Trice and Holland, Heroes, Antiheroes, and Dolts

It’s virtue is a clear organization of masculine cinematic personae, though in many instances the virtue looks more like the vice of oversimplification (as later chapters more or less admit).  Nevertheless, it does offer an example of how we might analyze male actors and their personae in connection with  social and cultural definitions of American masculinity.

For our first three films, read Part I: In the Beginning, an attempt at defining a sort of baseline Hollywood masculinity (Gone With The Wind; Wizard of Oz[need to read it to get it]) and Part II: Heroes, a view of how World War II shifted definitions of masculinity.  Watch for some glaring revelations that the authors are not as up on film history as on psychological interpretations of American society.