Home Movies: The American Family in Contemporary HollywoodClaireJenkins. I. B. Tauris, 2015. Contemporary Masculinities in Fiction, Film, and Television BrianBaker. Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.

Abstract

Home Movies: The American Family in Contemporary Claire Jenkins. I. B. Tauris, 2015.Contemporary Masculinities in Fiction, Film, and Television Brian Baker. Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.Both books have been written by academics based in the United Kingdom and hence offer an outsider's view of gender relations in the United States over the last three decades or so.Claire Jenkins believes that the mainstream has been torn between traditional and liberal conceptions of the family. This is especially true of the father figure; in remakes such as Father of the Bride (1991), George Banks (Steve Martin) aspires to the role of the old fashioned patriarch by refusing to let his daughter (Kimberley Williams) have a life of her own. The film exhibits a nostalgia for the more settled world of the early fifties, when the original was released. Sometimes, the father insists on sustaining his machismo image despite failing health: in Little Fockers (2010) Jack Byrnes (Robert de Niro) makes every effort to conceal his heart trouble. Returning to the same role in Father of the Bride Part II (1995), Martin's Banks tries to keep up with prevailing trends, despite being a representative of a bygone age. He wants to become more liberal but cannot throw off his authoritarian upbringing.Mothers experience similar emotional and psychological conflicts, as James suggests that their representation in film has never really moved on from Meryl Streep's stressed-out wife in Kramer Versus Kramer (1979). Women are not easily given their freedom, despite the gains of second- and third-wave feminism (52); they can avoid the strains of parenthood but should remain attractive to men (for example, in The Devil Wears Prada [2006]). Even female superheroes experience mental problems (87).The overriding implication of Jenkins's research is that mainstream refuses to move with the times. African American families can enjoy upward mobility, but they should try their best to stay together to avoid being categorized as deviant. They have little or no lives of their own-either they should conform to prevailing (i.e., white-initiated) norms or they remain marginalized. There are occasional interventions that challenge the cinematic status quo (e.g., Daddy Day Care [2003], in which two unemployed African Americans open their own day care center), but the subject-matter is deliberately trivialized. Greater latitude is customarily given to (white) single parents and gay couples, especially those with the responsibility for child care. However, still inclines to make fun of alternative familial constructions by transforming characters into grotesques. This is the case with Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) where the newly divorced Daniel Hilliard (Robin Williams) disguises himself as a British nanny to gain access to his children.There are certain familial issues that consciously overlooks-adoption, teenage pregnancy, and young parenthood. Directors are much more at home with material relating to the nuclear family, even if, according to a 2013 survey, that unit only comprises sixty-six percent of American households,.Although Jenkins engages in thorough analysis of a variety of texts, at no point does she acknowledge the fact that mainstream cinema will generally embrace conservative worldviews; in a globalized market, this is the surest way to attract mass audiences, not just in the United States but elsewhere. On the other hand, as an industrial entity does not just encompass the mainstream but also the independent and/or televisual sectors, both of which offer more pluralistic constructions of the family and its future. Jenkins's book would have benefited from a wider methodological focus, showing how low budget films actively challenge familiar gender stereotypes. Sherry Ortner's article Against Hollywood (2012) would have been a good place to start. …