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http://dspace.mediu.edu.my:8181/xmlui/handle/1957/6353| Title: | Constructing heroic identities : masculinity and the western film |
| Authors: | Lewis, Jon Betjemann, Peter |
| Keywords: | Western Masculinity Film Gender |
| Issue Date: | 16-Oct-2013 |
| Description: | Graduation date: 2008 This thesis employs the study of gender to demonstrate how recent Hollywood western films have constructed a hero that is reflective of contemporary beliefs regarding masculinity. Beginning with a New Historicist approach at studying gender, this work first considers the construction of masculinity in post World War II America and traces the evolution of the western hero's masculinity from its iconic state in the 1950's through it trial during second wave feminism, its rebuilding during the Reagan years, and its refinement within recent Hollywood films. This thesis considers each period of western films as a representation and reflection of its current culture, and as a result ultimately argues that the western genre has recently endeavored to perpetuate the conservative cultural view that a marital union is the ideal in contemporary American society. In tracing the progression of masculinity in the western hero, through cultural and textual readings, this thesis concludes that today's paragon of the masculine western hero is more subject to domesticity and as such is more likely than its 1950s predecessors to accept marital living. |
| URI: | http://koha.mediu.edu.my:8181/xmlui/handle/1957/6353 |
| Other Identifiers: | http://hdl.handle.net/1957/6353 |
| Appears in Collections: | ScholarsArchive@OSU |
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