Pixar's boy stories: masculinity in a postmodern age

Description

Since Toy Story, its first feature in 1995, Pixar Animation Studios has produced a string of commercial and critical successes including Monsters, Inc.; WALL-E; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; and Up. In nearly all of these films, male characters are prominently featured, usually as protagonists. Despite obvious surface differences, these figures often follow similar narratives toward domestic fulfillment and civic engagement. However, these characters are also hypermasculine types whose paths lead to postmodern social roles more revelatory of the current "crisis" that sociologists and others have noted in boy culture. In Pixar's Boy Stories: Masculinity in a Postmodern Age, Shannon R. Wooden and Ken Gillam examine how boys become men and how men measure up in films produced by the animation giant. Offering counterintuitive readings of boy culture, this book describes how the films quietly but forcefully reiterate traditional masculine norms in terms of what they praise... Introduction: A Feminist Approach to Boy CultureChapter 1: Postfeminist Nostalgia for Pre-Sputnik Cowboys Chapter 2: Superior Bodies and Blue-Collar Brawn: "Real" and Rhetorical Manhoods Chapter 3: "I am Speed": Athleticism, Competition, and the Bully SocietyChapter 4: "Hey, double prizes!" Pixar's Boy Villains' Gifts and Intensities Chapter 5: Ornamental Masculinity and the Commodity-SelfChapter 6: "She don't love you no more": Bad Boys and Worse ParentsWorks CitedAbout the AuthorsIndex