Film and Media Studies Commons^™

The Mileage Of The Weary Father: Harrison Ford As Aging Screen Action Icon, Bahnt G. Freiberger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores how fatherhood guides cinematic narratives of aging masculinity through a star study of the late-stage career of Harrison Ford. It bridges fundamental cultural studies of masculinity, such as those by Raewyn Connell and Michael Kimmel, with film studies to provide key insights into cultural narratives of maleness related to vulnerability, heroism, and most significantly, fatherhood. By focusing on Ford’s late-career reprisal of his iconic characters, I explore how the development of his image provides a postmillennial recontextualization of twentieth century masculine iconography. This study covers three cinematic texts: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull …