TY - BOOK AU - Wooden,Shannon R. AU - Gillam,Ken TI - Pixar's boy stories: masculinity in a postmodern age SN - 9781442233584 AV - PN1995.9.M34 W66 2014 U1 - 791.43/65211 23 PY - 2014///] CY - Lanham PB - Rowman & Littlefield KW - Pixar (Firm) KW - fast KW - Pixar Animation Studios KW - gnd KW - Masculinity in motion pictures KW - Men in motion pictures KW - Animated films KW - History and criticism KW - Animationsfilm KW - Junge KW - Motiv KW - Animerad film KW - sfit KW - sao KW - Manlighet i filmen KW - Criticism, interpretation, etc N1 - Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-149) and index; Introduction: a feminist approach to boy culture -- Postfeminist nostalgia for pre-sputnik cowboys -- Superior bodies and blue-collar brawn: "real" and rhetorical manhoods -- "I am speed": athleticism, competition, and the bully society -- "Hey, double prizes!" Pixar's boy villains' gifts and intensities -- Consumerist conformity and the ornamental masculine self -- "She don't love you no more": bad boys and worse parents N2 - Since Toy Story, its first feature in 1995, Pixar Animation Studios has produced a string of commercial and critical successes including Monsters, Inc.; WALL-E; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; and Up. In nearly all of these films, male characters are prominently featured, usually as protagonists. Despite obvious surface differences, these figures often follow similar narratives toward domestic fulfillment and civic engagement. However, these characters are also hypermasculine types whose paths lead to postmodern social roles more revelatory of the current "crisis" that sociologists and others have noted in boy culture. In Pixar's Boy Stories: Masculinity in a Postmodern Age, Shannon R. Wooden and Ken Gillam examine how boys become men and how men measure up in films produced by the animation giant. Offering counterintuitive readings of boy culture, this book describes how the films quietly but forcefully reiterate traditional masculine norms in terms of what they praise and what they condemn. Whether toys or ants, monsters or cars, Pixar's males succeed or fail according to the "boy code," the relentlessly policed gender standards rampant in American boyhood. Structured thematically around major issues in contemporary boy culture, the book discusses conformity, hypermasculinity, social hierarchies, disability, bullying, and an implicit critique of postmodern parenting. Unprecedented in its focus on Pixar and boys in its films, this book offers a valuable perspective to current conversations about gender and cinema. Providing a critical discourse about masculine roles in animated features, Pixar's Boy Stories will be of interest to scholars of film, media, and gender studies and to parents.--Back cover ER -