Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity

My friend Drucilla Cornell has written a new book: Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity.

Briefly: Professor Cornell, a former union organizer and professor of feminist jurisprudence is the presently occupant of the national research foundation chair in customary law, indigenous values and the dignity jurisprudence (that's a mouthful) at the Law Faculty at the University of Cape Town.

She has been interested in the transition of Eastwood (below, with his wife) from his Dirty Harry days to the introspective, even ineffectual men of his more recent movies, grappling (she says) with the classic male American stereotypes — cowboy, cop, soldier, boxer — and, she argues, he has helped sink these images as they were already foundering.