an interdisciplinary approach that employs methods of cultural studies, gender studies, and critical race theory, it argues that masculinity acts as a technology for being-in-the-world that can be used by subjects with bodies coded male or female, employing it as a vehicle for agency. The Mad Max films denaturalize white masculinity by revealing the ways in which it defines the roles of men in a violent hypermasculine masquerade that harms everyone. The films trace Max's disenfranchisement as he embraces a fugitive masculinity, fleeing social relation and responsibility, finding human connection once more in Miller's most recent addition to the franchise. This work is useful for anyone teaching masculinity studies as well as those whom wish to better understand the phenomenon of angry white manhood and why masculinity often assumes a life-or-death apocalyptic position in postmodern America.
List of contents
Acknowledgements - Introduction. "Real Men" and "Last Men" - Omega Men: Apocalyptic Masculinity Preceding George Miller - The End of the Road: The Props and Properties of Manhood as a Zero-Sum Game -The Clothes that Make the Man: Costumes and the Sartorial Performance of Manhood - Apocalyptic Boyhood: Perpetual Boyhood as Fugitive Masculinity -Apocalyptic Women: Survival in the Hypermasculine World of Apocalyptic Manhood - Coda. The Cycle Continues - Index.
About the author
Ezekiel Crago earned a PhD in English at the University of California Riverside. He is currently a lecturer at Morgan Community College and University of Colorado Denver.
Summary
This study investigates anxieties over the role of white masculinity in American society after World War Two articulated in post-apocalyptic film.
