Policing The World On Screen: American Mythologies And Hollywood's Rogue Crimefighters
by Marilyn Yaquinto /
2019 / English / PDF
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This book analyzes Hollywood storytelling that features an American crimefighterwhether cop, detective, or agentwho must safeguard society and the nation by any means necessary. That often means going rogue and breaking the rules, even deploying ugly violence, but excused as self-defense or to serve the greater good. This ends-justifies-means approach dates back to gunfighters taming the western frontier to urban cowboy cops battling urban savageryfirst personified by Dirty Harry Callahanand later dispatched in global interventions to vanquish threats to national security. America as the worlds policeman often means controlling the Other at home and abroad, which also extends American hegemony from the Cold War through the War on Terror. This book also examines pioneering portrayals by males of color and female crimefighters to embody such a social or national defender, which are frustrated by their existence as threats the white knight exists to defeat.
