Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Welcome to the Neighborhood

1. Traditional Values: Nostalgia and Self-Reflexivity in Visual Representations of Suburbia

2. Back Yard Fences: The Public, the Private, and the Family in Suburban Dramas

3. Suburban Citizenship: Defining Community through the Exclusion of Racial and Sexual Minorities

4. Desperate Husbands: The Crisis of Hegemonic Masculinity in Post-9/11 Suburbia

5. Protecting the Suburban Lifestyle: Consumption, Crime, and the American Dream

Conclusion: There Goes the Neighborhood

Notes
Index

About the Author

DAVID R. COON is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Washington Tacoma.

Reviews

"With ingenuity, nuance, and an eye for visual detail, Coon's timely and significant book explores the tendency of recent media narratives to question the sanitized, simplistic myth of suburbia."
*author of Urban Nightmares: The Media, The Right, and the Moral Panic Over the City*

"Coon's savvy book is dynamic, contentious, and revealing. His persuasive analyses show how cinema, television, and advertising have both reinforced and challenged prevailing ideas of the 'burb and the happy, bizarre, and painful lifestyles that unfold there."
*author of Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles*

"Coon primarily examines contemporary Hollywood representations of middle-class life in the US cul-de-sacs. This is a well-written book that will benefit a variety of readers. Highly recommended."
*Choice*

"A needed contribution to the young fields of suburban studies and popular media."
*The Journal of American Culture*

"With ingenuity, nuance, and an eye for visual detail, Coon's timely and significant book explores the tendency of recent media narratives to question the sanitized, simplistic myth of suburbia."
*author of Urban Nightmares: The Media, The Right, and the Moral Panic Over the City*

"Coon's savvy book is dynamic, contentious, and revealing. His persuasive analyses show how cinema, television, and advertising have both reinforced and challenged prevailing ideas of the 'burb and the happy, bizarre, and painful lifestyles that unfold there."
*author of Hollywood Cinema and the Real Los Angeles*

"Coon primarily examines contemporary Hollywood representations of middle-class life in the US cul-de-sacs. This is a well-written book that will benefit a variety of readers. Highly recommended."
*Choice*

"A needed contribution to the young fields of suburban studies and popular media."
*The Journal of American Culture*