How I Learned to Love Kill Bill: And Other Strange Uses of Literary Theory

The aim of this book is to show, through specific examples, how once-arcane literary theory (deconstruction, post-Marxism, subject position, reader response) has infiltrated popular culture. Theory reaches us in ways we do not even realize. This book shows how it is possible to study the rudiments of literary theory through mainstream movies. It is not aimed at a tribe of literary theorists or critics, but instead at students and others with a serious interest in the theoretical underpinnings of popular culture. Those examples come from film. This is not esoteric art-house cinema: recent popular films serve as examples.
Complex ideas are evident in movies because Hollywood, with its box-office concerns that so irk intellectuals, must entertain in innovative ways. Anyone can grasp modern literary theory by way of mainstream movies without having to wade through jargon-laden, turgid prose on the subject.