Breaking in to the Movies
Film and the Culture of Politics
1. Edition November 2001
308 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN:
978-0-631-22604-8
John Wiley & Sons
Assessing film's unheralded--and unbridled--power as a "teaching machine," Breaking in to the Movies showcases Giroux's best-known film essays that address the profoundly pedagogical role film has come to play in contemporary culture.
Acknowledgements.
Breaking in to the Movies: An Introduction.
Part I: Reclaiming the Political in Popular Culture.
1. Norma Rae: Character, Class, and Culture.
2. Hollywood Film and the Challenge of Neofascist Culture.
3. Lina Wertmuller: Film and the Dialectic of Liberalism.
4. Looking for Mr. Goodbar: Gender and the Politics of
Pleasure.
Part II: Hollywood Film and the War on Youth.
5. Slacking Off : Border Youth and Postmodern Education.
6. Culture, Class, and Pedagody in Dead Poets
Society.
7. Children's Culture and Disney's Animated Films.
8. The Politics of Pedagogy, Gender, and Whiteness in
Dangerous Minds.
9. Media Panics and the War Against "Kids": Larry Clark
and the Politics of Diminished Hopes.
Part III: Race and the Culture of Violence in Hollywood
Films.
10. Racism and the Aesthetic of Hyper-real Violoence: Pulp
Fiction and other Visual Tragedies.
11. Multiculturalism and the Cultural Politics of Race in
187.
12. Brutalized Bodies and Emasculated Politics: Fight
Club, Consumerism, and Masculine Violence.
Index.
Breaking in to the Movies: An Introduction.
Part I: Reclaiming the Political in Popular Culture.
1. Norma Rae: Character, Class, and Culture.
2. Hollywood Film and the Challenge of Neofascist Culture.
3. Lina Wertmuller: Film and the Dialectic of Liberalism.
4. Looking for Mr. Goodbar: Gender and the Politics of
Pleasure.
Part II: Hollywood Film and the War on Youth.
5. Slacking Off : Border Youth and Postmodern Education.
6. Culture, Class, and Pedagody in Dead Poets
Society.
7. Children's Culture and Disney's Animated Films.
8. The Politics of Pedagogy, Gender, and Whiteness in
Dangerous Minds.
9. Media Panics and the War Against "Kids": Larry Clark
and the Politics of Diminished Hopes.
Part III: Race and the Culture of Violence in Hollywood
Films.
10. Racism and the Aesthetic of Hyper-real Violoence: Pulp
Fiction and other Visual Tragedies.
11. Multiculturalism and the Cultural Politics of Race in
187.
12. Brutalized Bodies and Emasculated Politics: Fight
Club, Consumerism, and Masculine Violence.
Index.
"In this collection of essays, Henry Giroux demonstrates once again
that he is one of our leading public political intellectuals. Every
page is filled with the passion of his commitment both to social
and economic justice and to theoretical rigor. This collection
combines insightful readings of how specific films operate in the
current social context and original reflections on the central
theoretical and methodological issues facing cultural studies
today. This is a book that will move both students and
teachers."
--Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
"Henry Giroux is one of our most penetrating cultural critics.
In Breaking in to the Movies, he demonstrates how pleasure
and power, entertainment and public pedagogy, are always
intertwined in the culture of global capitalism. Giroux offers a
refreshing approach in a field often characterized by a paucity of
intellectual imagination. This is real cultural
criticism."
--Sut Jhally, University of Massachusetts
that he is one of our leading public political intellectuals. Every
page is filled with the passion of his commitment both to social
and economic justice and to theoretical rigor. This collection
combines insightful readings of how specific films operate in the
current social context and original reflections on the central
theoretical and methodological issues facing cultural studies
today. This is a book that will move both students and
teachers."
--Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill
"Henry Giroux is one of our most penetrating cultural critics.
In Breaking in to the Movies, he demonstrates how pleasure
and power, entertainment and public pedagogy, are always
intertwined in the culture of global capitalism. Giroux offers a
refreshing approach in a field often characterized by a paucity of
intellectual imagination. This is real cultural
criticism."
--Sut Jhally, University of Massachusetts
Henry A. Giroux holds the Waterbury Chair Professorship and is currently the Director of the Waterbury Forum in Education and Cultural Studies at Pennsylvania State University. His most recent books include Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture's War on Children (2001); Impure Acts: The Practical Politics of Cultural Studies (2000); The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence (1999); and Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope (1997).
