Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the Hollywood films from the perspective of a particular historical moment and specific ideological conflicts that it produced for women and men. It addresses the incorporation into 1980s movies of ongoing, lived struggles over masculinity and femininity. The book explores the demonization of independent women in movies to the authoritarian political culture of the Reagan era. Linda Williams suggests, absence of direct reference to the war makes possible a stronger expression of the exhilarating aspects of women’s new power than would have been acceptable to the dominant ideology of national unity in everyday life. Fundamental to the conservative critique of affirmative action is the idea that rising by any means other than individual effort is a feminine mode of success, which is practiced, accordingly, by women and minorities but repudiated by real men.