1990s Masculinity and History in Three Kings and Falling Down Anonymous College

The age of neoliberalism is one that has been subject to as much hagiography as it has been subject to scrutiny. The post-Reagan economic deregulation and intense globalization paradigms have utterly transformed life around the globe, and naturally, this has had both positive and negative effects. Further, this has led to an equally global cinematic response. Two American films in particular, Falling Down(1993) and Three Kings(1999) represent two different approaches to the study of history. Although these films are often entertaining and sardonic, as well as violent, they can also provide authentic windows into this historical era. As this essay will show, these two films offer themselves up as historical resources that can be used to explore the social impact of the globalism for which the 1990s are known. Falling Down, in its frustrated engagement with the failure of American masculinity in the age of outsourcing, downsizing, and automation, as well as its ultra-violent wish fulfillment, shows the social impact of global policies and “trickle-down economics,” while Three Kings uses the militaristic setting and the cinematic trope of warfare to explore not just the distancing experience of war, but the ways in which late...