Hollywood Knights

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 1-9

3. Back to the Future: The Birth of Modern Medievalism in England and America

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 11-27

4. The Birth of Camelot: The Literary Origins of the Hollywood Arthuriana

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 29-54

5. The Knights of the Round Table: Camelot in Hollywood

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 55-77

6. “Once There Was a Spot”: Camelot and the Crisis of the 1960s

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 79-98

7. “Let’s Not Go to Camelot”: Deconstructing Myth

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 99-116

8. Old Myths Are New Again: Ronald Reagan, Indiana Jones, Knightriders, and the Pursuit of the Past

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 117-143

9. The Return of the King: Arthur and the Quest for True Manhood

   • Susan Aronstein

   Pages 145-165

10. Democratizing Camelot: Yankees in King Arthur’s Court

    • Susan Aronstein

    Pages 167-189

11. Revisiting the Round Table: Arthur’s American Dream

    • Susan Aronstein

    Pages 191-213

12. Back Matter

    Pages 215-264

    PDF

Hollywood Knights examines Hollywood Arthuriana as political nostalgia offered to American viewers during times of cultural crisis: the red scare of the 1950s, the breakdown of traditional authority in the 1960s and 1970s, the turn to the right in the 1980s and the redemption of masculine and national authority in the 1990s. Its analysis of these films explores their proposal of an ideal past - an Americanized Camelot and a democratized chivalry - as the solution to the problems of a troubled present, a solution that will ensure prosperity in the homeland and a globally beneficial American authority abroad.

• cinema
• film
• Hollywood
• Tradition

Susan Aronstein is Professor of English at the University of Wyoming, USA.

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