Screening the Male challenges the traditional understanding of the male’s position in Hollywood cinema. Gathering together thirteen original essays by scholars in the US, UK, and Australia, as well as Steve Neale’s ground-breaking article on male spectacle, this collection looks beyond the seemingly unassailable monolithic understanding of the ‘masculine’ which has previously dominated most film criticism. Ranging from Valentino to Schwarzenegger, from the musical to the horror film, from close readings to ‘queer’ readings, the essays all differ in their critical method and historical focus. But whatever their specific interest, each essay holds a strong concern with issues that film studies has repeatedly linked to the feminine without considering how they relate as well to the masculine: spectacle, masochism, passivity, masquerade and, most of all, the body as it signifies gendered, racial, class, and generational differences. Demonstrating that Hollywood’s representation of the male and his masculinity deserves the same kind of critical attention devoted to the problem posed by the female and her femininity, Screening the Male will interest scholars, students, and fans of cinema who want to understand the textual complexity and cultural purchase of male imagery on the screen