Overview

Uncovering Hollywood's perpetual longing for a lost industrial America ""We don't make things in America anymore"": like clockwork, this refrain resurfaces in political discourse, a reflection of yearning for a bygone era of industrial productivity. In his latest work, Grant Farred uses the 1990 film Pretty Woman to expose and critique this lingering nostalgia for late-industrial capitalism. Situating Pretty Woman alongside Reagan-era films including Wall Street, Farred examines the congealment of such a pervasive romanticized view of the United States as a fading industrial powerhouse. Drawing on an eclectic range of thinkers-from Raymond Williams and Slavoj iek to Mick Jagger-The Prettiest Woman offers a unique analysis of the ways Hollywood perpetuates the myth of a lost ""productive America,"" highlighting the seductive power of this fantasy despite its disconnect from economic and political realities.

Full Product Details

Author:   Grant Farred
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
Imprint:   University of Minnesota Press
Weight:   0.113kg
ISBN:  

9781517918323

ISBN 10:   1517918324
Pages:   82
Publication Date:   18 November 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Like Clockwork: ""Bring the Jobs Back to America"" She's a Pretty Woman Nostalgia A Hollywood Genealogy Cold Calling Is a Mug's Game Wall Street You Are the Suit You Wear Raymond Williams: A Brief Word The Patient Is on Life Support but Is Not Yet Dead The Baseness of/in the Superstructure Working Women Late Industrial Capitalism 1: ""Making Things in America"" Late Industrial Capitalism 2: Nostalgia and Grievance On Morality: A Brief Žižekian Word It's Big in Japan The Boro Aesthetic Bastard 1 A New Economy of the Prostitute and Its Dangers My Fair Lady, Beverly Hills Style All a Pretty Prostitute Needs Is Her Own Dr. Henry Higgins The Upside of Not Knowing Which Fork to Use Who's Driving Edward Lewis? Bastard 2: The Hostility of the Takeover Oedipal Drama, Pretty Woman Style Making and Unmaking in the Oedipal Family Drama To Make Something Father's Son, Mother's Son: The Enduring Phantasmatic Father The Žižekian Ethics of Mick Jagger ""It Must Be Very Difficult to Let Go of Something So Beautiful"" To Steal, to Make of Steel Acknowledgments

Reviews

Author Information

Grant Farred is author of several books, including What's My Name: Black Vernacular Intellectuals; Martin Heidegger Saved My Life; and An Essay for Ezra: Racial Terror in America (all from Minnesota).

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