Gender Ethnicity and Sexuality in Contemporary American Film

<p>Hollywood has devoted big budgets and established stars to films about controversial issues in the last ten years. Identities considered marginal have come into prominence on the big screen. The authors of this title look at the issues raised by these developments, bring together debates in identity politics with film studies, and launch an innovative theorization of the cinematic representation of identity. <br><br> Movies from <em>Forrest</em><em>Gump</em> to <em>Philadelphia</em>, from <em>Malcolm X</em> to <em>Falling Down</em> have been specifically concerned with multiculturalism and identity politics. This book is concerned with the meanings put into circulation by these mainstream films and audiences' reactions to them. It provides an accessible introduction to issues such as arguments over positive and negative images and the relationship between cultural representation and political power in American life.</p> Introduction: The Uses of Identity in Post-Reagan Hollywood Film; Chapter 1 White Masculinity as Paternity: Michael Douglas, Fatherhood and the Uses of the American Family; Chapter 2 Transactions in Race and Ethnicity: Positive, Negative and Interrogative Images of African Americans on Film; Chapter 3 Putting the Homo into America:Reconstructing Gay Identities in the National Frame; conclusion Conclusion: Aliens from Star Wars to Independence Day;