This book analyzes how contemporary popular films with fantastic themes, including Candyman, Frozen, The Cabin in the Woods, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, cultivate neo-liberal subjectivities. These films promise dramatic change, but they too often deliver more of the same. Although proponents maintain the illusion that the militant enforcement of free-market economics will resolve racism, climate change, and imperialism, their magical thinking actually fuels the crises. Magical Thinking, Fantastic Film, and the Illusions of Neo-liberalism explores the ways in which the visual economies of Hollywood fantasy compliment this particular political economy.

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