Hollywood Knights - (Arthurian and Courtly Cultures) Annotated by S Aronstein (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Hollywood Knights" clarifies the role played by Arthurian film in America's appropriation of an idealized medieval past to shore up national and cultural authority in times of crisis.

Book Synopsis

Hollywood Knights examines Hollywood Arthuriana as political nostalgia offered to American viewers during times of cultural crisis: the red scare of the 1950s, the breakdown of traditional authority in the 1960s and 1970s, the turn to the right in the 1980s and the redemption of masculine and national authority in the 1990s. Its analysis of these films explores their proposal of an ideal past - an Americanized Camelot and a democratized chivalry - as the solution to the problems of a troubled present, a solution that will ensure prosperity in the homeland and a globally beneficial American authority abroad.

About the Author

Susan Aronstein is Professor of English at the University of Wyoming, USA.