Making enemies: A theoretical approach to antagonism and emotion in the contemporary American action film

Abstract

Conflict and adversity form an essential component of many American action films. Not only are these spectacular blockbuster films often grafted on forms of contemporary geopolitical warfare, moreover, the violent deaths of the film’s villains arguably form one of the genre’s key pleasures. Utilizing Laclau and Mouffe’s concept of antagonism, this article deconstructs how within the action film, discursive articulations of enemyhood attempt to structure heroic violence as just and the lives of villains as ungrievable. The action films Lone Survivor (2015) and London Has Fallen (2017) will operate as case studies in elucidating how antagonistic frontiers between the hero self and the enemy other are cinematically drawn and strengthened.