1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910793026603321

Autore

Joyce Justin A.

Titolo

Gunslinging justice : the American culture of gun violence in Westerns and the law / / Justin A. Joyce

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester, UK : , : Manchester University Press, , 2018

©2018

ISBN

1-5261-4798-X

1-5261-3874-3

1-5261-2617-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 248 pages) : illustrations; digital file(s)

Collana

Manchester scholarship online

Disciplina

363.330973

Soggetti

Gun control - United States

Firearms - Law and legislation - United States

Self-defense (Law) - United States

Firearms in motion pictures

Firearms in popular culture - United States

Western films - History and criticism

Westerns

PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Genres / Westerns

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-241) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : the warp, woof, and weave of American gun violence -- 'A kind of wild justice' : revenge and constitutional commentary in the Western -- No retreat : American self-defense doctrine -- American gun rights : from national defense to self-defense -- The guns that 'won the Western' : firearm iconography in Western iconography in Western literature and film -- Guns and governmentality : normative masculinity and disciplined gun violence -- 'Deserve's got [everything] to do with it' : property, process, and justice in Unforgiven -- Old dogs and new tricks : race and justifiable homicide in neoliberalism's Western imagination.

Sommario/riassunto

This book is a cultural history of the interplay between the Western



genre and American gun rights and legal paradigms. From muskets in the hands of landed gentry opposing tyrannical government to hidden pistols kept to ward off potential attackers, the historical development of entwined legal and cultural discourses has sanctified the use of gun violence by private citizens and specified the conditions under which such violence may be legally justified. Gunslinging justice explores how the Western genre has imagined new justifications for gun violence which American law seems ever-eager to adopt.