Pure Fatherhood and the Hollywood Family Film (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)

Acknowledgements
Contents
1 Introduction
	The Film Father
	Definitions and Situating the Analysis
	Outline of Chapters
	References
Part I Setting the Scene
2 Hollywood Family Films and the Father Protagonist
	The Emergence of the Father Protagonist
	The Nurturing Father
	Child Audiences and the Father Protagonist
	The Film Set
	The Disengaged Father Film
	Demographic Makeup of the Films
	References
3 Being a Good Father
	The Essential Father
	Father Time
	Father Involvement as Intimate Relationship
	The Possibility of a ‘Pure’ Father–Child Relationship
	Agentic Children and the Construction of Family
	Innocence and Redemption
	Conclusion
	References
4 Methodological Considerations
	Barnes on Agency
	Defining Voluntaristic Discourses
	The Agentic ‘Individual’ and Other Statuses
	Critical Discourse Analysis—Focusing on the Social
	Critical Discourse Analysis and Films
	References
Part II Changing Expectations of the Father
5 Choice
	The Father’s Failure Rendered as ‘Choice’ of Work
	Nurture and Choice in Father Films
	Essentialising the Father
	From Essentialised Tasks to Unique Relationship
	Choice in Mrs Doubtfire
	Conclusion
	References
6 Precarity and Risk
	Precarity within the Home
	Winners and Losers in the Workplace
	Risk and the Other Man
	The Masculinity Dilemma
	Conclusion
	References
7 Responsibility
	The Taxonomy of Responsibility
	The Responsible Mother
	The Independent Child
	Breadwinning, Responsibility and the Hollywood Father
	The Black Family—Deadbeat Dads and Insufficient Mothers
	References
8 Locating Blame
	Routes to Obligation
	Obligations Based on Being a Breadwinner
	Obligations Based on Commitments Given
	Obligation Based on Virtue
	Responsibility-as-Virtue and the Cowboy Father
	Responsibility for Securing the Father–Child Relationship
	Conclusion
	References
9 Voice
	The Pure Father—Learning to Listen and to Communicate Emotion
	The Voiced Child
	The Agentic Child—The Loss of Innocence and Unconditional Love
	Conclusion
	References
10 Conclusion
	The Father
	The Mother and Child
	Final Thoughts
	References
Appendix
Index