White Boy Dangerous: The Mythology That Surrounds White Male Violence by Sonia Soans

A few weeks ago I was at the cinema to watch the new Mad Max film with friends. It has been called the new feminist film and of course lots of men were upset with this emasculation of a pop culture icon. Before the film began there were several trailers of forthcoming films. What struck me about all the films was how almost all the trailers were about white men caught in violent situations and saving the world.
Different contexts but the premise remained the same, the introduction to the film is made though how perfect the world is until something goes wrong (either in the heroes life or in this perfect cinematic universe), this is when our hero is called upon for his expertise. What follows next are acts of violence passed off as character building endurance with background music that can only be described as epic. Almost all films followed this formula. Read more…