Fathers on Film - Paternity and Masculinity in 1990s Hollywood

List of contents

1.Introduction: American Fathers, American Futures
2.Fathers of the Future: Extinction and Survival in Jurassic Park
3.Dad vs. the State: Hollywood’s Courtroom Battles
4.Fathers, Sons and Loss
5.Return of the (Lion) King: Fatherhood Beyond Death
6.Guys That Say Goodnight: Gay Fatherhood and the Quest for Legitimacy
7.Conclusion

About the author

Katie Barnett is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at the University of Chester, UK. She is the author of Fathers on Film (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). She is member of the British Association for American Studies, and former editor of the North American Studies journal 49th Parallel.

Summary

The father is an enduring and iconic figure in Hollywood cinema and in the 1990s, narratives of redemptive fatherhood featured prominently in some of the decade’s most popular films like Kindergarten Cop (1990), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lion King (1994). Interpreting such films through the lens of feminist and queer theory, along with masculinity studies and psychoanalysis, Katie Barnett offers an insightful and interdisciplinary discussion of cinematic fathers.
Barnett reveals that the father figure is often portrayed as one that invests in and is part of a discourse of reproductive futurism. This plays out across a range of genres including rom-coms, fantasy, sci-fi, drama, and disaster. By exploring both blockbuster and more low-budget films of the 1990s, Barnett explores the figure of the father against the crisis of masculinity in the United States, and indeed more globally, at this time.

Product details

• Authors: Katie Barnett, Barnett Katie
• Assisted by: Claire Nally (Editor), Angela Smith (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.12.2020
• EAN: 9781350191600
• ISBN: 978-1-350-19160-0
• No. of pages: 272
• Series: Library of Gender and Popular Culture; Library of Gender and Popular
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, Cultural Studies, Television, PERFORMING ARTS / Television / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Men's Studies, Films, cinema, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / General, Gender studies: men and boys, Gender Studies: Men