Description: This compelling, theoretically informed and up-to-date exploration of contemporary American cinema charts the evolution of the impact of 9/11 on Hollywood film from Black Hawk Down (2001), through Batman Begins (2005), United 93 (2006) to Olympus Has Fallen (2013). Through a vibrant analysis of a range of genres and films - which in turn reveal a strikingly diverse array of social, historical and political perspectives - this book explores the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on American cinema in the first decade of the new millennium and beyond.
Brief description: Terence McSweeney is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media Arts and Technology, Southampton Solent University.
Review Quotes: McSweeney convincingly shows how the action genre has incorporated the discourse of the war on terror into its narratives, by including post-9/11 debates on masculinity, the legitimacy of revenge as well as the role of the US in international affairs...the arguments and conclusions are convincing and at times surprising, resulting in a fresh take on several films and their relation to 9/11...an engaging and critically lucid monograph'--Thomas Ærvold Bjerre "American Studies in Scandanavia"