The Astronaut: Cultural Mythology and Idealised Masculinity

The Astronaut: Cultural Mythology and Idealised Masculinity interrogates the historical and cultural dynamics of one of the most revered icons of the 20th century. Analysing a diverse range of cultural representations the book postulates the construction of an intertextual mythology through which the astronaut becomes an embodiment of American ideological values and heroic manhood. The discursive processes at work in the range of media texts examined serve to embed the astronaut into the cultural imaginary as a largely coherent and uncontested exemplar of idealised masculinity. Using a range of interdisciplinary analytical tools the book examines how the social construction of this masculine ideal iterates and naturalises gender hegemony. The book situates the astronaut within the context of a modern/postmodern theoretical framework linking shifts in gender perspectives to the contradictory narratives and characterisations that inform the mediation of the astronaut. In so doing, the book argues for a re-evaluation of the, often oversimplified, use of the term hegemonic masculinity as an anchoring point for the critique of masculinity. The strength of this work is its interdisciplinary diversity and its interconnection of a range of themes including gender, representation, history, ideology, the postmodern and the media. Drawing upon contemporary theoretical debates while redeploying seminal theoretical texts the book offers new cultural interrogations of a highly familiar historical subject.