Reading the bromance: homosocial relationships in film and television

Abstract

In the middle of this century's first decade, emerged as a term denoting an emotionally intense bond between men. Yet bromance requires an expression of intimacy that always toys with being coded as something other than straight behavior, even as it insists that such intimacy must never be misinterpreted. In Reading the Bromance: Homosocial Relationships in Film Television, editor Michael DeAngelis has compiled a diverse group of essays that address the rise of this tricky phenomenon explore the social cultural functions it serves. Contributors consider selected contemporary film television texts, as well as the genres that historically inspired them, in order explore what needs bromance attempts fulfill in relationships between men-straight or otherwise. Essays analyze films ranging from Love You, Man Superbad, Humpday, I Now Pronounce You Chuck Larry, The Hangover, the Jackass films, include studies of representative examples in international cinema such as Y tu mama tambien and classic contemporary films of the Bollywood genre. The volume also examines the increasingly prevalent appearance of the bromance phenomenon in television narratives, from the male bonding rituals of Friends Seinfeld to more recent manifestations in House, The Wire, the MTV reality series From historical analysis discourse analysis, sociological analysis, queer theory, this volume provides a broad range of methodological theoretical approaches the phenomenon in the first booklength study of the bromance genre. Film television scholars as well as readers interested in pop culture queer studies will enjoy the insights of Reading the Bromance.