Deconstructing Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt is probably the most famous American actor alive today. Bloomsbury makes available for the first time an academic study of this iconic star, _Deconstructing Brad Pitt. Editors Christopher Schaberg and Robert Bennett extensively rework problems of celebrity, gender, and consumer society; question the possibilities of star personae and their consequent notions of identity and performance; and ingeniously disrupt the positions of actor and viewer in the text. The book will assist readers pro and con in coming to terms with this magnetic figure.

_Deconstructing Brad Pitt is extraordinary in many ways, most obviously in its approach. Arranged as an edited collection, with a framing personal narrative, the book simultaneously discusses Pitt's film roles and contemporary culture at large, and shows how two such seemingly distinct kinds of criticism can reflect and influence one another. The customary segregation of fandom and academic critique is systematically subverted. In design and content, the book calls into question 'types' of acting (Hollywood mainstream, quirky artistic), the ownership of ideas and styles, the glorification of heroes, and the limits of representation.