Discussing such topics as white male guilt and the rage of the oppressed and examining such films as "Lethal Weapon", "Die Hard", and "Silence of the Lambs", this book notes the socially-charged roles given to American culture's fictional police heroes.

CONTENTS Preface 1 Losing Ground at the Movies 2 Out in the Cold 3 Back Home Again 4 White Male Guilt 5 Rage of the Oppressed 6 The Criminal Class 7 Sodomy and Guts Conclusion: Good Guys? Appendix: Using Movies Notes Index

"The cop-at least in cinematic fantasy-is America's last action hero, the last 'real man' in a world of emasculated wimps. In this discerningly analytic, yet erudite and even occasionally impish study, Neal King shows that such fantasies ignore the reality of real police work while offering a subterraneanhomoerotic thrill for both the character and his (male) viewer. A significant work that straddles the boundaries of cultural studies and sociology." -Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America "Neal King loves a good cop-action flick, and in Heroes in Hard Times: Cop Action Movies in the U.S., it shows. His obvious enthusiasm as a fan-"Whoa, good crash!"-lends an intensity to his scholarship. And like-minded readers will delight in snippets of hard-boiled dialogue from Die Hard, Sudden Impact, and many other films. But for all its pleasures of fandom, the book has a deeper purpose. The universe of cop-action films, Mr. King argues, acts as a "cracked mirror" of American society, reflecting in particular the anger, fantasies, and guilt of white men who feel they have "lost ground." It is, he says, a self-conscious reflection." -Chronicle of Higher Education "King's study is good to read. In fact, it might prove most enlightening to those of us who have tended to disdain this impoverished, headachey genre. In straight-talk prose. King takes account of the prejudices many readers will bring to his subject; certainly he can't be accused of sidestepping the toughest objections to these movies. In successive chapters he regards them through prisms of gender, race, and economics; the longest chapter is on the symbolism of sodomy...King does not defend cop action so much as seek thematic coherence from a position of sympathy." -Film Quarterly "King's analysis remains valuable for the contribution it makes in taking seriously an oft derided and dismissed form of popular culture that speaks directly to issues of masculinity... This book will be a useful resource for those interested in understanding how images of hyper-masculinity--the "hard man"--represent both the excess and the ordinary parts of masculinity in cinema. King's methodology is helpful in reading media texts, and his provocative interpretations of these films--particularly his readings of homosocial sadomasochism--will likely generate much discussion." -Women's Studies in Communication