Black Masculinity and the Cinema of Policing - by Jared Sexton (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This book offers a critical survey of film and media representations of black masculinity in the early twenty-first-century United States, between President George W. Bush's 2001 announcement of the War on Terror and President Barack Obama's 2009 acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. It argues that images of black masculine authority have become increasingly important to the legitimization of contemporary policing and its leading role in the maintenance of an antiblack social order forged by racial slavery and segregation. It examines a constellation of film and television productions--from Antoine Fuqua's Training Day to John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side to Barry Jenkin's Moonlight--to illuminate the contradictory dynamics at work in attempts to reconcile the promotion of black male patriarchal empowerment and the preservation of gendered antiblackness within political and popular culture.

Review Quotes

"Sexton's book provides a fresh, renewed discussion on the cinematic representation of black masculinity in an antiblack society during the twenty-first century. Placed in the context of the historical subjugation of black communities, the work provides an expansive analysis of both the representations and cultural politics that define black masculinity in media." (Kameron J. Copeland, Men and Masculinities, Vol. 22 (4), 2019)

About the Author

Jared Sexton teaches African American Studies and Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA. He is author of Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism.