The simple fact is that the utterance 'Brad Pitt' tends to prompt strong reactions, either reflecting hype and excitement around one or more of this actor's roles; or reflecting a piqued intellectual interest in the issues-be they political, intellectual, or aesthetic-that Pitt stands for. Brad Pitt is a productively perplexing subject.
Deconstructing Brad Pitt will attend to these strong reactions, exploring what issues are raised, challenged, and redefined by the many manifestations of Brad Pitt. In so doing, the contributions will construct conceptual frameworks for thinking critically about Brad Pitt. Several of the chapters of the book look at how Pitt's roles collapse key oppositions in contemporary culture, such as suburbia vs. wild violence, spirituality vs. materialism, and authenticity vs. celebrity fakery. Other chapters read Pitt's roles as allegories for dramas that are playing out in larger spheres- such as global capital, apocalyptic anxieties, and desires for 'authentic' living spaces. Still other chapters delineate the intersections of Pitt's celebrity status with his on-screen performances, arguing for expressions of self-awareness and meta-fictive commentaries on celebrity culture itself.
Written in accessible prose and drawing from the expertise of fifteen scholars in different fields, Deconstructing Brad Pitt will unperplex the mystery surrounding the star status and numerous roles of Brad Pitt.
Industry Reviews
With just the right mix of wit, self-awareness, and critical passion, the authors subject the curious case of brand Pitt--artist and star, boy toy and generational icon, Redford scion and Ninth Ward architect, Chanel shill and co-proprietor of the going concern known as Brangelina--to edifying and satisfying scrutiny. * Eric Lott, City University of New York, The Graduate Center, USA *
Deconstructing Brad Pitt will shock you the moment you find out it exists. The instinctive reaction to such a work is that academic analysis and Hollywood stardom do not to make good bedfellows. This is exactly why you open the first page, and you find yourself hooked ... It is a highly readable book, full of personal insights, first-person narratives and analyses based on the cultural studies literature. -- Helena Vieira * LSE Review of Books *
In this exciting anthology, Schaberg and Bennett continue the work of DeAngelis, Negra, and Pomerance, once again demonstrating that an intensive study of a popular Hollywood film star will reveal not the margins, but the center of how American culture functions. The path charted by Richard Dyer 35 years ago has led to a flourishing of analyses of stardom, wonderfully executed here by Schaberg, Bennett, and their collaborators, who skillfully interrogate Brad Pitt's cinematic, popular, and political image. The first rule of Brad Pitt Studies is you MUST read and talk about _Deconstructing Brad Pitt! * Walter Metz, Southern Illinois University, USA *
_Deconstructing Brad Pitt, edited by Robert Bennett and Christopher Schaberg, is an anthology of multi-disciplinary, multi-perspectival engagements with the figure of Brad Pitt. The book is a strange and compelling meshwork of affect, memory and desire, as each author/artist follows a richly surprising line that leads readers to places they might never have found on their own. Some of these places are whimsical while others are more perilous and reverberate with disaster, crises, madness, and failure. It would quite miss the point to say that this collection is a celebrity study - it transverses multiple disciplines from cultural studies to psychoanalysis to new materialist feminism and queer theory. Yet, it is not bound by any of these approaches. Ranging from visual essays to personal accounts, the collection articulates "Brad Pitt" as an event that is proximate to place, industry, nature, ruin, representation, and resilience. Moving into and away from the performative features of Brad Pitt, as celebrity and as citizen who could be considered the unofficial mayor of New Orleans, _Deconstructing Brad Pitt invites us to imagine what it might be like to theorize engagement as entanglement, as a productive crash into the objects that surround us. It invites us to take seriously what others too quickly ignore or leave behind. * Joy V. Fuqua, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Queens College/CUNY, USA, and author of Prescription TV: Therapeutic Discourse in the Hospital and at Home (2012) *
An in-depth look into the cultural phenomenon called Brad Pitt, this book is for both fans and detractors of the actor. If you are expecting tabloid fodder and TMZ-like stories, don't pick up this book because Deconstructing Brad Pitt by Christopher Schaberg and Robert Bennett is a serious academic treatise which happens to be an easy and fun read. -- Mari Davis * Marienela.net *
Deconstructing Brad Pitt is an ambitious exploration of Brad Pitt as a man, actor and celebrity. ...a fascinating exploration of Brad Pitt as an icon, the roles he has played and the impact of his celebrity status on contemporary life. * Celebrity Studies *
Overall Deconstructing Brad Pitt is a compelling read, most suitable for a scholarly audience though accessible to well-read mass audience that seeks thoughtful commentary on American popular culture. Pitt as actor, celebrity, philanthropist, father, partner, environmentalist, liberal activist, man, tabloid fodder, artist sheds light on many aspects of American popular culture and society. * American Studies *
Christopher Schaberg and Robert Bennett's edited collection Deconstructing Brad Pitt is an extremely remarkable volume and honest to the core ... It is the first academic study focused on the superstar, and it helps introduce Brad in newer ways to his readers as well as his fans. * Journal of Film and Video *
