Heroism and Gender in War Films

Brian E. Crim, Lynchburg College, USAJanis L. Goldie, Huntington University, Canada Tara Karajica, University of Barcelona, SpainJinhua Li, University of North Carolina Ashville, USATiel Lundy, University of Colorado, Boulder, USARochelle Sara Miller, New York University, USALesley C. Pleasant, University of Evansville, USAJanet S. Robinson, Philipps University in Marburg, GermanyClémentine Tholas-Disset, Paris Est Créteil University, FranceJessica Wells, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USADebra White-Stanley, Keene State College, USA Hye Seung Chung, Colorado State University, USA Charles-Antoine Courcoux, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Anna Froula, East Carolina University, USA

"A timely collection of essays, bringing together a cluster of historical and contemporary chartings of unmapped territory in the interface between cinema and representations of war." - Elisabeth Bronfen, author of Specters of War: Hollywood's Engagment with Military Conflict "The best scholarship in the humanities is not that which answers questions but that which teaches us to ask ones we never thought of before. Heroism and Gender in War Films accomplishes this task of opening the mind by being not just another book about a well-studied genre of popular culture. The topics and authors are eclectic - from 'Mary Pickford's WWI Patriotism' to 'A People's Humor as an Aesthetic Stratagem in Golpe de Estadio (1998)' to 'Myth and Spectacle in The Hunger Games' - and what they have in common is originality, liveliness, and the choice of fascinating case studies. It's the kind of book that I think undergraduates in a gender studies class, film scholars and yes, the educated layperson wanting to learn new ways to look at movies will enjoy equally. Read Heroism and Gender in War Films and you will discover lost classics of film you may have never heard of and greatly expand your toolkit to study them as well as the latest Hollywood blockbuster." - David D. Perlmutter, Texas Tech University, USA and author of Visions of War and Photojournalism and Foreign Policy "Assumptions concerning gender roles, behaviors and expectations are so deeply imbued in representations of war that one can view the entire genre of war films as an obstinately gendered form of expression. Yet the gender portrayals and cinematic perspectives of war-related films have shifted in significant ways, across different cultures of filmmaking and within Hollywood dominated popular culture. In fact, looking through the lens of gender calls into question the very parameters of the war film as a genre. This collection of critical essays opens up a wide-ranging discussion of the role of gender in representations of war and heroism, reorienting our consideration of these issues from a variety of cultural and historical perspectives." - Michael Griffin, Department of Media and Cultural Studies, Macalester College, USA and author of "Media Images of War", Media, War, and Conflict

• Preface; Anna Froula Introduction; Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Jakub Kazecki PART I: HISTORICAL LEADERS AND CELEBRITIES: THEIR ROLE IN MYTHMAKING IN THE CINEMA 1. Mary Pickford's WWI Patriotism: A Feminine Approach to Wartime Mythical Americanness; Clémentine Tholas-Disset 2. The Reluctant Hero: Negotiating War Memory with Modern-Day Myths in Passchendaele (2008); Janis L. Goldie 3. A Hero or a Villain, a Terrorist or a Liberator? The Filmic Representations of Gavrilo Princip since the Late 1960s; Tara Karajica PART II: HOLLYWOOD'S WAR MYTHS IN THE 1940S AND 1950S 4. No Women! Only Brothers: Propaganda, Studio Politics, and The Fighting 69th (1940); Rochelle Sara Miller 5. The Postwar Anxiety of the American Pin-up: William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946); Lesley C. Pleasant PART III: IDEOLOGIES, NATIONALITY, AND WAR MEMORY 6. Germany's Heroic Victims: The Cinematic Redemption of the Wehrmacht Soldier on the Eastern Fronter; Brian E. Crim 7. Balls and Bullets: A People's Humor as an Aesthetic Stratagem in Golpe de Estadio (1998); Claudia Aburto Guzmán 8. From Saviors to Rapists: G.I.s, Women, and Children in Korean War Films; Hye Seung Chung PART IV: MEN, WOMEN, AND TRAUMA: HEROES AND ANTI-HEROES 9. "I Don't Know How She Lives with this Kitchen the Way It Is:" Military Heroism, Gender, and Race in Brothers (2004 and 2009); Debra White-Stanley 10. The Gendered Geometry of War in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2008); Janet S. Robinson 11. Rebel Tributes and Tyrannical Regimes: Myth and Spectacle in The Hunger Games (2010); Jessica Wells 12. Mulan (1998) and Hua Mulan (2009): National Myth and Trans-Cultural Intertextuality; Jinhua Li PART V: HISTORICAL REALITY, AUTHENTICITY OF EXPERIENCE, AND CINEMATIC REPRESENTATION 13. 'What Shall the History Books Read?' Quentin Tarantino's Basterdized Histories and Corporeal Inscriptions; Tiel Lundy 14. There's Something About Maya: On Being/Becoming a Heroine andthe 'War on Terror'; Charles-Antoine Courcoux