Walls Without Cinema: State Security and Subjective Embodiment in Twenty-First-Century US Filmmaking

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Description

This volume closely examines the near-ubiquitous images of state security walls, domes, and other such defense enclosures flashing across movie screens since 2006, the year of the ratification of George W. Bushs Secure Fence Act. This study shows that many of the films of this era enable us to imaginatively test the effects of these security mechanisms on citizens, immigrants, refugees, and other sovereign states, challenging our commitment to constructing them, maintaining them, staffing them, and subsidizing their enormous overheads. With case studies ranging from Atomic Blonde and Ready Player One to Black Panther and Elysium; Walls without Cinema serves as a timely counterpoint to the xenophobic rhetoric and abusive, carceral security conditions that characterize the Trump administrations management of the Mexico-U.S. border situation.

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Larrie Dudenhoeffers Walls Without Cinema gives an admirably lucid account of how 21st century Hollywood cinema has responded to our current political atmosphere of security panics and xenophobic terrors. At a time when politicians stigmatize immigrants and urge us to build walls, this book offers us cinematic counter-visions of breaking down walls and creating communities across borders. * Steven Shaviro, De Roy Professor of English, Wayne State University, USA *

Author Bio

Larrie Dudenhoeffer is Professor of English at Kennesaw State University, USA, specializing in film studies, critical theory, and American studies. He is the author of Embodiment and Horror Cinema (2014) and Anatomy of the Superhero Film (2017).