NONFICTION - Sept. 10, 1995

WHITE GUYS: Studies in Postmodern Domination & Difference by Fred Pfeil (Verso: $18.95 paper, $64.95 cloth; 269 pp.). While reading a Seattle newspaper article on domestic violence a few years ago, writes Fred Pfeil toward the end of “White Guys,” he was asked by a middle-aged white woman whether he was “in a group” dealing with the problem. You might expect Pfeil, a professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, to say his questioner had no business making groundless insinuations, but no: he responded, instead, “Hey! I don’t hit women! I don’t hit women!” It’s a telling moment, for it nicely illustrates, as Pfeil notes, the no-win situation in which hard-core feminism has placed susceptible pro-feminist men. Pfeil, clearly, is sensitive to the problems he faces in attempting to analyze the portrayal of men in current popular culture, but he turns out to be too sensitive, so concerned about being with the academic-feminist “in” crowd that “White Guys” is an often laughable volume. One problem is Pfeil’s unrelenting PoMo-speak, a single paragraph yielding such quintessential postmodern words as decoupled, deconstruction, binarism, and valorize . Another problem is the postmodern/cultural studies penchant for over-reading; yes, many recent Hollywood films--from the “Die Hard” and “Lethal Weapon” movies to “Hook” and “The Fisher King” and “Regarding Henry”--do uphold male models of supremacy while seeming to promote masculine sensitivity, but they hardly bear the deep analysis Pfeil gives them. Compressed into 50 pages and translated into English, this would be an effective, corrective book; as written, progressives and liberals can only pray it doesn’t fall into the hands of Rush Limbaugh.