Logan (2017) and the lost object of masculinity, or the trouble with Shane

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Mitchell, Jon (2023) Logan (2017) and the lost object of masculinity, or the trouble with Shane. European Journal of American Culture, 42 (2-3). pp. 167-179. ISSN 1466-0407

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Abstract

James Mangold’s 2017 film, Logan, offers up a future world in which the X-Men are no more. All that remains are a few old and ravaged mutants, including Logan and Xavier whose worsening dementia is having a catastrophic impact on his psychic abilities that is becoming increasingly dangerous for others. Both of these former X-Men become roped into assisting a group of synthetic mutant children as they run from those who attempt to subdue and destroy them. Principal among these children is X-23, Laura, who has been created from Logan’s DNA. By staging this potential daughter along with a suggested queerness of the other mutant children the film seemingly offers up a critique of patriarchal ideologies often at the heart of the superhero genre. However, this article is concerned with the way the film intertextually references the 1953 Western film Shane, which creates an ambivalence in Logan’s meaning. The presence of Shane, the article argues, disturbs the surface gender critical storyline offering up instead the sense of a redemptive heroic masculinity that wrangles patriarchal ideology in through the backdoor.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: logan,shane, heroic),nostalgia,paternalism,sentimentality,cultural studies,history,anthropology ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3316
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Area Studies
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > American Studies
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 09 Dec 2023 01:38
Last Modified: 13 Dec 2023 01:59
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/93917
DOI: 10.1386/ejac_00103_1

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