Kathleen Starck, a cultural studies scholar, has written a monograph that ably showcases how masculinities were coded in popular culture during the early Cold War. Because the lived experiences and sociological studies of Anglo-American masculinities have already received treatment, Starck pursues a different path, investigating how early Cold War popular culture mediated the general anxieties of a Communist takeover into cinematic representations. Starck follows an established periodization of the Cold War and considers its first stage to have lasted nearly twenty years, from 1948 to 1966. During the so-called first Cold War, the conflict's infrastructure and fundamental dynamics were established. The détente of the late 1960s then reshaped the logic of the superpower standoff.
Although Anglo-American Cold War gender constructs in popular culture have gotten due attention from scholars such as Tony Shaw, James Gilbert, and Russell Meeuf, Starck adds a new note to the existing scholarship by focusing on...