Go home young man: The domestication of the American hero in post -Reagan novels and films

This study documents a shift in the popular and literary tradition of the American Hero, examining a wide range of novels and films over the past two decades where the primary values are less duty and victory than the more domestic values of community, family, love and commitment. This project follows a diachronic study of myth, following changes in the construction of the literary American Hero, focusing on the evolutionary development of this variant, the Domestic Action Hero. Hollywood blockbusters are examined as an extention of the American literary tradition, in relationship with selected, contemporary novels that show how American authors like Toni Morrison, E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo and Joan Didion have revised, or reaffirmed, previous literary constructions of American masculinity and triumphalism.;Beginning with an examination of the insecurities exhibited by post-World War II American men and their fictional counterparts, subsequent chapters explore specific genres and narratives since 1985 that supported the development of the Domestic Hero: transgendered science fiction and transvestite comedies; the Western; the action film; and action narratives featuring female and minority protagonists.;By examining a wide range of popular texts across genre and medium over time, these novels and films create a complex portrait of the Domestic Action hero and his accompanying narratives that are not reducible to a simple set of attitudes toward home, community, duty, women or race. While the idealized 1950s family model was about blending in with the community, the Domestic Action Hero courageously separates himself from society to choose genuine happiness and feeling, choosing a multicultural community that is dynamic rather than conforming. These constructions simultaneously model a higher level of mental health and promote ideologies of an economy and government structure that are less paternalistic, so that the ultimate value of these shifts to actual American citizens is debatable. If these narratives continues to evolve in the same direction, they should become even more inclusive and complicated in their gender constructions: instead of Love and Death, the American Novel and Hollywood may now celebrate Love and Life.