Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-15-2019 1:30 PM Dead Men Walking: An Analysis of Working-Class Masculinity in Post-2008 Hollywood Film Ryan Schroeder The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Tim Blackmore The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Media Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Ryan Schroeder 2019 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Other Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Schroeder, Ryan, "Dead Men Walking: An Analysis of Working-Class Masculinity in Post-2008 Hollywood Film" (2019). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6421. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6421 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract Working-class masculinity has lost its steam. Since 2008, a sub-genre of Hollywood films has emerged that depicts the current crisis, and imminent demise, of working-class masculinity in the United States. The 2008 financial crisis has had devastating effects on the American economy, and particularly the working-class, whose precarious economic position has only been exacerbated under neoliberalism. These effects have become the thematic focus of a fringe genre of films, which show how the destabilization of the American economy has incited greater instability in gender relations, and has had an acute impact on working-class men.