"An important and original book with dazzling insights . . . it
challenges some widely held views of both the political and
cinematic components of contemporary America, and it should
certainly evoke a goodly share of indignation as well as
admiration."--H. Bruce Franklin, author of MIA or Mythmaking in
America "Hard Bodies is a real page-turner in which Susan Jeffords
reveals how in the 1980s Ronald Reagan, Rambo, and Robocop came
together at our own fitness clubs in a way that transformed crucial
numbers of movie-going, Nautilus-devoted American white men into
anti-Communist presidential voters. This serious book is sure to
change how we make sense of Hollywood's gendered maintenance of the
Cold War."--Cynthia Enloe, author of The Morning After: Sexual
Politics at the End of the Cold War Hard Bodies looks at some of
the most popular films of the Reagan era and examines how the
characters, themes, and stories presented in them often helped to
reinforce and disseminate the policies, programs, and beliefs of
the "Reagan Revolution." In particular, because Ronald Reagan was
himself most often portrayed in terms that emphasized his strength,
toughness, and assertiveness, one of the key images of the Reagan
era was that of masculinity itself. But the Reagan era also
promoted a concept of the nation as gendered, strong, tough, and
assertive, like the President who seemed to epitomize the United
States in its confrontation with the "evil" Soviet empire, the
Sandinista government, or the drug-trading cartels.
Action-adventure films of the 1980s accentuated these qualities,
not only as foreign policy methods but also as domestic agendas,
putting forward the American "hard body" as the solution to the
nation's foreign and domestic failings. Through her illuminating
and detailed analyses of both the Reagan presidency and many
blockbuster movies, Susan Jeffords provides a scenario within which
the successes of the New Right and the Reagan presidency can begin
to be understood. Rambo, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Robocop, Back to
the Future, Star Wars, the Indiana Jones series, Mississippi
Burning, Rain Man, Batman, and Unforgiven are among the films she
discusses. Susan Jeffords is a professor of English and director of
Women's Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author
of The Remasculization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War, and
co-editor of Seeing Through the Media: The Persian Gulf War
(Rutgers University Press).
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