Here’s a little addendum to Mark’s spot-on analysis of the construction of masculinity in the latest “Die Hard” film:

One of the most disturbing parts of the film is the portrayal of villain’s sidekick — an unnamed Asian woman played by the very talented Maggie Q. In many ways, she is the prototypical modern action movie femme fatale — with all the sexist baggage that it implies. Despite her obvious intelligence, leadership skills, and martial arts prowess, her sexual allure is the camera’s — and the narrative’s — primary concern.

And, of course, she’s evil and will eventually die at the hands our hero — because any capable woman must in a story which is, as Mark points out so well, “a template for how the most conservative (and often reductive American ideas) about gender and power can remain firmly in place.”

While this portrayal is regrettable, though, it is not very surprising. What drops the jaws of many viewers is the virulent racist edge to it all.

After the extended fight scene in which John McClane, our hero, kills Maggie Q’s character — who not surprisingly has been sexually involved with Thomas Gabriel, the villain — McClane refers to her at various times as “your little bitch Asian girlfriend,” “little Asian chick,” and “Asian hooker bitch.” He also mocks Gabriel about his “hot Asian ninja hookers.”

And, if we had any doubts of the sexual nature of his “conquest,” McClane also tells Gabriel that he can find her “at the bottom of an elevator shaft with an SUV rammed up her ass.”

I’ll leave it to Slant Eye for the Round Eye and Reappropriate to break down the scene further.

Considering the hushed response of the theater audience, Slant Eye for the Round Eye wonders “if the studio executives - like Bert Livingston who called the character Bruce Willis plays an ‘everyman’ - used a group of white racists for the focus group.”

And Jenn at Reappropriate makes the connection to the equally disturbing new “Rush Hour” trailer.

Both of them also have a lot to say about the racial stereotypes at play.

What is also interesting is how it all leads back to the construction of masculinity. In fact, this overdetermined assertion of McClane’s racial and sexual superiority reminds me of McClane’s rampant homophobia in “Die Hard: With a Vengeance,” the third film in the series. His conversations with Simon Gruber, Jeremy Iron’s character — who stutters when he’s anxious — are laced with puns about anal sex and references to Gruber’s supposed effeminacy.

Gruber is also involved with a femme fatale, who this time happens to be, a little more innocuously, a blonde German woman.

All of this analysis also dovetails with several new looks at the real and perceived crisis in masculinity. John Ibson has written “Picturing Men: A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography” — part of which he summarizes in a recent article in American Sexuality. Through personal observations and a close historical analysis of photos of men, Ibson argues that American culture has erased — and therefore demonized — intimacy between men.

As a result, the only path toward manhood is the one John McClane takes — through violent confrontation.

C.J. Pascoe comments on the depressing nature — and the real-world consequences — of this traditional male coming-of-age ritual in her new book “Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School,” part of which she summarizes for Inside Higher Ed. Pascoe notes that boys participate in a “fag discourse” (which is distinct from boys calling each other “gay”) in order that they can “ensure that others saw them as masculine by renouncing any fag-like behavior or same-sex desire.”

Finally, Echidne of the Snakes has her own fascinating mediation of what being “effete,” “effeminate” and “emasculated” really means in American culture.

Suffice to say, after reading around these issues, it becomes clear that a character like John McClane — far from being the stable site for the recovery of an old-school masculinity that the film wants him to be — is actually full of cracks and contradictions.