the damaged male and the contemporary american war film

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
The Contemporary Hollywood War Film. 5
The Damaged Male. 10
The Aesthetics of Contemporary War Films. 19
Masochistic Spectatorship and Contemporary War Films. 34
Chapter Outline. 45
CHAPTER ONE: DEAD WHITE GUYS; MASOCHISTIC
AESTHETICS IN CONTEMPORARY WAR FILMS 51
Jacob’s Ladder: The Primacy of Aestheticised US White Male
Victimhood and the Imperilment of the US Homeland. 53
The Jacket: “Passive” Spectatorship and the Visual Pleasures of Trauma. 59
Masochistic Fantasies, the Submissive Male Body as Spectacle, and the
Masking of US Imperialism. 62
Masochistic Narrative: Film Endings, US Imperialism as Paternity, and
the Triumph of Patriarchy. 71
The “New Man”, the Enchantment of Masochistic Aesthetics, and the
Empathic Entanglements of White Male Victimhood. 77
Conclusions: Radical Pleasures, Conformist Powers; the Uses of
Masochism in Contemporary War Films. 83
CHAPTER TWO: BLANKNESS AND BLACKNESS: RACE AND
TRAUMA IN HOLLYWOOD’S GULF WAR. 92
Whiteness and the Primacy of US White Male Victimhood. 93
Gulf war Films, “Blackpain” and the Damaged Male. 101
Courage Under Fire: The Silencing of Black Trauma. 109
“Innocence” and Imperialism: White Death and the Casting Out of
Colonial Pain. 114