Review: Murray Pomerance and Frances Gateward, eds: Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of Masculinity and Youth.

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the abstract: 

In Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of Masculinity and Youth (2005), Murray Pomerance and Frances Gateward have collected articles that make an important contribution to inquiries into cinematic depictions of boys in the twentieth century. The volume's lucidly written introduction begins with the editors' wondering what exactly is connoted by the word "boy" beyond the definition of "males who have not yet reached adulthood" (1). Noting that publications in the field of gender studies have more often (reasonably) focused on girls and women, Pomerance and Gateward write that

         a truly progressive agenda, which is implied in some way or made explicit in most studies of gender and cinema, surely requires attention to boys-not only in terms of the pathways by which they come into adult male agency, the transformations by which their vulnerabilities become empowerments, or the way gender role expectations restrict, reshape, and corrupt masculinities but also in terms of how boys' power affects girls. (1)