This book examines a spate of American films released around the turn of the millennium that differently address the actuality or possibility of domestic fascism within the USA. The films discussed span a diversity of forms, genres and production practices, and encompass low- and medium-budget studio and independent releases (such as
American History X,
Stir of Echoes and
The Believer), star and/or
auteur vehicles (such as
The Siege,
Fight Club and
American Beauty), and high-budget, high-concept science-fiction films and franchises (such as
Starship Troopers,
Minority Report, the
Matrix and
X-Men trilogies and the
Star Wars prequels). Central to the book is the detailed analysis of the films, which is contextualized historically in relation to a period that saw the significant rise of the far Right. The book concordantly affords a wider insight into fascism and its various manifestations and how such have been, and continue to be, registered within American cinema.
1. Introduction: Fascism, and American Cinema.
2. Skinheads, Racism, (Neo-)Nazism and the Family.
3. Patriots and Militias, Fascism and the State.
4. A (Fascist) New World Order/A (Fascistically Contested) New World Order.
5. The ?bermensch, its Avatars and the Ordinary.
6. Conclusion: The World Turns.
Leighton Grist is Reader in Media and Film Studies at the University of Winchester, UK. He has published extensively on film, including work on classical and post-classical Hollywood cinema, film theory and genre. He is the author of
The Films of Martin ScorslC&