The Post-Crash Decade of American Cinema

Crisis defines the present cultural moment. From the environment, through migration, to democracy, a continuous state of emergency engulfs us – so much so that crisis appears to be one of the few things not in crisis. The Post-Crash Decade of American Cinema: Wall Street, the "Mancession" and the Political Construction of Crisis focuses on two instances of this overwhelming trend: the latest masculinity crisis and what helped trigger it – the 2008 global financial crash. Looking at selected American cinematic texts of culture from the subsequent ten years, depicting both the causes of the crash and its victims, the volume offers answers to the questions: how has (popular) culture, in particular literature and film, responded to the greatest economic upheaval since the Great Depression, and what conclusions can be drawn from this response?


Timely, interdisciplinary and in-depth, this analysis combines literary and cultural studies, as well as feminist criticism, gender studies and masculinities studies with research on the latest history of political economy to interrelate such diverse phenomena as capitalism, "Wall Street culture", the "Mancession" myth, Donald Trump, pornography, patriarchy, neoliberalism, precarity, postfeminism, the fourth wave of feminism, the #MeToo movement, 9/11, home, housing studies, positive psychology, and happiness studies. Ultimately, the book problematises the very concept of "crisis", elucidating it as a powerful political construct.


Topographies of (Post)Modernity: Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature in English> is a bilingual, English-Polish book series dedicated to publishing original research on 20th and 21st century literature in English. Monographs and collective volumes in the series address, but are not restricted to, the following research areas: literary genre studies, comparative literature, cultural poetics and transversality of ideas, as well as transnationalism of literature in English.

Acknowledgements

Introduction


PART ONE: Wall Street

CHAPTER ONE

The Super-CEO, the Financial Crash in Hollywood Cinema and the Preservation of Patriarchal Power in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

CHAPTER TWO

The Pornography of Corporate Capitalism: The Wolf of Wall Street

CHAPTER THREE

A Funeral, Fun and Games, and the First Gun in Margin Call, The Big Short and Money Monster


PART TWO: The “Mancession”

CHAPTER FOUR

The "Mancession" and Nostalgia for When "Men Knew Who They Were": Power Tools, More Guns and Moral Comfort in The Company Men and Hell or High Water

CHAPTER FIVE
Home in 99 Homes and The Florida Project: Women and Children Last


Conclusion

Filmography

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index