Dead Men Walking: An Analysis of Working-Class Masculinity in Post-2008 Hollywood Film
Abstract
Working-class masculinity has lost its steam. Since 2008, a sub-genre of Hollywood films has emerged that depicts the current crisis, and imminent demise, of working-class masculinity in the United States. The 2008 financial crisis has had devastating effects on the American economy, and particularly the working-class, whose precarious economic position has only been exacerbated under neoliberalism. These effects have become the thematic focus of a fringe genre of films, which show how the destabilization of the American economy has incited greater instability in gender relations, and has had an acute impact on working-class men. This thesis proceeds by analyzing how these films articulate the current crisis of working-class masculinity in America. Using the framework outlined by R.W. Connell, I explore how working-class masculinity has become marginalized in relation to neoliberal hegemonic masculinity, and how its marginalization has become an excitatory factor for inter-masculine violence, constituting a social problem.