You Tarzan

In "You Tarzan", the editors set out to broaden the enquiry into masculinity, taking popular cinema as their starting point. A number of male film scholars have been invited to turn the spotlight back on themselves; to name the "un-named" feelings raised by films, stars or genres as well as importing some of the insights of feminist writing on gender to an analysis of the construction and reading of masculinity in films. Studies range from the gridiron jocks of the Hollywood sports feature, to the elegant heroes in successive versions of "The Thirty-Nine Steps". Essays on horror and the question of male masochism and pleasure rub shoulders with others on masculinity in the films of the Vietnam war, and comedy, camp and gay men in this collection which puts forward new and more complex theories of male spectatorship. Pat Kirkham is the author of "Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the 20th Century". Janet Thumim is the author of "Celluloid Sisters: Women in Popular Cinema".