Straight: Constructions of Heterosexuality in the Cinema
Wheeler Winston Dixon - Author
SUNY series, Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video,
$65.50 Hardcover
224 pages
Release Date: 2/7/2003
ISBN: 0-7914-5623-4
$21.95 Paperback
Release Date: 1/24/2003
ISBN: 0-7914-5624-2
straight / 'strat (adj.) . . . without curves . . . correct . . .
honest . . . not deviating from the normal . . . conventional .
. . heterosexual
Practically all mainstream cinema is "straight," and has been
since its inception. In Straight, Wheeler Winston Dixon
explores how heterosexual performativity has been
constructed in film, from early cinema to the present day. In
addition to discussing how cinematic visions of masculine
and feminine desire have been commodified and sold to
reinforce existing societal constructs, Dixon also documents
the recent emergence of "hypermasculinity," a kinetic and
exaggerated masculinity that has been created to counter
the more gentle, thoughtful male portrayed in While You
Were Sleeping, Sleepless in Seattle, and other films that
seemingly threaten the established order of patriarchal
cinematic discourse.
"Dixon moves far beyond mere summary, synthesizing a
number of disparate approaches to gender, sexual
orientation, and heteronormativity, and at the same time
particularizing the argument by grounding it in the details of
his vast knowledge of Hollywood, international, and
alternative cinemas. This detailed engagement makes
Straight a breath of fresh air, even for those readers who
may already be familiar with the terms of its overall
argument. The book's style is vigorous and lively, and this
makes it not just interesting, but positively enthralling and
invigorating to read." - Steven Shaviro, author of The
Cinematic Body
"What is particularly attractive to me is that Wheeler
Winston Dixon knows about people and moments that don't
show up in the typical cinematic historical record. Straight is
a very strongly written book." - Murray Pomerance, editor
of Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls: Gender in Film at
the End of the Twentieth Century
Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Endowed
Professor of Film Studies, coeditor in chief of Quarterly
Review of Film and Video, and chairperson of the Film Studies
Program at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. His many
books include The Second Century of Cinema: The Past and
Future of the Moving Image; The Films of Jean-Luc Godard;
and The Transparency of Spectacle: Meditations on the Moving
Image, all published by SUNY Press; and Collected
Interviews: Voices from Twentieth-Century Cinema.