摘要：In this discussion, I would like to consider recent American films of the Reagan-Bush period which take imperialism as their narrative material - that is, America's place in the global system, its relations with diverse peoples and political forces, the kind of America and the kind of world which are at stake. I will query to what extent the New World Order, the latest moment in imperialism's grisly proclamations of global hegemony, is pictured, prepared or contested in certain popular films of our time. Readers will see that this is an updating of analysis of what has been called Reaganite cinema from the 70s and 80s. Left critics have argued that Hollywood over the last twenty years had responded to social and political conflict and change with particular intensity. By integrating and aestheticising some of the politics of the movements of the 60s and 70s - civil rights, anti-war, counter-culture, feminism - films challenged much of the iconography and generic myths of old Hollywood and retained youthful audiences alienated by popular anger over Vietnam, Watergate, racism, etc. But Hollywood has enthusiastically joined the Reagan 'counterrevolution'. Not only with the children's serials dressed up as blockbusters, like Star Wars, Rocky, Superman, Indiana Jones, or ET, which amused and reassured, but memorably with the string of war thrillers - Rambo, Missing in Action, Top Gun - which specifically relayed strategic and tactical Reaganite themes of anti-communism, 'freedom-fighting', vengeance and military masculinity. The films of the later 80s and early 90s both continue these trajectories and revamp them. How has Hollywood responded to the waning of the Second Cold War and then the collapse of the Communist adversaries, ultimate Reaganite wish fulfillment? To the continued conflict and turmoil throughout the third world? To continued economic crisis and social decay at home? To the waning of Reaganism itself?
其他摘要：In this discussion, I would like to consider recent American films of the Reagan-Bush period which take imperialism as their narrative material - that is, America's place in the global system, its relations with diverse peoples and political forces, the kind of America and the kind of world which are at stake. I will query to what extent the New World Order, the latest moment in imperialism's grisly proclamations of global hegemony, is pictured, prepared or contested in certain popular films of our time. Readers will see that this is an updating of analysis of what has been called Reaganite cinema from the 70s and 80s. Left critics have argued that Hollywood over the last twenty years had responded to social and political conflict and change with particular intensity. By integrating and aestheticising some of the politics of the movements of the 60s and 70s - civil rights, anti-war, counter-culture, feminism - films challenged much of the iconography and generic myths of old Hollywood and retained youthful audiences alienated by popular anger over Vietnam, Watergate, racism, etc. But Hollywood has enthusiastically joined the Reagan 'counterrevolution'. Not only with the children's serials dressed up as blockbusters, like Star Wars, Rocky, Superman, Indiana Jones, or ET, which amused and reassured, but memorably with the string of war thrillers - Rambo, Missing in Action, Top Gun - which specifically relayed strategic and tactical Reaganite themes of anti-communism, 'freedom-fighting', vengeance and military masculinity. The films of the later 80s and early 90s both continue these trajectories and revamp them. How has Hollywood responded to the waning of the Second Cold War and then the collapse of the Communist adversaries, ultimate Reaganite wish fulfillment? To the continued conflict and turmoil throughout the third world? To continued economic crisis and social decay at home? To the waning of Reaganism itself?
