Black Masculinity and the Cinema of Policing

Description

This book offers a critical survey of film and media representations of black masculinity in the early twenty-first-century United States, between President George W. Bush’s 2001 announcement of the War on Terror and President Barack Obama’s 2009 acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. It argues that images of black masculine authority have become increasingly important to the legitimization of contemporary policing and its leading role in the maintenance of an antiblack social order forged by racial slavery and segregation. It examines a constellation of film and television productions—from Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day to John Lee Hancock’s The Blind Side to Barry Jenkin's Moonlight—to illuminate the contradictory dynamics at work in attempts to reconcile the promotion of black male patriarchal empowerment and the preservation of gendered antiblackness within political and popular culture. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvii Chaos and Opportunity: On Training Day (Jared Sexton)....Pages 1-35 History and Power: On Pride (Jared Sexton)....Pages 37-65 Fantasy and Desire: On Friday Night Lights and Coach Carter (Jared Sexton)....Pages 67-87 Origins and Beginnings: On The Blind Side (Jared Sexton)....Pages 89-120 Comedy and Romance: On Diff’rent Strokes and Webster (Jared Sexton)....Pages 121-160 Shadow and Myth: On Stranger Inside and Moonlight (Jared Sexton)....Pages 161-193 Back Matter ....Pages 195-199