Black Masculinity and the Cinema of Policing [Paperback]

This book offers a critical survey of film and media representations of black masculinity in the early twenty-first-century United States, between President George W. Bushs 2001 announcement of the War on Terror and President Barack Obamas 2009 acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. It argues that images of black masculine authority have become increasingly important to the legitimization of contemporary policing and its leading role in the maintenance of an antiblack social order forged by racial slavery and segregation. It examines a constellation of film and television productionsfrom Antoine Fuquas Training Day to John Lee Hancocks The Blind Side?to Barry Jenkin's Moonlightto illuminate the contradictory dynamics at work in attempts to reconcile the promotion of black male patriarchal empowerment and the preservation of gendered antiblackness within political and popular culture.

Preface: The Perfect Slave

Chapter 1. Chaos and Opportunity: On Training Day

Chapter 2. History and Power: On Pride

Chapter 3. Fantasy and Desire: On Friday Night Lights and Coach Carter

Chapter 4. Origins and Beginnings: On The Blind Side

Chapter 5. Comedy and Romance: On Diffrent Strokes and Webster

Chapter 6. Shadow and Myth: On Stranger Inside and Moonlight

Jared Sexton teaches African American Studies and Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA. He is author of Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism.

Examines contemporary film and television representations of black men and boyslcÀ