I would immodestly recommend my article, "Restoring the Black Man's Lethal Weapon: Race and Sexuality in Contemporary Cop Films" (Journal of Popular Film & Television 20:3 Fall 1992) to Krin Gabbard, who is doing research on the diminishment of Black masculinity. I discuss the various ways in which Black cops are emasculated in the Lethal Weapon films, Shoot to Kill, and Die Hard--all films in which the Black hero cannot fire his weapon until his masculinity is restored by the white companion. The gun/phallus connection is reinforced by comparisons of gun sizes and shooting skills. I also discuss the homosocial bond that emerges in the films and how that bond displaces or moves to the margins male-female relationships. I think it is important to see black-white buddy films in the context of the black-white pairing in American literature (a la Huck Finn and Leslie Fielder's discussion of the myth). I see the interracial buddy film as a wish-fulfillment for racial harmony, a wish-fulfillment that denies historical conflict or at least asserts that historical oppression can be undone by the actions of right-thinking individuals. In this context, the emasculation of the Black hero is a response to an earlier more virulent stereotyping of the Black man as physical and unthinking. Chris Ames English Department Agnes Scott College 141 East College Ave Decatur, GA 30030 [log in to unmask] ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]