Please join the Chicago Film Seminar at 6:30 pm on Thursday, March 13 to welcome Michael DeAngelis (DePaul) for his talk, "Reading the Bromance." Nick Davis (Northwestern) will provide the response. The CFS will be held at DePaul's Loop Campus in the Daley Building at 14 E. Jackson Blvd., Room LL 102, using the State St. entrance located at 247 S. State.
Thursday, March 13 at 6:30pm
Michael DeAngelis, DePaul
"Reading the Bromance"
Respondent: Nick Davis, Northwestern
DeAngelis describes his talk as follows:
“Bromance” has come to denote an emotionally intense bond between presumably straight males who demonstrate an openness to intimacy that they neither regard, acknowledge, avow, nor express sexually. This paper attempts to account for the widespread cultural popularity of the bromance phenomenon in popular media during the past decade, discerning what is thematically and formally unique about bromance, as well as its historical connections with a number of traditions in American culture. After noting antecedents within and beyond the realm of cinema, I proceed with a close analysis of the similarities and differences between bromance and the buddy film that emerged in American cinema at the end of the 1960s into the early 1970s, examining the very different ways in which these two genres configure intimacy between men, and focusing upon the role of the women and the domestic sphere in inter-male relationships. The paper concludes by discussing the critical usefulness of configuring “bromance” as both a generic “product” and a discursive “process.” Ultimately, I attempt to illuminate some of the paradoxical constructions of heteronormative masculinity that have emerged in a culture that finds homosexuality to be more increasingly visible, and that has accommodated this visibility by developing open, reflective, and introspective discourses of male bonding.
