Labor, Masculinity, and Shifting Gender Relations In

Home , Aaron Eckhart, Children of Men, Falling Down, Kindergarten Cop, Lovable rogue, Male privilege

Men and the Movies: Labor, Masculinity, and Shifting Gender Relations in

Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the College of Fine Arts of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts

Michael B. Carrier

August 2015

This thesis titled

Men and the Movies: Labor, Masculinity, and Shifting Gender Relations in

Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

MICHAEL B. CARRIER

has been approved for

the School of Film

and the College of Fine Arts by

Ofer Eliaz

Assistant Professor of Film

Margaret Kennedy-Dygas

Dean, College of Fine Arts 3

ABSTRACT

CARRIER, MICHAEL B., M.A., August 2015, Film

Men and the Movies: Labor, Masculinity, and Shifting Gender Relations in

Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

Director of Thesis: Ofer Eliaz

This thesis examines the shifting narrative strategies of Hollywood films for preserving patriarchal ideals within the context of changing social gender relations. Over the last thirty years, social progress and economic changes in the United States have left many white, heterosexual, middle-class men feeling anxious about the possible de- escalation of patriarchy. Read symptomatically, the films in this thesis demonstrate a shared desire to reinforce male privilege.

Though my focus is contemporary depictions of masculinity in film, my analysis of men springs from an examination of gender relations. Whether white male privilege faces, or will ever face, a legitimate threat to structural advantages remains to be seen; however, this thesis demonstrates how the perception of a need to sustain male privilege guides three groups of films while exhibiting the importance of considering gender relations, not just men, when confronting topics of masculinity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank everyone at Ohio University who helped me reach this point in my education. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to learn from my Film Studies professors—Dr. Louis-Georges Schwartz, Dr. Michael Gillespie, and Dr. Ofer Eliaz— who challenged and shaped me as a scholar. I would like to thank my thesis committee,

Dr. Kevin Mattson, Dr. Schwartz, and in particular Dr. Eliaz, my thesis chair. Dr. Eliaz helped me with this project every step of the way, from its inception to its conclusion. To say his support and assistance were invaluable would be an understatement.

Of course I want to thank Steve Ross, Director of the Film Division, for everything he does, seen and unseen. Thank you to my colleagues at Ohio University who read countless pages of my work and, in formal and casual conversation alike, helped me develop as a critical thinker. Finally I would like to thank my friends and family for their support along the way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Abstract ...... 3! Acknowledgments ...... 4! Introduction: Men, Labor, and Privilege in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema ...... 6! Chapter 1: Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Reaffirming the Validity of Gender Roles in the Nuclear Family ...... 18! 1.1 Women’s Labor in Hollywood Films ...... 22! 1.2 Sending in a Man’s Man to Do a Woman’s Job ...... 26! 1.3 Reaffirming Domestic and Social Labor as Extensions of Gender ...... 31! 1.4 Measured Success and Inconclusive Conclusions ...... 35! 1.5 Conclusion ...... 41! Chapter 2: Combating the Crisis: Fight Club, American Beauty, and the Active Resistance to Progressive Gender Relations ...... 43! 2.1 The Crisis: Perception as Reality ...... 46! 2.2 Identifying With the Male in Crisis ...... 50! 2.3 Tyler Durden and His Protégé: Crisis Conquerors ...... 56! 2.4 More Than a Mid-Life Crisis: Lester Burnham’s Fight for Relevance ...... 63! 2.5 Conclusion ...... 69! Chapter 3: Figuring Male Utopia at the End of the World ...... 73! 3.1 Pushing the Boundaries of Late Capitalism ...... 76! 3.2 Breaking Away From the End of History ...... 81! 3.3 Pub Crawls and Alien Brawls: The End of the World as Male-Only Refuge ...... 85! 3.4 Dating and Social Convention in the End of Days ...... 98! 3.5 Conclusion ...... 104! Conclusion: The Last Man on Earth and the Future of Cinematic Masculinity ...... 108! Works Cited ...... 114 ! 6

INTRODUCTION: MEN, LABOR, AND PRIVILEGE IN CONTEMPORARY

HOLLYWOOD CINEMA

My thesis examines the representation of masculinity in Hollywood films from the mid-1980s to today within the context of changing social gender relations. I will demonstrate how three groups of films, each approximately a decade apart, respond to transformations in social and economic relations with generically and thematically similar movies. More broadly, I argue that, in different ways, these films try to resist and compensate for threats to a traditionally constructed patriarchal order that they imagine as an endangered ideal. The first group of films—Three Men and a Baby (Nimoy, 1987),

Kindergarten Cop (Reitman, 1990), and Mr. Nanny (Gottlieb, 1993)—emphasizes the importance of traditional gender roles as they relate to labor and family. These films feature situations that require their male protagonists to assume tasks that traditionally fall to women such as child rearing and elementary education. The second pair, Fight

Club (Fincher, 1999) and American Beauty (Mendes, 1999), revolves around male protagonists who restore their self-worth by rejecting consumerism, their jobs, and women. The final chapter focuses on a cluster of four recent “apocalypse comedies” that create a narrative space of male domination and exclusivity imagined in an end of the world scenario.

My analysis focuses on gender relations as it relates to labor. The men in these films are white heterosexuals, almost all of whom are middle-aged and middle-to-upper class. In various ways these films symptomatically reinforce patriarchal ideals as a result 7 of anxieties concerning changing gender relations due to an increase of women in the workforce and the effects of late capitalism. Each of my chapters focuses on a different group of film texts from a historically specific era. In Chapter 1 I analyze three films I categorize as “labor role reversal films.” During the 1980s and early 1990s, a number of comedies addressed the topic of gendered work with stories in which protagonists disrupt the social expectations of jobs that the films mark as either masculine of feminine. For example, movies like Mr. Mom (Dragoti, 1983) and Mrs. Doubtfire (Columbus, 1993) feature men in domestic roles while Baby Boom (Shyer, 1987) follows a woman trying to find a fulfilling balance of career, family, and an active love life.

The three films I dissect emphasize the perceived discrepancy between men and domestic labor by using actors with masculine personas. Three Men features Ted Danson, best known for his work as a womanizer on Cheers, and Tom Selleck, the handsome title character from the popular television program Magnum, P.I. Kindergarten Cop uses

Arnold Schwarzenegger as a model of masculinity due to his chiseled body and his previous filmic roles as an action star. Mr. Nanny employs a similar strategy, wherein professional wrestler Hulk Hogan assumes the role of family nanny. Viewing these three films collectively allows common patterns and narrative strategies to emerge. At a time when the discourse around labor, gender, and family persisted in popular publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, these films assert gender 8 normality related to labor and then use those expectations as a source of comedy in an attempt to preserve male privilege.1

Fight Club and American Beauty, the Chapter 2 films on which the bulk of my analysis falls, are likely the most often cited filmic examples of the 1990s “crisis of masculinity.” These two films feature male characters—the Narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in Fight Club and Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) in

American Beauty—who feel increasingly diminutive both at work and at home. The films frame the discontent of their protagonists as an extension of their consumption based labor. In order to recapture a sense of purpose and self-worth, the men quit their jobs and reject consumption, a problematic strategy as the films closely associate women with consumerism. The protagonists posit themselves in relation to women and labor with a level of aggressive hostility and in doing so, serve as surrogates for disenfranchised men experiencing the same level of personal insignificance in their own lives.

In recent years a group of comedies, all of which take place during the apocalypse, take a different approach to gender relations. These films—The World’s End

(Wright, 2013), This is the End (Goldberg/Rogen, 2013), Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Scafaria, 2012), and It’s a Disaster (Berger, 2012)—are the focus of Chapter

3. The apocalypse comedies repurpose the end of the world, a setting that often serves as the backdrop for male heroics or depictions of dystopian pessimism. This shift in the narrative function of the apocalypse points toward a dissatisfaction with labor and late capitalism in contemporary society, but rather than directly address topics of labor, the

1 E. Ann Kaplan, Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama (New York: Routledge, 1992), 188-90. 9 apocalypse comedies exercise male privilege through narrative circumstance. The films create a narrative space of male exclusivity and use disaster as a vehicle for utopia.

The films analyzed span close to three decades, a period that runs concurrently with the development of masculinity studies in the cinema. Masculinity has emerged relatively recently as a topic of study within film studies. What began as a mirror of women’s studies and feminist film theory in the mid-1980s developed into a field of its own, both in relation to film and as a more refined area of research in sociology. While scholars of sociology often consider the entire spectrum of gender and gender relations when discussing men, popular film studies texts about masculinity rarely connect shifts in masculinity to women’s labor conditions or female characters in the films analyzed.

Many scholarly works do, in fact, consider gender relations in their analysis while others draw thought-provoking conclusions without broaching topics related to more than one gender. That being said, there exists an overwhelming tendency to treat masculinity as an object to isolate and dissect. The argument of my thesis rests on a Marxist analysis of the relationship between economic gains made by women and the effects of this progress on filmic depictions of men.

Masculinity took a rather indirect route to becoming a major topic of discussion within film studies, in large part because of the way many viewed and, in fact, still think about masculinity. For the early feminist film scholars, white heterosexual masculinity functioned as a “default” subject position against which deviations could be theorized.

Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” not only paved the 10 way for feminist film studies, but also sparked an interest in male representation on film.2

The article outlines the ways in which the social structures of a male-dominated society are coded into the structure of the gaze in cinema. Mulvey uses a political psychoanalytic approach to argue that Hollywood films offer pleasure via three different looks: that of the spectator, the camera, and the film’s male characters. Crucially, all of these positions interrelate in such a way as to render them masculine. She writes that spectators of both genders identify with the active male character as he looks at the passive object of his desire, the woman “to-be-looked-at.”3 This identification leads male viewers to assert their power voyeuristically over the fetishized image of the woman, reflecting and encouraging similar power dynamics between the sexes outside the theater.

Steve Neale credits Mulvey’s essay as a central driver of subsequent discussions about gender and film, including his own 1983 article, “Masculinity as Spectacle:

Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema.”4 Neale uses the framework of Mulvey’s article as a way to expand the conversation to include the representations of masculinity in film. Though Neale’s essay is not the first work to address masculinity in film—

Richard Dyer’s Gays and Film (1977) and Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet:

Homosexuality in the Movies (1981) both address masculinity in terms of gay

2 Barry Keith Grant, Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 5. 3 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 837. 4 Steve Neale, “Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema,” Screen 24, No. 6 (1983): 4. 11 representations in film—it is widely considered the catalyst for discussions of the topic as it relates to film studies.5

It wasn’t, however, until long after Neale’s seminal articles that masculinity in film studies became a concern in its own right rather than a companion to feminist analysis.6 Scholars began to focus on male representations as a reflection of dominant social discourses, primarily in past eras. Frank Krutnik’s 1991 book In a Lonely Street:

Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity approaches film noir as an artistic intersection between contemporaneous culture and the institutional practices of classical Hollywood cinema.

In a Lonely Street is among the rare works to incorporate the social positions of women into its argument on masculinity. Krutnik not only discusses the film noir trope of the femme fatale, but also how shifting national priorities impacted gender roles for both men and women.7 By acknowledging both sexes and treating masculinity as a construct influenced by outside forces, both in his overarching assessment of the time period and later in his Freudian application of the Oedipus complex, Krutnik’s argument is more thorough than texts that reduce the question of masculinity to that of representation, isolating it from other determinants.

Many texts demonstrate how films engage with contemporaneous principles, often using the terms of US Presidents as designated eras with unique values; among

5 Grant, 5; E. Ann Kaplan, “A History of Gender Theory in Cinema Studies,” Screening Genders, eds. Krin Gabbard and William Luhr (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 23.! 6 Phil Powrie, Bruce Babington, and Ann Davies, “Turning the Male Inside Out,” The Trouble with Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema, eds. Phil Powrie, Bruce Babington, and Ann Davies (New York: Wallflower Press, 2004), 1. 7 Frank Krutnik, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity (New York: Routledge, 1991), 59. 12 these works is Susan Jeffords’ 1994 book Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the

Reagan Era.8 Hard Bodies offers a microcosm of the strengths and weaknesses of masculinity studies within film analysis. Using a presidential name gives her the elasticity to consider the Reagan era as a period in conversation with the one before and after it. Jeffords acknowledges the shifting pressures stemming from the Carter administration as well as the changes that developed as Reagan’s time in the White

House ended. Tracing these shifts and their effects on the representations of male characters in Hollywood films allows Jeffords to demonstrate changes in masculine constructs by comparison. Though at times useful, this strategy can be just as problematic. When texts compare masculine constructs of different eras to each other, they often lose the intricacies that form those constructs to begin with. As such, many works that center around masculinity in film do not take women into account at all. For example, Jeffords analyzes the values of the confident Reagan era, demonstrated in the movies discussed in Hard Bodies, in contrast to the uneven presidency of Jimmy Carter.

The effects these values have on female characters and, in fact, the role women play in terms of these values, are topics discussed only in passing and, more often, not at all.

While attention to gender relations is not necessary to make interesting observations and claims, treating masculinity as a self-defining subject is a flawed approach. Texts that separate masculinity from broader discussions of sex and the changing conditions of women in society fail to explain why shifts in masculine representations occur. When this happens, the arguments lose a very basic tenet of

8 See also Brenton J. Malin’s American Masculinity Under Clinton and David Greven’s Manhood in Hollywood from Bush to Bush.! 13 masculinity and gender relations: male privilege. The most noteworthy aspect of gender is the privilege it affords men—at work, in the family, and in society as a whole. My research will show the fragility of popular constructs of masculinity and expose the extent to which those constructs rely on outdated notions of patriarchy in an attempt to maintain privilege.

In concurrence with my analysis regarding anxieties surrounding the growing prominence of women both at work and within the family, I will contextualize my argument within a Marxist critique of the family and the shifting modes of capitalist production. A foundational work in this context is Friedrich Engels’ Origin of the Family,

Private Property and the State. Engels’ account of the evolution of the family and the emergence of capital pinpoints a major shift in gender relations and ties the oppression of women to economics. In “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation,” Margaret

Benston builds on Engels’ history of the family and class society to argue that gender inequality is not based on a natural difference between the sexes, but rather on the differentiation of the roles of labor under capital. While men produce social surplus value, women reproduce the means of production. She identifies access to jobs outside the home as a requirement for women’s liberation. Engels shares a similar sentiment when he writes:

…the emancipation of women and their equality with men are impossible and must remain so as long as women are excluded from social production and restricted to housework. The emancipation of women becomes possible only when women are enabled to take part in production on a large, social scale, and when domestic duties require their attention only to a minor degree.9

9 Friedrich Engels, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (New York: International Publishers, 1942), 133. 14

Although Engels and Benston identify additional solutions to eliminate oppression, the former suggesting the abolition of private property and the latter proposing household work move to the public sector, both agree on the importance of female employment independent from the home.

The naturalistic way Engels views familial sexual divisions is one of several commonly criticized areas in Origin. Moira Maconachie points out “only by naturalizing women’s performance of domestic labour is Engels able to conceive of the sexual division of labour as a division existing between the sphere of the family and the sphere of social production.”10 Others make similar claims regarding the oversimplification of

Engels’ argument assuming heterosexual families and traditional divisions of labor within the family.11 However, despite its shortcomings, Origin provides a crucial link between the oppression of women and the importance society places on viewing the family as the basic economic unit. The films in my thesis detect the threat an increase of women in the labor force poses to this link, a necessity for the success of capitalism. The Chapter 1 films work to naturalize gender as it relates to labor and family. The films in the subsequent two chapters prove equally reactionary to changes in gender dynamics, though their strategies for preserving male privilege evolve and respond to the particular historical moments in which they were made.

10 Moira Maconachie, “Engels, sexual divisions, and the family,” Engels Revisited: New Feminist Essays, eds. Janet Sayers, Mary Evans, and Nanneke Redclift (New York: Tavistock Publications, 1987), 111. 11 Eli Zaretsky, Capitalism, the Family, and Personal Life (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1986) 72-3.! 15

Lynn Jamieson and Oriel Sullivan, among many others, suggest that the contemporary United States is in a transitional phase in regards to gender politics.12 In

Angry White Men: American Masculinity and the End of an Era, sociologist Michael

Kimmel declares: “The era of unquestioned and unchallenged male entitlement over.”13

Kimmel’s recent books center on the trouble young white men have adjusting to a shifting culture that seems to be slowly displacing them from their place as the social center and how this shift affects their perceptions of masculinity. There is palpable change occurring in gender relations that at once suggests the movement, or at least the desire for a movement, towards a less gender-biased society and, at the same time, threatens the longstanding dominance of white heterosexual men.

The films in each chapter demonstrate a different anxiety of privileged, white, middle-class men most adversely affected by this shift. The labor role reversal films of

Chapter 1—Three Men and a Baby, Kindergarten Cop, and Mr. Nanny—thrust male characters into roles that require them to perform tasks traditionally assumed by women.

Each of the films uses social expectations related to gender roles within labor as a source of comedy. In order to exaggerate this juxtaposition, they use overtly masculine actors like Ted Danson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Hulk Hogan. Though scholars like Tania

Modleski and Stella Bruzzi argue that films such as Three Men and Kindergarten Cop celebrate fatherhood and serve as a male fantasy, I contend that these films offer

12 Lynn Jamieson, “Intimacy Transformed? A Critical Look at the Pure Relationship,’” Sociology 33, No. 3 (1999): 489; Oriel Sullivan, Changing Gender Relations, Changing Families: Tracing the Pace of Change over Time (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006), 21. 13 Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity and the End of an Era (New York: Nation Books, 2013), xi-xii. 16 symptomatic meaning tied to anxiety regarding shifting labor dynamics. They employ comedy to emphasize the incompetence of the men who perform domestic tasks and undermine the eventual success each man enjoys at those same tasks by tying narrative closure more closely to the formation of multi-parent households. In doing so, they emphasize the importance of the nuclear family and adhering to the gendered roles within.

Chapter 2 examines four “crisis films” that address the crisis of masculinity as discussed in Robert Bly’s Iron John: A Book About Men, Susan Faludi’s Stiffed: The

Betrayal of the American Man, and countless other books and articles. It is important to note that my argument does not support nor deny the actuality of a crisis, but rather focuses on representations of a perceived crisis. Male characters in the four films I discuss—Falling Down (Schumacher, 1993), In the Company of Men (LaBute, 1997),

Fight Club, and American Beauty—demonstrate a similar level of entitlement tied to their identities as white, middle-aged men. I argue that Falling Down and In the Company of

Men challenge viewers to empathize with their male protagonists by presenting their actions as atrocious and offering alternative male characters with whom the viewer can identify. Conversely, Fight Club and American Beauty frame their male characters as heroes who overcome the circumstances of the crisis, providing examples for men who feel similarly disenfranchised. Their characters express frustration with a late capitalist society that they feel no longer works in their favor. I contend that these films disguise their animosity for women in their criticisms of work and society. As a result, the films 17 posit late capitalism as a male problem in an unconscious bid to suppress women, on whom they thrust the blame.

Unlike the films in the previous two chapters, the apocalypse comedies of Chapter

3 largely avoid the topic of labor. I argue that these films demonstrate a shift in strategy for preserving male privilege in light of the relatively constant rate of the percentage of women participating in the civilian labor force since the participation percentage peaked in 1999.14 Though male disempowerment remains a prominent anxiety of the films, they use the apocalypse as an opportunity to create a male utopia. Whereas the characters in

Fight Club and American Beauty challenge notions of equality, the apocalypse comedies attempt to preserve male privilege systematically through their figuration of the end of the world.

Though the focus of this thesis is contemporary depictions of masculinity in film, my analysis of men springs from an examination of gender relations. The anxiety that motivates the films in my corpus comes from a place of uncertainty as white patriarchy confronts possible de-escalation. Whether white male privilege faces, or will ever face, a legitimate threat to structural advantages remains to be seen; however, I will show how the perception of a need to sustain male privilege guides three groups of films while demonstrating the importance of considering gender relations, not just men, when confronting topics of masculinity.

14 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” BLS Reports: Report 1049 (2013): 11-12, (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2013.pdf), 16 Mar. 2015. 18

CHAPTER 1: DON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB: REAFFIRMING THE VALIDITY OF

GENDER ROLES IN THE NUCLEAR FAMILY

John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) approaches his first day of teaching kindergarten with the misconceived notion that, as a police officer accustomed to apprehending dangerous criminals, he will have no trouble controlling a classroom of six- year-olds. An illness befalls Kimble’s partner, a female officer originally assigned the task of teaching the class as an undercover cop. As a result, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder cast in films more for his chiseled body and action-star persona than his acting talent, must fill in as a kindergarten teacher in Kindergarten Cop (Reitman,

1990).

Although Kimble begins class as a stern authority figure, he quickly loses his composure and realizes the same confident, macho approach that makes him a successful police officer will not work with a kindergarten class. After leaving the children alone for just a few minutes, he returns to a classroom in complete disarray. Left to their own devices, the rowdy kids run around feeding off the self-perpetuating havoc. Kimble’s wide eyes and agape mouth upon seeing the pandemonium suggest a level of panic beyond what he is used to managing. Overwhelmed at the chaotic scene and his inability to control it, he reverts back to his tactless instincts, screaming “shut up” loudly and repeatedly, elongating the words to express his exasperation affectively. While the children grow quiet, Kimble immediately recognizes the flaw in his approach. His harsh tone leaves the kids whimpering and on the verge of tears. Unable to remain in a setting 19 that is incompatible with his hyper-masculine tendencies and strategies, Kimble runs out of the class. When he reaches the school’s front lawn, he lets out a primal scream, releasing the residual masculine energy he could not exert in the classroom.

The comedy in this seemingly straightforward scene emanates from a conglomeration of social expectations of gender roles as they pertain to spheres of labor and Schwarzenegger’s career as a macho action movie star. This dynamic appears repeatedly in comedies throughout the 1980s and early 1990s such as Mr. Mom (Dragoti,

1983) and Mrs. Doubtfire (Columbus, 1993). I will examine three such films—Three

Men and a Baby (Nimoy, 1987), Kindergarten Cop, and Mr. Nanny (Gottlieb, 1993)—to show how representations of men performing tasks traditionally assumed by women support notions of gender-segregated labor. Three Men revolves around bachelors caring for an abandoned baby while Mr. Nanny follows a bodyguard undertaking the role of family nanny. I use the term “labor role reversal films” in discussing this group of comedies, as they rely on the high concept idea of men performing tasks marked by the films as women’s work.

Tania Modleski, Nicole Matthews, and Stella Bruzzi are among those who analyze labor role reversal films in terms of fatherhood. My analysis will pivot away from specific representations of fatherhood and focus on the way in which these films approach domestic labor as a whole. While to a certain extent Kindergarten Cop’s John

Kimble and Mr. Nanny’s Sean Armstrong (Hulk Hogan) act as parental figures for the children for whom they care, their characters are more closely related to the jobs that they undertake. I contend that these films are useful indexes for anxieties related to shifting 20 conditions of capitalist production in the United States. As women entered the labor force at a steadily rising rate throughout the 1980s, the discourse around labor, gender, and family increased. E. Ann Kaplan notes the proliferation of this intersection as a topic in popular publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, whose articles speculate about whether working women overextend themselves and the effect employed mothers have on their families.15 I argue that these films undermine the possibility of women working in fields of social production by highlighting how incapable men are at filling in for the positions that women would have to abandon in order to pursue new, previously unexplored opportunities.

What separates these three films from the large number of other labor role reversal movies of the era is the way in which this group features established actors with masculine personas. By using overtly masculine men, all three films emphasize the contrast between domestic labor and masculinity, establishing the manliness of their protagonists both narratively and through the past roles of the lead actors. Three Men and a Baby and Kindergarten Cop are often referred to in discussions about shifting representations of masculinity in Hollywood films of the late 1980s, such as those in the work of Bruzzi and Susan Jeffords. Upon first glance there is no direct line that runs between Three Men and Mr. Nanny. The lack of scholarly attention given to the latter film likely springs from its creative irrelevance and box office indifference. When Mr.

15 E. Ann Kaplan, Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama (New York: Routledge, 1992), 188-90. 21

Nanny was released reviewers considered it an unambitious clone of Kindergarten Cop.16

However, the clumsiness with which Mr. Nanny addresses themes already found in predecessors like Kindergarten Cop and Three Men suggests a continuing uneasiness about the roles assigned to the “New Man,” a male archetype that defied previous notions of masculinity by unreservedly displaying emotion and participating in traditionally non- masculine activities like childrearing.

Though the men in these films improve at their jobs and experience a level of fulfillment in their work with children, the extent to which they embrace the role of the

New Man remains vague. Additionally, female characters in each film function as crucial guides for the men, undermining their success and further supporting the notion that the men are merely filling in for jobs that should be performed by women. After the narrative circumstances that thrust the male characters into their uncomfortable roles conclude, the films avoid asserting that the men will continue working in those roles. Rather, the films tie narrative closure to changes in the single-parent households they present as flawed, often replacing them with multi-parent units. In doing so, these films emphasize the importance of the nuclear family and the gender and labor roles within, undermining the success the men experience at their jobs. My analysis will address a number of common themes present in each of the three films, including the repetition of hyper-masculine stars, the reaffirmation of conventional gender and family roles through comedy, and the

16 Jane Horwitz, “Mr. Nanny (PG),” The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/mrnannypghorw itz_a09e43.htm, 13 Oct. 1993), 10 Jun. 2014; Marjorie Baumgarten, “Mr. Nanny,” The Austin Chronicle (http://www.austinchronicle.com/calendar/film/1993-10-15/mr-nanny/, 15 Oct. 1993), 10 Jun. 2014. 22 condemnation of single parent households. Considering the way in which Three Men,

Kindergarten Cop, and Mr. Nanny incorporate these recurring themes will allow me to demonstrate how the films function as an expression of male anxiety surrounding contemporaneous shifts in labor conditions.

1.1 Women’s Labor in Hollywood Films

The three movies that serve as the primary focus of this chapter were not the only ones to reflect and comment on the changing labor landscape of the 1980s and early

1990s. This particular historical moment spawned a number of films reacting to anxiety at a time when increasing female participation in the labor force threatened men’s privileged relationship to family and labor. The percentage of women in the civilian labor force increased every year of the 1970s and by 1979, more than half of American women over the age of sixteen participated in the labor force.17 This rate of participation increased steadily until 1989, two years after Three Men and a Baby was the top-grossing film of the year, when the trajectory reached a five-year plateau with minimal fluctuations.18 Despite the steady increase in female labor participation, certain labor categories could not shake the gender-oriented stigma associated with them, namely domestic labor. Whether performed as a full-time occupation or as an additional responsibility on top of a wage-earning job, domestic labor fell into the feminine domain

17 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” BLS Reports: Report 1040 (2012): 11, (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2012.pdf), 11 Jun. 2014. 18 “Yearly Box Office: 1987 Domestic Grosses.” Box Office Mojo (http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1987&p=.htm), 18 Mar. 2014. 23 due to the social belief that women are naturally better suited for domestic chores than men. As Eugen Lupri noted in 1983, the “impressive change in the volume of female employment has not led to an equally impressive change in occupational segregation by sex. Instead, the persistence of sexual segregation in the occupational structure remains one of the most pervasive patterns of resistance to women’s equality everywhere.”19

Despite the increase of women in the labor force, the sexual division of labor still dictated women’s relationship with home and work.

E. Ann Kaplan and Elizabeth G. Traube point to the ways in which films of the era view women as the catalyst of this changing landscape and use female characters to illustrate this belief. Sensing an increased threat to the nuclear family, Hollywood began to produce films symptomatic of a growing anxiety surrounding the possibility of a major shift in family structure. Movies like Baby Boom (Shyer, 1987) address the image of the new working woman trying to find a fulfilling balance of career, family, and an active love life. In these movies the three aspects ultimately require too much time and energy to coexist, forcing the character to prioritize among them. In Motherhood and

Representation, Kaplan notices a shift in the discourse surrounding motherhood as represented in films like The Good Mother (Nimoy, 1988) and Baby Boom. She writes that the films reflect a new perception of motherhood, once thought of as a duty, now viewed as fulfilling in and of itself.20 For example, in Baby Boom J.C. Wiatt (Diane

Keaton) changes her focus from her job to a newly inherited baby, a move that leads to

19 Eugen Lupri, “The Changing Positions of Women and Men in Comparative Perspective,” The Changing Position of Women in Family and Society, ed. Eugen Lupri (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 30. 20 Kaplan, 194. 24 her termination at work. When her time at home leads to a successful home business and draws the attention of her former employers, J.C. chooses her new, family-centric life over the opportunity to return to her old job and the hectic lifestyle that comes with it.

In Dreaming Identities: Class, Gender, and Generation in 1980s Hollywood

Movies, Traube writes that movies like Working Girl (Nichols, 1988) and Fatal

Attraction (Lyne, 1987) demonize women as “the source of social problems,” a reflection of a growing mistrust in women “mediated by interrelated social conditions, including the women’s movement, changes in family structure, and the increased participation of women in the work force.”21 Traube contends that Hollywood movies sought to capitalize on the growing anxiety surrounding ambitious, career-minded women’s abandonment of the home in favor of work. Three Men, Kindergarten Cop, and Mr. Nanny approach the same anxieties as the female labor participation films that Kaplan and Traube dissect, but do so from a different angle. Both sets of films emphasize what they see as a need for women in domestic spaces, feeding what Margaret Benston calls the ‘cult of the home.’

Benston’s article “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation” focuses on how the roles within a family continue to support the notion of men’s wage labor work as superior to the work of women, which results in their continued oppression. In the traditional two adult family household, the man earns a wage for his family while the woman maintains the house. As such, each household constitutes an economic unit.

Though both roles are necessary in order for the unit to persist, the man’s role as the source of social production gets prioritized over the woman’s role. This belief minimizes

21 Elizabeth G. Traube, Dreaming Identities: Class, Gender, and Generation in 1980s Hollywood Movies (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 121-2. 25 the fact that domestic labor, while unpaid, is necessary in order for the man to succeed in his own work.

By working at home and performing domestic labor, women replicate labor production in the home. Benston writes:

The ‘cult of the home’ makes its reappearance during times of labor surplus and is used to channel women out of the market economy. This is relatively easy since the pervading ideology ensures that no one, man or woman, takes women’s participation in the labor force very seriously. Women’s real work, we are taught, is in the home; this holds whether or not they are married, single, or the heads of households.22

All three films derive humor from perpetuating the stereotype that men do not belong at home, a stereotype that inevitably points towards the necessity of women at home rather than producing surplus value in male dominated labor sites. In order for women to contribute in the market economy, they would have to abandon these jobs that, as demonstrated in the films, men do not find themselves equipped to take over.

By making light of men in domestic labor situations, the films internalize traditional gender roles and perpetuate the notion of natural gender difference. In doing so, they are complicit with the idea that women should be responsible for domestic labor, a relationship that is crucial to the success of capitalism. The unemployed, and women in particular, act as a reserve army of labor to be used in times of need.23 Their presence as a stable source of reserve labor situates employers in a position of power and guarantees the low cost of labor. Domestic labor, overwhelmingly performed by women, also serves

22 Margaret Benston, “The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation,” Roles Women Play: Readings Toward Women’s Liberation, ed. Michele Hoffnung Garskof (Belmont: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1971), 200. 23 Michele Barrett, Women’s Oppression Today: Problems in Marxist Feminist Analysis (London: Verso, 1980), 158.! 26 as a necessary source of free labor. By keeping women at home, men exploit women for free labor and keep them economically dependent on their husbands.24 The ideology of the films supports the conditions necessary for capitalism to flourish and, consequently, men to remain in a dominant position within the family unit. In order to accentuate this discrepancy between domestic labor and masculinity, the films emphasize the manliness of their lead actors.

1.2 Sending in a Man’s Man to Do a Woman’s Job

Each of the films I will discuss below establishes the male characters’ masculine prowess before thrusting them into women’s work. The opening title sequence of Three

Men features the light-hearted song “Bad Boys” by The Miami Sound Machine playing under an array of ridiculous visual jokes meant to establish these men as promiscuous playboys. In one sequence, Ted Danson welcomes into the apartment a woman wearing a buttoned up blouse and thick glasses, her hair tied into a tight bun. As soon as the pair closes the door, they reemerge, presumably the next day, and the woman’s appearance has completely changed. Her hair is now down, her blouse is unbuttoned, and her glasses are nowhere to be found. She and Danson share a long kiss and she backs out of the frame, maintaining eye contact as she exits the apartment, as though Danson has her in a lust-induced trance. In another brief sequence, Tom Selleck crosses paths with a female jogger only to turn around and chase her down in order to flirt with her. The film then shows the woman leaving the apartment, she still in her running clothes and he in street

24 Estelle B. Freedman, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), 59. 27 clothes. As she leaves she taps her heart with her hand and makes a face as though she can’t believe she was lucky enough to spend time with a man like Selleck. At this point the viewer still does not know these men as actual characters with names. The film introduces them not as Jack, Peter, and Michael, but as Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, and

Steve Guttenberg, expecting and encouraging the viewer to project the past television and film roles of the actors onto their current characters.

The panic these characters experience later in the film as unprepared babysitters and caretakers is a direct contrast to the types of self-confident characters for which the three actors are best known. From 1982 to 1993 Ted Danson starred in Cheers as Sam

Malone, a former professional baseball player and notorious womanizer. Tom Selleck is most often associated with his role as the title character on Magnum, P.I. Magnum, a role

Selleck played for the show’s entire run from 1980 to 1988, epitomized cool, driving around Hawaii in a red Ferrari. Steve Guttenberg starred in four Police Academy movies as a class clown in the years leading up to his role as a wise-cracking cartoonist in Three

Men. Though Guttenberg is less overtly masculine than his two co-stars, he still provides a confident, witty counterpart to his two roommates. The film’s opening credit sequence confirms that all three actors play character types similar to their past roles, tapping into the viewer’s associations for each actor.

Kindergarten Cop introduces police officer John Kimble as he tracks down and captures a criminal. While such a scene might serve as the climax of a typical action- packed Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, this sequence, which features prominently in the theatrical trailer, merely establishes the circumstances by which Kimble ends up teaching 28 kindergarten. The film largely relies on Schwarzenegger’s reputation as a Hollywood tough guy. Twins (1988), an earlier collaboration between Schwarzenegger and comedy director Ivan Reitman, relies on a similar comedic formula, pairing the former body builder with notoriously short comedic actor Danny DeVito. Kindergarten Cop creates an even larger juxtaposition between Schwarzenegger and a group of small children, a contrast through which the film filters much of its humor.

Mr. Nanny repeatedly reminds the viewer of Hulk Hogan’s masculinity and physically imposing stature. Hogan, one of the most popular personalities in the history of professional wrestling and a staple of the World Wrestling Federation in the 1980s, plays into his wrestling persona as an all-American tough guy; the opening credit sequence even uses a dream sequence as an excuse to feature Hogan’s character wrestling. In another early scene, Sean arrives at a job interview on a motorcycle, wearing an all denim outfit and brimming with overt masculinity. He provokes a parking lot attendant and security guard to attack him, beating them up in an assertion of his physical prowess.

The promotional materials for each film incorporate a similar strategy of emphasizing the fish-out-of-water scenario as fraught with comedic potential, largely due to the male actors in the title roles. In the theatrical trailer for Three Men, a voiceover announcing the names of the three lead actors precedes any images from the film. Mr.

Nanny’s trailer introduces Hulk Hogan not as his diegetic character, but as a professional wrestler. However, the Kindergarten Cop trailer is the most distinctly tactical of the group. Before showing Arnold Schwarzenegger in his modest teaching attire, the trailer 29 presents him in a more familiar outfit: a dark jacket and sunglasses. The shot offers a visual reference to his portrayal as the rugged, robotic title character from Terminator

(Cameron, 1984). In fact, the trailer splices in several clips from Kindergarten Cop’s action-heavy opening sequence, juxtaposed with scenes in which Kimble struggles to control the young students. Though his assignment as a kindergarten teacher is only a small part of the plot, his time in the classroom dominates the film’s story and trailer, serving as its primary selling point.

While the trailer emphasizes the comedic aspects of the film, it offers the potential for both action and romance as well. As Rick Altman shows in Film/Genre, Hollywood promotional materials sell films by working within several genres, attempting to attract viewers with various generic interests.25 By using shots from the opening sequence, the trailer appeals to fans of Schwarzenegger’s previous action films. By including scenes of women expressing interest in Schwarzenegger, the trailer implies a romantic facet to the story. Both of these aspects prove crucial in selling Kindergarten Cop as a film that places a typically tough Schwarzenegger character into an unfamiliar setting. The trailers present their stars not as mere men, but as pillars of masculinity, a dynamic that extends to the actual films.

Scholars like Bruzzi and Jeffords view the characters in Three Men and

Kindergarten Cop as examples of the New Man—a decided shift from hard bodied and seemingly indestructible male characters like Rambo and those often portrayed by

Schwarzenegger. Bruzzi sees Three Men as participating in the “commodification of

25 Rick Altman, Film/Genre (London: British Film Institute, 2009), 57. 30 masculinity and fatherhood in the late 1980s’ media,” a celebration of men who participate in childcare.26 Jeffords pulls from a wide range of films to demonstrate characters who undergo the transformation from “the hardened, muscle-bound, domineering man of the eighties into the considerate, loving, and self-sacrificing man of the nineties.”27 She asserts that Schwarzenegger’s transformation from 1980s hyper- masculine, hard bodied man into a sensitive, caring father in Kindergarten Cop provides a blueprint for men to transition into more family-centered roles in light of the Reagan administration’s emphasis of family values.28 Nicole Matthews comes to a different conclusion in her chapter on fatherhood and the New Man in family comedies. She uses contemporaneous discussions and film reviews of family comedies and fatherhood films to conclude “the new man, whether false prophet or real character, has faded from view.”29 Matthews views representations of fatherhood in Three Men, Kindergarten Cop, and similar films as a gateway for family comedies to present issues of responsibility, not just for the fathers watching, but for all viewers.30

While I agree with Matthews that viewing these characters as examples of the

New Man prototype proves problematic, I assert that these films are in conversation with each other due to their depictions of gender and labor. Fatherhood serves as a theme in

Three Men, but only marginally applies to Kindergarten Cop and Mr. Nanny. The most

26 Stella Bruzzi, Bringing Up Daddy: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Post-War Hollywood (London: BFI Publishing, 2005), 150. 27 Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 153. 28 Ibid, 144. 29 Nicole Matthews, Comic Politics: Gender in Hollywood Comedy After the New Right (New York: Manchester University Press, 2000), 131. 30 Ibid, 127. 31 interesting trait of the men in these films—Three Men included—is not that they are father figures, per se, but that they confront responsibilities such as diaper changing that the films present as feminine tasks. Reading the films as such reveals the contemporaneous state of gender relations and highlights the extent to which these films symptomatically absorb male anxieties surrounding the acceptance of the New Man role and its possible ramifications on traditional labor roles.

1.3 Reaffirming Domestic and Social Labor as Extensions of Gender

Each film puts the men in situations that underscore the importance of a strict adherence to the standards of traditionally gender-segregated jobs by highlighting how unequipped men are to handle children. The bachelors in Three Men and a Baby don’t know the first thing about raising a child and exhibit a startling display of ineptitude.

Mary’s mother Sylvia (Nancy Travis) leaves Mary on their doorstep because she “can’t handle (her baby) right now.” With Jack, the child’s unaware biological father, out of town, Peter and Michael scramble to provide care. Peter’s initial trip to the store for food and diapers leaves him overwhelmed by the volume of products available and, thus, the amount of knowledge necessary to perform the seemingly straightforward task. His conversation with a store employee only raises more questions, as he does not know enough about the child to contextualize the product information she gives him. As the

New York Times review for Three Men points out, “the joke becomes not just the 32 bachelor’s ignorance but the supermarket’s staggering abundance of baby supplies.”31

While the film pokes fun at Peter’s lack of basic knowledge about the baby for whom he is caring, it also reveals the fundamental truth that child raising is a full-time job that requires absolute dedication. In order for Peter to know which of the products are necessary for the well-being of the child, he must have an awareness of all the products available. This level of awareness makes the interchangeability of parents difficult. The abundance and range of products rewards those with an acute knowledge of what is available and precludes people like Peter from stepping into the role as temporary substitutes. In this way, the film comments on the rising demand for men and women to share social and domestic labor responsibilities by pointing out the level of expertise necessary to perform even the most basic chores associated with childrearing.

The humor in Kindergarten Cop works in much the same way as it does in Three

Men. Instead of infringing on the lifestyle of characters who enjoy the unattached single life, the film features a former bodybuilder who would be an intimidating presence to anyone except children. For much of the movie, Kimble’s hyper-masculinity, both in size and persona, serves as a hindrance to his ability to teach and acts as the butt of a number of jokes. He must adapt to his new role as the qualities that make him a good police officer initially fail to translate to teaching young children, as exemplified by the scene described in the opening paragraphs of this chapter.

31 Janet Maslin, “Movie Review: Three Men and a Baby (1987),” The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE3D9173DF936A15752C1A9619482 60, 25 Nov. 1987), 9 Jun. 2014. 33

As if the unusual circumstances weren’t obvious enough, peripheral characters repeatedly make blanket statements commenting on the type of person who ordinarily works as a kindergarten teacher. When Kimble requests to work alone on the assignment at the beginning of the film, the police chief immediately writes off the idea, claiming it’s

“not exactly a job for you.” He makes no further argument to justify his claim, as though it reflects an inarguable and undeniable truth. A few days after Kimble starts the job, the mothers dropping their kids off at school speculate about the extraordinary sight of a man with elementary school children. “What kind of man teaches kindergarten? He’s obviously gay,” one mother says. Her statement implies that the femininity she associates with gay men is a qualifying trait of those who desire to work with children. Even the principal of the school admits, “He looks a little odd.” All these statements draw attention to the supposed absurdity of a heterosexual man performing a traditionally female dominated job.

As contemporaneous reviewers were quick to point out, Mr. Nanny follows the same comedic formula as Kindergarten Cop. Early in the film most of the humor derives from the pranks the family’s two kids, Alex Jr. (Robert Hy Gorman) and Kate (Madeline

Zima), play on Sean in an attempt to get him to quit, turning his chiseled body into a canvas for physical mischief. 32 Though the kids in Mr. Nanny are more aggressively hostile towards Sean than the kindergarten students are towards Kimble, the film uses the

32 It is worth noting that Mr. Nanny largely follows the same story as The Toy (Donner, 1982), a film in which a rich father buys Jack Brown (Richard Pryor) to be his son’s toy. While Mr. Nanny contains an underlying tension because Hogan, a strong professional wrestler, is in constant physical danger at the hands of small children, The Toy features a similar tension predicated on Pryor’s status as a black man in a rich white man’s mansion. 34 physical contrast between the male lead and the children he cannot control as a comedic crutch. In one scene they electrocute Sean in the shower and in another they use magnets to manipulate the resistance of weights Sean tries to lift. These pranks undermine Sean’s authority as a domestic figure and without authoritative control, Sean proves essentially useless as a nanny.

Eventually the kids warm to Sean and decide to stop the dangerous pranks. Alex

Jr. even remarks, “I’ve got to admit, he’s one tough mother.” Once they accept Sean as a suitable nanny, he takes on a maternal function in the family, a combination of the roles the men undertake in the other two films. Despite his reluctance, Sean eventually sacrifices conventional notions of masculinity for a position that requires such a sacrifice.

He performs tasks clearly out of his comfort zone, such as singing and kissing Kate’s doll, but eventually warms to his new role. Mr. Nanny frames these events not as a man embracing his softer side—a transformation into the New Man—but as an additional opportunity for humor through contrast. Sean exaggerates his appearance and actions for comedic effect, particularly in light of his strong opposition to kids, a notion he expresses repeatedly throughout the first half of the film. For example, Sean dons a pink tutu and pink tights in the film’s most enduring image, one repeated in both the trailer and on the cover of the film’s VHS. In another scene, he practices ballet with effeminately stylized curly hair. His willingness to entertain the kids only extends to daughter Kate, as his interactions with her present the most potential for gender-bending comedy. Mr. Nanny depicts Sean not as a character realizing he need not constantly project masculine prowess, but as a man who performs femininity just as he performs masculinity. In doing 35 so, the film undermines not only Sean’s transformation, but also the New Man archetype itself.

1.4 Measured Success and Inconclusive Conclusions

The male characters in each film improve at their jobs and ultimately come to enjoy the roles that initially repel them. However, the films undercut this success in two crucial ways. By tying success to the assistance of female characters, the films still support the notion that women are better suited for their jobs. Moreover, the films avoid specifying to what extent, if any, the male characters will continue working with children.

Instead, their conclusions address problems with single-parent households, reinforcing their own ideology tied to the nuclear family.

In “Three Men and Baby M,” Tania Modleski uses a psychoanalytic approach to argue that Three Men functions as a male fantasy. She concludes that “it is possible, the film shows, for men to respond to the feminist demand for their increased participation in childrearing in such a way as to make women more marginal than ever.”33 I argue that the function of the female characters in all of these films is to provide crucial assistance. The men in each film try to enlist the help of women, endorsing the idea that women are more inherently inclined to work at home and with children. In Three Men, Peter looks to his girlfriend Rebecca (Margaret Colin) for help after several days of relentless chores and tasks related to the wellbeing of the baby. However, when he admits that he only asks

Rebecca because she is a woman, she refuses to help. A female neighbor conveniently

33 Tania Modleski, Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a “Postfeminist” Age (New York: Routledge, 1991), 88. 36 volunteers to watch Mary, which allows Peter and Michael to go to work. Later in the film Jack seeks help from his mother, who sees through his thinly veiled attempt and, like

Rebecca, denies his pleas. Despite the men’s appeals, the film allows them to receive only as much help as they need to keep their jobs, demonstrating the necessity of domestic labor for capitalism to succeed. Were the female characters to help the men beyond what the plot required, the potential for humorous and embarrassing situations involving the incompetent men would be drastically limited.

John Kimble also looks for guidance to improve his predicament. After several disastrous days of teaching, Kimble complains to his partner Phoebe (Pamela Reed), a former elementary school teacher, “it is your job and I’m stuck with it.” Phoebe advises

Kimble to handle the classroom like a police situation, advice that singlehandedly helps turn around Kimble’s performance. The fearless attitude Phoebe instructs Kimble to adopt is not much different from his original approach. Nevertheless, she instills the confidence in Kimble necessary for him to succeed in the classroom and, by extension, as a police officer. In the same scene, Phoebe reassures Kimble that he is “going to be back to dealing with junkies and murderers in no time.” The remark exemplifies the humor in the film’s basic premise as well as Phoebe’s role as a female guide. In Mr. Nanny, Sean confesses to Corinne (Mother Love), the family chef who gives him his titular moniker, that he cannot handle the job anymore. She gives Sean critical advice and appeals to his sense of pride. Her string of insults motivates him to continue working long enough for the two kids to accept him as a household presence. Like Kimble, he looks to the closest 37 woman in his life for direction and receives the advice and motivation necessary to succeed at a job for which he feels unfit and comes close to quitting.

Despite the mild success that the men in each film enjoy, in large part because of the women who help them along the way, the films demonstrate a decided interest in preserving the nuclear family and ideals thereof. This claim is further supported by the film’s depiction of single parent families. In various ways, each story presents the task of raising children alone as improper at best and impossible at worst, thus reiterating the necessity of the nuclear family and conventional familial roles. Additionally, the films tie narrative closure not to the success of the men in their tasks, but to large familial changes that would prevent the men from undertaking such roles in the future.

When Sylvia returns to claim her daughter near the end of Three Men, she explains that she intends to return home so that her family can help raise the baby, a job she cannot do on her own as she hopes to pursue a career. Her status as a single mother, which initially thrust the bachelors into their domestic situation, severely restricts her options as both a mother and an employee. Jack and Michael support Sylvia’s predicament, the former stating, “we know how hard it is,” while the latter continues,

“yeah, there were three of us and we could hardly manage.” Having experienced the difficulties and rewards of raising a child firsthand, the men sympathize with Sylvia and offer to let her move into their spacious apartment, an arrangement that presumably allows all four to work and take care of Mary without any of them sacrificing their careers. Three Men ends with Sylvia tearfully agreeing to the generous offer, allowing the film to conclude without exploring the dynamics and responsibilities of such an unusual 38 situation. Instead, the film relies on the viewer’s assumption that four adults will be enough to shoulder the child rearing responsibilities, allowing all four individuals to maintain jobs outside the home.

While the group will not form a traditional family, Three Men offers no realistic solutions to single parenthood either. Sylvia’s insistence that she continue working almost drives her to rely on the charity of her parents. Only the narratively-motivated offer of the three men saves her from choosing an otherwise unavoidable last resort. The film’s conclusion works because the story’s circumstances allow Sylvia an unusual path that single parents normally cannot take. Nevertheless, the multi-parent home is restored and Sylvia avoids the sacrifices the film views necessary of the single parent.

Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller), a single mother in Kindergarten Cop, lives in the film’s remote setting because she and her son are running from her dangerous ex- husband, the man from whom Kimble is assigned to protect them. Like Sylvia, the pair relies on charity, living in a friend’s house in exchange for general home upkeep. The film depicts both Joyce and her son as fragile, withdrawn individuals in a constant state of paranoia. Without a man at home they are not a strong enough unit to keep Joyce’s deranged ex-husband at bay. This cat-and-mouse situation leaves her in a weak, submissive role, one from which she needs saving in order for the film to achieve closure.

Eventually Kimble and Phoebe apprehend Joyce’s ex-husband, though Kimble is shot and injured in the process. There are a number of unanswered questions when

Kimble returns to the school to visit his old class in the film’s final scene. Kindergarten

Cop addresses uncertainties surrounding Kimble’s budding romance with Joyce while 39 ignoring questions regarding his professional future. In the final shot, Kimble embraces

Joyce as his former students, and their new teacher, applaud the romantic gesture. The film is far more invested in implying a romantic, domestic relationship between Kimble and Joyce than indicating that Kimble will return to teaching. The ending suggests that

Joyce and Kimble will form a two-parent household, saving Joyce from a life of dependency and fear. Whether Kimble has any interest in returning to teaching remains a mystery, particularly given the prominence of the new teacher in the final scene.

Kindergarten Cop ties narrative closure to the familial consequences of its ending. In not addressing the gender and labor issues that serve as a theme throughout, the film demonstrates a lack of concern regarding these issues outside of invoking them for comedic purposes.

Mr. Nanny is the most directly critical of the three films in addressing the shortcomings of single parent households. The two children that Sean gets corralled into watching belong to Alex Mason, Sr. (Austin Pendleton), a widower and wealthy executive of a computer tech firm. Although Mr. Mason’s job provides for the family financially, it also takes him away from his son and daughter. As a result, the kids play pranks on their nannies in an attempt to get the attention of their constantly distracted father. For example, after one particularly dangerous stunt, Mr. Mason returns home from work to find his recreation room in shambles. Alex Jr. brags to his father about their prank while Kate giddily asks, “Are you going to punish us?” When their father brushes off the prank and dismisses himself to do more work, Sean openly questions his decision, insinuating that his kid’s lack of discipline is a direct result of his being too busy for 40 them. Mr. Mason candidly tells Sean, “You don’t know what it’s like raising kids alone,” to which Sean replies, “If you can’t give these kids what they need, get rid of them!”

Kate overhears the conversation and laments to her brother, “I guess he really doesn’t care about us.” The exchange between Sean and Mr. Mason demonstrates that Mr. Mason cannot successfully maintain his career and be the parent his children need him to be, a conclusion the film spells out for the viewer.

Mr. Nanny lacks the coherence of narrative closure achieved by the other two films. Unlike Three Men and Kindergarten Cop, the film does not conclude with the formation of a new multi-parent household; however, the film’s ending suggests major changes within the family dynamic. Sean’s manager, a seldom seen background character responsible for finding Sean the nanny job, inexplicably becomes romantically involved with Corinne, the family chef. Moreover, the film emphasizes that Mr. Mason has learned how to be a more attentive father to his two children through the lessons Sean imparts during his time as nanny. Most importantly though, Sean says goodbye to the family after saving them from Mr. Mason’s villainous rival. Though the film ascribes his quick departure to a vacation, it intentionally avoids specifying whether Sean will return to the family and if so, in what capacity. Again, the film assigns more value to demonstrating the ways in which the family itself changes than in clarifying whether Sean will continue his domestic role within the family.

In all three instances, the films present single parent households as a flawed dynamic in need of salvation. The men in Three Men and Mr. Nanny fill roles left by absent mothers to help with inadequacies at home. Kindergarten Cop takes a different 41 route to arrive at the same conclusion by showing how weak and incomplete Joyce’s family is without a father figure. The completion of the family offers narrative closure and emphasizes the importance of a multi-parented household, both for the wellbeing of the children and the professional prosperity of the parents. In failing to address the extent to which the men will continue their work with children, the films suggest that narrative circumstance, not a change in attitude, is responsible for their brief stints in domestic labor.

1.5 Conclusion

As noted, the films discussed in this chapter were not the only Hollywood movies symptomatic of anxiety from shifting labor roles, but they demonstrate a shared and deliberate ideological approach to preserving the nuclear family and its dynamics.

Between 1970 and 1990, the percentage of women in the United States labor force increased each year.34 Whether by coincidence or causation, the percentage of women in the work force decreased in 1991, the only decrease between 1970 and 2000, and significantly slowed by the start of the 1990s.

The effort the films put into validating the importance of the nuclear family points towards an invested interest in stagnant, traditional gender roles. As demonstrated, the patriarchal family structure heavily favors men and ensures both steady male employment and the economic dependence of women on their husbands in male-female

34 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” BLS Reports: Report 1040 (2012): 11, (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2012.pdf), 11 Jun. 2014. 42 marriages. By simultaneously emphasizing the importance of domestic labor to the family unit and suggesting that men lack the instincts to participate in domestic labor, these films present familial gender roles as natural and vital, albeit in opposition to social progress.

CHAPTER 2: COMBATING THE CRISIS: FIGHT CLUB, AMERICAN BEAUTY, AND

THE ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO PROGRESSIVE GENDER RELATIONS

Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) follows the transformation of the Narrator (Edward

Norton) from a timid and frustrated man to a more confident and gratified individual.35

When his condominium is destroyed, the Narrator moves into a dilapidated house with

Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), his vividly imagined alter ego. Unaware that Tyler is merely a manifestation of his own absent assertive qualities, The Narrator acclimates himself to

Tyler’s philosophies. Their cohabitation inspires the Narrator to reject traditional notions of consumerism, which eventually leads him to leave his job as a recall coordinator for a car company.

While the Narrator quits in order to free himself from the servitude of consumption based labor, he does so with the hostility of a disenfranchised man who, upon realizing his job no longer serves as a path to the owning class, nevertheless feels entitled to something extra and acts on that entitlement. In a conversation with his boss, the Narrator offers to withhold knowledge about the ethically sketchy financial motivation that serves as the bottom line when deciding whether to issue a recall on potentially fatal vehicles. When his boss fires him and calls for security, the Narrator starts to fight with himself and frames his boss for the physical damage. He leaves the office with a computer and one year’s salary.

35 The name of Edward Norton’s character is never mentioned. I will refer to him as “the Narrator” throughout this chapter.! 44

The film intends for the scene to be read as a moment in which the exploited worker frees himself of the morally questionable corporation, but the means the Narrator uses to get what he wants suggests the same level of entitlement that drives William

Foster’s (Michael Douglas) violent rampage in Falling Down (Schumacher, 1993). The difference is that Fight Club encourages the viewer to admire the Narrator’s deeds and relies on his likability as a character and a narrator to justify his actions. He uses violence—a tool obtained at the all-male fight clubs he starts—to give himself an advantage over the company for which he works. Moreover, in resorting to blackmail and thus not exposing the bottom line ethics of the car company, the Narrator demonstrates a selfish instinct at the expense of public safety. Nevertheless, the film continues to frame him as the hero. In American Beauty (Mendes, 1999), Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) showcases a similar self-absorbed drive, but does so at the expense of his family. Erica

Arthur’s “Where Lester Burnham Falls Down: Exposing the Façade of Victimhood in

American Beauty” argues that American Beauty uses filmic strategies to present Lester as a sympathetic character. This portrayal allows the film to justify transgressive actions not dissimilar to those of Foster in Falling Down.

My argument proposes a similar dichotomy that extends to all four of the films I will discuss—Fight Club, American Beauty, Falling Down, and In the Company of Men

(LaBute, 1997)—each of which addresses a “crisis of masculinity” in their central characters. The male protagonists try to restore agency in their lives by either lashing out or rising above the circumstances of the crisis in a concerted effort for self-improvement.

The films I classify as the former—Falling Down and In the Company of Men—challenge 45 the viewer to empathize with their contemptible protagonists while Fight Club and

American Beauty, films that fall into the second category, frame the actions of their male characters as admirable, even allowing the Narrator and Lester to narrate their own redemption stories via flashback voiceover. I will argue that these actions and identifications can be read in tandem with social and cultural crises of masculinity at this particular historical moment. When analyzed within this context and contrasted with

Falling Down and In the Company of Men, Fight Club and American Beauty exhibit similar approaches to addressing male crisis, predicated on the strategy of sympathizing with and providing role models for disenfranchised men. The two films attack the contemporary landscape of late capitalism by using facets like consumerism and labor as stand-ins for what they see as the oppressive aspects of the crisis of masculinity. This strategy becomes problematic as the films closely associate women with consumerism, allowing the texts to align a rejection of consumption with a hyper-masculinity that imagines a world without women. Rather than critique the crisis of masculinity or adapt to changing circumstances, Fight Club and American Beauty offer male characters who defiantly oppose those circumstances and in doing so, create a detrimental rallying cry for disenfranchised men.

All four crisis films are aware of the social climate in the 1990s, but Fight Club and American Beauty insert themselves into the discussion rather than merely offering a mirror of the event. Often analyzed in terms of the crisis of masculinity, Fight Club and

American Beauty are indicative of an intermediate period within a larger trajectory of change in gender relations. Unlike Falling Down and In the Company of Men, these two 46 films use the anxieties emanating from the crisis to reclaim an advantage white men never really lost and frame that reclamation as positive, offering the crisis as an opportunity as opposed to a setback.

2.1 The Crisis: Perception as Reality

In order to demonstrate the ways in which the films address the crisis of masculinity, I must first explore the contours of this crisis as it emerged in the discourse of 1990s American social and political life. The suitability of using the term “crisis” to describe the fading cultural dominance of white, heterosexual, middle-class men has been deservedly questioned.36 However, my approach to the concept of a crisis in masculinity reflects Sally Robinson’s view in Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis, that “the question of whether dominant masculinity is ‘really’ in crisis is…moot: even if we could determine what an actual, real, historically verifiable crisis would look like, the undeniable fact remains that in the post-liberationist era, dominant masculinity consistently represents itself as in crisis.”37 Like Robinson, I focus in this chapter on the representation of a crisis rather than on the underlying reality of that representation.

Throughout the 1990s, books like Robert Bly’s Iron John: A Book About Men and popular newspaper and magazine articles began a narrative regarding shifts in contemporary masculinity. A conscious push towards the cultural inclusion of those who

36 Although the “white, heterosexual, middle-class” distinction is an extremely important one and not simply the convergence of three separate identities, but one collective identity, I will simply say “white men” throughout the rest of the chapter. This will refer to “white, heterosexual, middle-class men” unless otherwise stated.! 37 Sally Robinson, Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 11. 47 did not identify as white, heterosexual, and male, as well as the increased value placed on diversity in the workplace, threatened the power of white men and the advantages that came with assuming the normative position. As a result, white men began to feel a sense of vulnerability associated with their identity. Nowhere are the causes and contributing factors of this crisis more thoroughly explained than in Susan Faludi’s 1999 book Stiffed:

The Betrayal of the American Man. In Stiffed, Faludi dissects different aspects of social constructs, how they contribute to contemporaneous gender relations, and the effect this had on a generation of men. Faludi argues that while white men still dominated the most powerful positions in spheres like business and politics, most men no longer felt the sense of power that previously came with being a white male. She equates the struggle of men in the 1990s to that of the housewives interviewed and analyzed by Betty Friedan in The

Feminine Mystique, a comparison that Faludi credits with helping guide her research. She writes:

Instead of wondering why men resist women’s struggle for a freer and healthier life, I began to wonder why men refrain from engaging in their own struggle. Why, despite a crescendo of random tantrums, have they offered no methodical, reasoned response to their predicament? Given the untenable and insulting nature of the demands placed on men to prove themselves in our culture, why don’t men revolt?38

Faludi argues that whereas women responded to their dissatisfaction with the second- wave feminist movement in the 1960s, men have no “alternative vision of manhood” towards which to strive.39 Both Fight Club and American Beauty respond to this sentiment by presenting their male characters as “crisis conquerors.” These films sense a

38 Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (New York: William Morrow, 1999), 40. 39 Ibid, 41. 48 vacancy and try to fill it with protagonists who find themselves in a similar position as those interviewed in Stiffed, only to rise above those same circumstances they view as oppressive. In doing so the films validate the persecuted positions of the male viewers and demonstrate how those viewers can imitate the successful transformations of their protagonists.

Statistical evidence suggests motivation for the anxiety felt by white men.

Throughout the mid to late 1990s women continued to enter the workforce at a steady rate and by 1999, sixty percent of the female population in the United States sixteen years old or older were a part of the labor force, still the highest annual percentage over the past forty years.40 This increase of women in the workforce also challenged the traditional role of men in the family. No longer able to tie their familial value to their status as breadwinners, many married men struggled without a unique role within the family.41

Additionally, white men felt increasingly threatened as gender and ethnic diversity became a virtue both culturally and at work. In White Men Aren’t, Thomas

DiPiero provides a historical and psychoanalytic interpretation of the white masculine construct in order to demonstrate why contemporaneous men felt particularly vulnerable to these cultural shifts. He states that the value and power of identifying as a white man derived from white men defining themselves through their difference from women and persons of color. As culture moved away from considering white men as the “normative

40 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” BLS Reports: Report 1040 (2012): 11, (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2012.pdf), 11 Jun. 2014. 41 John Beynon, Masculinities and Culture (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2002), 77. 49 ground,” the familiar terms of masculinity changed as well.42 Men no longer knew how to be masculine.

This feeling of disorientation extended to labor, which exacerbated the effects of the crisis. Friedrich Engels writes of the disconnect the worker feels once the product becomes a commodity and the producer loses track of its use.43 Latham Hunter makes a similar argument when discussing 1990s “office movies,” applying the assembly line- based theories of Taylorism and Fordism to worker alienation, which she writes has only increased with the growth of capitalism.44 Hunter continues, arguing that consumption jobs, increasingly more plentiful than production jobs, traditionally suggest a more feminine realm. Faludi agrees, writing that although a culture “in which representation trumped production…was good for no one, of either sex, at least ‘femininity’ fit more easily into the new ethic.”45 Sentiments such as these frame shifts in labor as a male problem, often at the hands of women. While all four films feature a white, male office worker coming to terms with shifting gender roles and cultural expectations, only Fight

Club and American Beauty continually attack consumerism. Both films emphasize the independence of their male protagonists by pitting them against exploitative labor conditions and consumerism, facets that each film closely and deliberately associates with femininity.

42 Thomas DiPiero, White Men Aren’t (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 2. 43 Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (New York: International Publishers, 1942), 93. 44 Latham Hunter, “The Celluloid Cubicle: Regressive Constructions of Masculinity in 1990s Office Movies,” The Journal of American Culture 26, No. 1 (2003), 74. 45 Faludi, 451. 50

By and large the films use similar elements to portray the crisis of masculinity.

Male characters in crisis films are almost exclusively white, heterosexual, and middle- class. They occupy corporate jobs that virtually eliminate economic hardships, but rather than see their jobs as a source of financial stability, these men consider work a symptom of their alienation. This common trait underscores the different ways in which crisis films present male characters. Foster, for example, acts on his suppressed rage in Falling

Down, whereas the Narrator and Lester feel liberated when they quit their office jobs.

Fight Club and American Beauty frame the crisis as an opportunity rather than a hindrance, but do so in a way that validates the entitlement of their protagonists. The men in each crisis film personify the frustrations articulated by authors like Faludi; however, the way in which the protagonists approach their frustrations pivots on each film’s larger strategy regarding identification.

2.2 Identifying With the Male in Crisis

Both Falling Down and In the Company of Men depict male laborers struggling with a similar sense of powerlessness. The protagonists in these films resort to illegal or morally reprehensible acts that they consider justified in performing because they think of themselves as victims. Although these statements could just as easily be applied to the

Narrator and Lester, Falling Down and In the Company of Men limit the extent to which one can empathize with their male protagonists by framing their actions as particularly heinous and providing other characters with whom male viewers can identify. 51

Falling Down follows William Foster on a violent rampage after he reaches his breaking point with progressive society. Foster’s values and image—in particular his precise haircut and browline glasses—more closely resemble a television father of a

1950s sitcom than a contemporary office worker. Throughout the film Foster doles out punishment for large and small slights alike. The amount of intolerance present in his specific diatribes varies, making identifying with him a challenging task. For example, he makes the reasonable claim that children and families could make better use of the land occupied by a private golf course. However, other rants contain such overt racism and malice that even the most bigoted viewer would struggle to agree with him.

Several times non-white men find themselves victims of Foster’s outrage, though the film shows that his anger is not directed at minorities alone. In one scene Foster visits an army surplus store owned by a man who spouts racial and homophobic slurs in his brief time on screen. When the neo-Nazi storeowner tries to tell Foster that they are the same, Foster responds by identifying himself as an American and the storeowner as a

“sick asshole.” This sequence demonstrates that Foster sees his role in the rampage as reinforcing American standards and punishing those who differ from his more correct, idealized vision of America. His failure to distinguish convincingly his outlook from that of the neo-Nazi does more to associate the two extreme characters than differentiate them.

Foster’s warped morals and stagnant values cloud his judgment and fuel his sense of justification, even after repeated violent episodes. With genuine curiosity in his voice,

Foster asks a police officer at the film’s climax: “I’m the bad guy?” He continues: 52

“How’d that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I helped to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. Instead they give it to the plastic surgeons. You know they lied to me.” Foster’s statement supports Faludi’s claim that anger from the crisis of masculinity largely stems from men’s frustrations in trying to live up to inferred societal expectations and receiving no payoff for doing so. However,

Foster’s speech also demonstrates the level of entitlement that comes with such a mindset, a contradiction to Faludi’s assertion that “whatever the crisis was, it did not stem from a preening sense of entitlement and control.”46 That these expectations exist points towards the importance and privilege society gives to and places on white males. Men like Foster believe they enter a social contract with American society, the terms of which stipulate that if they align their values with those of post-World War II America, they will eventually be rewarded. The Reagan administration’s reemphasis on 1950s family values and gender roles only served to reaffirm these expectations for men. Yet, as American values diversified and changed, men like Foster failed to adjust. Foster’s urban surroundings irritate him throughout the film and constantly remind him of the disconnect between his standards and those of the world around him. By believing he has been let down rather than rewarded by America, Foster demonstrates the extent to which he feels entitled. His reaction to this entitlement—injuring and in some cases murdering people— is so extreme that the film challenges viewers to identify with Foster.

In the Company of Men features a character with a more tactical approach to regaining his lost sense of control and power. The film revolves around two white men

46 Ibid, 8. 53 sent to a corporate branch of their parent company on a six-week business trip. In the film’s opening scene Chad (Aaron Eckhart) implores his meek business partner Howard

(Matt Malloy) to help him with a scheme that will “restore a little dignity to [their] lives.”

Chad wants to find a woman for both men to romance and then dump simultaneously in order to multiply the effect of their rejection. Doing so, he contends, will help restore some balance to a societal power dynamic that is actively skewing away from them.

Like Foster, Chad embodies many of the views associated with male ‘victims’ of the crisis. Chad constantly says things that would make even the most misogynistic viewer cringe. For example, he tells Howard that the payoff from his plan will be that,

“[the woman will] be reaching for the sleeping pills within a week, and we will laugh about this ‘til we are very old men.” The film dares the viewer to identify with Chad, the repellant embodiment of the anxieties of the crisis. Where Fight Club and American

Beauty use voiceover to provide a representation of their male characters outside the damaging consequences of their selfish acts, Chad’s interactions with others are the only perspective the film allows of him. Thus, the film presents Chad as smarmy and unappealing in all the ways that the Narrator/Tyler Durden and Lester Burnham are inexplicably endearing.

Falling Down and In the Company of Men also offer alternative characters with whom the viewer can identify. Falling Down parallels Foster’s rampage with a retiring detective’s (Robert Duvall) last day on the job while Howard acts as a constant against which to compare Chad’s abhorrent behavior. In both cases the films provide respite for the audience in order to relieve them from what otherwise might be overbearing 54 antiheroes. As Nicola Rehling points out, Detective Prendergast makes several racist comments himself, but he nevertheless “is offered up as an example of how ordinary white men should manage difference.”47 These two men function as avatars for the viewers, but are deliberately bland characters intended to underscore the repulsive actions and attitudes of Foster and Chad.

Fight Club and American Beauty function through processes of identification aimed at male viewers who see themselves as victims of the crisis of masculinity. The success of this strategy as it relates to Fight Club is documented in Michael Kimmel’s

2008 book Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men in which Kimmel maps the topography of “Guyland,” the world young men occupy as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.48 To understand the mindset of young men entering this stage of development, Kimmel interviewed hundreds of males aged 16-26 on a variety of topics. He writes that during his research, he was, “constantly struck by how strongly so many young men identified with Tyler Durden.”49 Kimmel contends that Fight Club captures the angry sentiment of a lost generation of young men, a claim supported by my textual analysis of the film.

Fight Club’s opening sequence immediately prompts the viewer to identify with the Narrator. The film begins with a scene in which Tyler holds the Narrator hostage.

Through voiceover, the Narrator explains that he and Tyler are waiting for a series of

47 Nicola Rehling, Extra-Ordinary Men: White Heterosexual Masculinity in Contemporary Popular Cinema (New York: Lexington Books, 2009), 33. 48 Michael Kimmel, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 4-6. 49 Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity and the End of an Era (New York: Nation Books, 2013), 219. 55 coordinated explosions, presumably organized by Tyler. As the Narrator wonders via voiceover how he came to be in this compromised position, the film cuts to a flashback of the Narrator at a testicular cancer support group. His commentary continues as he narrates the action on screen. When the Narrator reaches a point in the flashback in which he needs more context to continue narrating, he demands another flashback: “No wait, back up. Let me start earlier.” The film obliges, cutting to a scene in which the Narrator explains the circumstances of his insomnia. This sequence demonstrates the Narrator’s influence on the film’s narration. By controlling what information the viewer receives, he establishes himself as the character through whom the story will unfold. Furthermore, his ability to directly address the audience provides an avenue by which he can mold the viewer’s opinion of him. This privilege allows him to use his wit to come across as likable and relatable.

American Beauty uses a similar strategy with Lester. As Erica Arthur points out, the film’s depiction of Lester as a “lovable rogue” begins almost immediately.50 Lester narrates an early voiceover sequence in which he introduces himself and his family with a dry, self-deprecating wit. In the process, he tells the viewer that he will be dead in a year, establishing himself as an omnipotent narrator looking back on his life with the wisdom of hindsight. This early revelation presents a natural contrast between the voice of Lester that the viewer hears and the image of Lester that the viewer sees, teasing his personal transformation. At the end of the sequence, he says, “Both my wife and daughter think

I’m this gigantic loser, and they’re right. I have lost something. I’m not exactly sure what

50 Erica Arthur, “Where Lester Burnham Falls Down: Exposing the Façade of Victimhood in American Beauty,” Men and Masculinities 7, No. 2 (2004): 127. 56 it is, but I know I didn’t always feel this sedated. But you know what? It’s never too late to get it back.” His statement summarizes the feelings of disenfranchised white men who see themselves as victims of circumstance and invites those men to identify with Lester.

A middle-aged, suburbanite father, Lester extends victimization of the crisis to men who experience a sense of powerlessness both at home and at work. Because there is no mystery surrounding Lester’s ultimate fate, the film directs the viewer to observe how his transformation will occur.

These processes of identification permit the Narrator, Tyler, and Lester the flexibility to perform disgraceful acts not dissimilar from those of Foster and Chad.

Rather than frame their actions as misguided and brutal attempts to exercise entitlement, as happens in Falling Down and In the Company of Men, Fight Club and American

Beauty exhibit a clear partiality for their protagonists, allowing them an avenue by which to justify and excuse their actions. Having established a strategy for identification, the films pin the success of the Narrator and Lester’s transitions on a rejection of consumerism and provide a blueprint for male viewers to change their own lives and overcome the oppressive conditions of the crisis of masculinity.

2.3 Tyler Durden and His Protégé: Crisis Conquerors

Mike Chopra-Gant’s interpretation of Fight Club demonstrates the difficulty of applying a reading to the parodic text. Chopra-Gant focuses on how the film’s blurring of reality and representation dictates its presentation of the crisis of masculinity as experienced by the Narrator, and offers a convincing argument that the film restages the 57

Oedipus myth. The Narrator, unaware throughout most of the movie that he and Tyler are the same person, thinks that Tyler is maintaining a sexual relationship with Marla

(Helena Bonham Carter), a woman towards whom at times he is openly hostile. After finally discovering the truth about his alter ego, the Narrator destroys Tyler in the film’s conclusion and displaces him in the romantic relationship.

The reconciliation of the Narrator and Marla in the film’s final shot punctuates

Chopra-Gant’s claim that the film, “closely follow(s) the generic structure of the romance.”51 He maintains that in resorting to recoupling for narrative closure, Fight Club rejects the same revolutionary, anti-establishment claims that it makes throughout. He writes: “…critics who view the film as a kind of call to arms for disgruntled males and perceive a worrying celebration of male violence, misogyny, and neofascistic homosociality in the film’s superficial paean to a more authentic masculine experience actually have very little to fear from Fight Club.”52 Though it is hard to find fault in

Chopra-Gant’s reading of the film, his conclusion demonstrates why Fight Club proves tricky to approach from an academic standpoint. As Nicola Rehling articulates, “Fight

Club is a film that resists easy decoding, since it frequently undercuts its own seriousness.”53 Indeed, the film undermines its final shot of the reconciled couple by including several frames of an image of male genitals, a callback to an earlier joke.

Additionally, the Narrator tells Marla that “everything’s going to be fine” despite the fact

51 Mike Chopra-Gant, ““I’d Fight My Dad”: Absent Fathers and Mediated Masculinities in Fight Club,” Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema, ed. Timothy Shary (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013), 96. 52 Ibid, 98.! 53 Rehling, 68.! 58 that he will almost certainly be culpable for a wave of mass destruction he orchestrated while under the guise of Tyler. For these reasons, the narrative coupling in the film’s conclusion can just as easily be read as a parody of a romance.

Because so many viewers identify with the characters in Fight Club, popular interpretations of the film cannot be brushed aside as easily as Chopra-Gant attempts to do. The film resonates with the young men Michael Kimmel interviewed for Guyland, leading him to assert: “Fight Club has become the touchstone cinematic text of the guys in their mid- to late twenties.”54 Kimmel documents that many of those men participated in real-life fight clubs, popularized soon after the film’s release. The men Kimmel interviewed incorporated a number of the subject positions occupied by the

Narrator/Tyler into their own lives. To use the film’s conclusion as a means of discounting this message to a wounded masculinity ignores the ways in which many male viewers actively view the film within the context of their own experiences.

Fight Club stages the Narrator’s personal revolt around a rejection of consumerism and the late capitalist ideals tied to it. This rejection inspires him to quit his office job and motivates him to marginalize both Marla and women as a whole. As I will demonstrate, the film associates women and consumerism in such a direct way that it undermines its own critique of commodity culture. As a result, the film poses a crucial divergence away from possible reconciliation with the same societal shifts with which it struggles. Instead, the men posture their own strategies for self-improvement around these cultural changes that they view as impediments to their masculinity.

54 Kimmel, Angry White Men 60. 59

The Narrator acts as a substitute for the male viewer, incorporating Tyler’s advice as they might. Tyler acts as a grungy spiritual guide steering the Narrator through the potential pitfalls of consumer culture and pointing him towards more unmediated pursuits, namely starting fight clubs. Throughout the movie Tyler speaks largely in soliloquy-type speeches in which he makes large, sweeping claims about work, women, culture, and consumerism, requiring only a small window of opportunity to verbalize his insight on such topics. He makes one such speech to a roomful of men waiting for the start of fight club—a daily, male-only event in which two men at a time fight each other while the others watch. Tyler says:

I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. Goddammit, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man: no purpose or place. We have no Great War, no Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

The speech demonstrates the paradox at the heart of Fight Club. Tyler verbally articulates the reasons that many contemporary men feel marginalized, addressing those male viewers and the men in the room alike. In contrast, he lives a life unrestricted by consumption and immune to advertising ploys. He sees himself as free in a way that both the Narrator and the viewers who relate to the content of his speeches, strive to be.

However, it is impossible to watch Tyler’s speech and not be reminded that Brad Pitt, the actor portraying him, is a millionaire and among the most famous movie stars in the world. Twice named People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” Pitt in many ways 60 embodies the problems that his character Tyler pronounces. As Brian Baker points out, several visual puns emphasize “that what the Fight Club and Fight Club offers as representations of masculinity are not revolutionary, nor do they resolve the anxieties in contemporary masculinity, but can only offer restagings of the same commodification, and the traces of homoerotic desire through bodily marks of violence.”55 While I agree with the logic in Baker’s claim, again I want to use Kimmel’s research to point out the ways in which men connect with the ideas in the film. By directly addressing the concerns of the crisis of masculinity, Fight Club offers male viewers a protagonist who they feel understands their position as disenfranchised men and provides an approach that may help counter those adverse effects. This identification, in which Tyler verbalizes spectatorial anxieties, allows the viewer to occupy contradictory positions. They reject the ideals of consumerism, aligning themselves with the movie star who reaps the benefits of that same commodity culture. In doing so, they can oppose consumerism on a philosophical level and still justify the ways they partake in that same practice.

Complications with Tyler’s assertions go well beyond the actor saying them.

While surface level satire exists, there are also more disturbing ramifications of Tyler’s outlook. The Narrator’s transformation from “a thirty-year old boy,” as he calls himself, to a more confident and more self-aware man happens as a result of his rejection of consumption and embrace of a more violent lifestyle that the film marks as primal and masculine. By exhibiting consumer culture as a hindrance to the Narrator’s path towards manhood and contrasting it with the fight club, the film links consumerism to femininity.

55 Brian Baker, Masculinity in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in Popular Genres 1945-2000 (New York: Continuum, 2006), 79. 61

Fight Club even uses consumer products as a direct replacement for women, as in an early scene in which the Narrator says, “I used to read pornography, now it’s the

Horchow collection.” This connection frames women as blameworthy for the factors leading to the crisis of masculinity and encourages hostility towards women, aggravating an already destructive us-versus-them mentality.

Fight Club critiques consumerism by showcasing the Narrator’s obsession with consumption as a weakness and a symptom of his unhappiness. In their second conversation, the Narrator laments to Tyler that he was “close to being complete,” referring to his accumulation of clothes and furniture before his apartment was destroyed.

The Narrator defines himself by his possessions. Early scenes show him shopping through an IKEA catalogue while he snidely remarks via voiceover, “What kind of dining set defines me as a person?” He sees his condominium, and his life, as a project he needs to “complete” by amassing products. During the conversation Tyler oscillates between offering sarcastic sympathy and verbalizing the philosophy of his personal creed, finally summarizing his stance with one simple, easily consumable phrase: “The things you own end up owning you.” While Tyler often makes long speeches, Fight Club leaves the viewer with quotable sound bytes that are easy to digest and remember after watching the film. Tyler’s ideology is as complicated, or more often as simple, as the viewer makes it.

The Narrator turns his life around when he starts to live with Tyler and adopt

Tyler’s approach to consumption. The duo open and attend fight clubs, giving the

Narrator a purpose and filling the hole left by consumerism with a more rewarding endeavor. This violent, all-male pursuit draws an indirect, but undoubtedly intentional 62 association between women and consumption, one that is not without historical precedence. In Consumer Culture, Celia Lury outlines the close link between femininity and consumerism. Drawing on Janice Winship’s research on women’s magazines of the

1980s, Lury writes:

The sphere of consumption is held up as the arena in which women can selectively choose ‘options’ to express her [sic] own unique sense of self by transforming commodities from their mass-produced forms into expressions of individuality and originality. The magazine provides optimistic encouragement to keep on trying, offering examples of women who have ‘found themselves’ through the adoption of an individualized lifestyle.56

The film prolongs this strategy in which companies try to appeal to women by using products as a marker of classification and success. In Fight Club, this link between consumption and identity extends to the Narrator, who experiences the same type of false agency through his purchasing power at the beginning of the film. As his conversation with Tyler indicates, he too relies on the image in product advertising to translate to his own life once he buys the product. However, when Tyler proposes a different path towards agency, specifically by rejecting a need for material goods, the Narrator heeds his advice.

Lury explains that many of the commodities advertised to women are only used in relation to the family economy and serving others, often for home maintenance.

Furthermore, adverts help set the standard for beauty and, in suggesting that their products will make women more attractive, intimate beauty as a standard. They attempt

56 Celia Lury, Consumer Culture 2nd ed. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 124. 63 to manifest an insecurity in women and then propose a solution.57 Fight Club suggests that contemporary society has left men just as susceptible to the strategies of consumer culture. However, the Narrator escapes the potential downward spiral of consumption while at the same time using consumption as a weapon against women. In one of the few scenes featuring a woman other than Marla, Tyler and the Narrator sell bars of soaps to a high-end store. As a previous scene indicates, the material they need to make the bars comes from fat they steal from a liposuction clinic. The Narrator pronounces, “It was beautiful. We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them.” Tyler and the

Narrator exploit the oppressive dynamics of consumer culture after they remove themselves as potential consumers. Because the film places consumption in a feminine realm, the rejection of consumption is a remedy to the problems of modern life only available to men. Women are so closely tied to consumption that the film cannot propose a universal solution to the problems inherent with late capitalist modes of production.

2.4 More Than a Mid-Life Crisis: Lester Burnham’s Fight for Relevance

The protagonists in each film represent two different groups of men affected by the crisis. The Narrator, a thirty-year-old man, speaks to the concerns of men in their twenties and early thirties navigating adulthood for the first time while Lester Burnham’s crisis extends to suburban, middle-age family life. Though the Narrator and Lester take different paths to achieve contentment in their lives, they embrace and discard many of the same ideals along their journey.

57 Ibid, 127. 64

Whereas Fight Club presents Tyler as the channel for male revolution, Lester discovers his ability to change largely on his own. The turning point in Lester’s life comes when he watches his high school daughter’s (Thora Birch) dance performance and notices her friend Angela (Mena Suvari). After an awkward conversation in which

Lester’s enthusiasm exposes his lust for his daughter’s friend, he overhears Angela say of

Lester, “If he built up his chest and arms, I would totally fuck him.” This revelation gives

Lester a mission and purpose he no longer finds at home or at work. Over the course of the film he begins to make changes in his life, such as running and lifting weights, initially motivated by the possibility of sleeping with Angela. He adopts a more carefree mindset and, when acting on his instincts becomes intoxicating, makes larger life decisions with no cognizance or care about how they will affect his family. Eventually

Lester gets the chance to have sex with Angela, but passes on the opportunity. He realizes in a moment of reflection that the self-improvement was its own reward and, moments before he is killed, reaches a place of pure contentment.

American Beauty, a film about the perception of a seemingly perfect family set against a collapse of traditional social values, targets consumerism as a veil and fallacious replacement for success and happiness. The film makes even more direct correlations between women and consumption than does Fight Club, using Lester’s wife Carolyn

(Annette Bening) as a substitute for the negative consequences of consumerist culture. In the film’s opening voiceover sequence, Lester introduces Carolyn: “That’s my wife

Carolyn. See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs?

That’s not an accident.” This is the first of many instances in which the film passively 65 places the blame of Lester’s unhappiness onto women, most often his wife and her obsession with status and materiality. Carolyn, a competitive real-estate broker, is career driven and ambitious, two characteristics traditionally attributed to men and noticeably absent in Lester. She exists not as a fully-fleshed character, but as a foil to Lester.

The film reminds the viewer throughout how Carolyn assesses her own professional and familial success by how effectively she can project the image of success.

At a work party, Carolyn tries to micromanage Lester’s actions for the sake of her job, telling him pointedly, “This is an important business function. As you know, my business is selling an image. And part of my job is to live that image.” For the sake of her career,

Carolyn needs her family to participate actively in projecting happiness for others to observe. The straightforwardness with which she attempts to control Lester, and to a lesser extent daughter Jane, helps to mark Carolyn’s attitude as part of the problem in

Lester’s life.

In Lester’s opening voiceover, the film reveals that Carolyn is just as unhappy as her husband. Lester comments, “She wasn’t always like this. She used to be happy. We used to be happy.” However, while Carolyn experiences a transformation of her own, the result of an extramarital affair, the film undermines her resurgence and gives preference to Lester. Arthur notes a similar divergence between the approach the film takes towards each character, pointing out that this discrepancy is one of several ways in which the film tries to appeal to the viewer’s empathy in regards to Lester’s actions. Arthur argues that the film uses humor as a way to seduce the audience into “laughing with Lester at 66

Carolyn” (emphasis added).58 Additionally, Arthur observes that the film inverts “The

1950s stereotype of the oppressed suburban housewife,” a claim reminiscent of Faludi’s in Backlash, and frames Lester as “the victim of domestic containment.”59 By Arthur’s contention, the film complies with Lester’s characterization of his wife and does not allow Carolyn to defend herself, an opportunity that would force the viewer to see

Lester’s selfish behavior in a new light.60 American Beauty gives Lester agency to tell his story, denoting Carolyn’s own transformation as inferior.

While I agree with this assertion, my argument diverges from Arthur’s based on different readings of a crucial interaction between Carolyn and Lester. In a later scene,

Lester tries to initiate an intimate moment with Carolyn upon realizing she “look(s) great.” Lester slowly moves on top of her, wondering aloud, “When did you become so…joyless?” and reminiscing about when they were younger and more carefree. Carolyn allows Lester’s words to seduce her and starts to moan as he kisses her neck, but when the beer bottle in his hand catches her eye, she remarks, “Lester you’re going to spill beer on the couch.” Lester stops kissing Carolyn and stands up, saying, “So what it’s just a couch.” She insists that it is not “just a couch,” but a very expensive, custom-made couch, an argument that draws Lester’s ire. “This isn’t life! This is just stuff. And it’s become more important to you than living. Well honey, that’s just nuts.”

The scene perfectly demonstrates the different attitudes the film takes towards

Lester and Carolyn. This situation actually offers the potential for Lester and Carolyn to

58 Arthur, 135. 59 Ibid, 136. 60 Ibid, 136-7.! 67 benefit from their otherwise selfish actions, as they intersect on their separate paths towards self-improvement. Carolyn’s rejuvenated look, the consequence of her affair, draws Lester’s attention, and his newfound confidence seduces her. However, Carolyn’s materialism ultimately derails the potentially romantic encounter and with it, the last possibility for Lester and Carolyn to salvage their relationship.

Earlier in this same scene, Lester reveals that he bought a sports car, “the car (he) always wanted,” to Carolyn’s surprise. Arthur contends Lester’s “inability to recognize that his romantic transcendence is nothing more than a taste for ostentatious status symbols undermines the antimaterialist discourse that American Beauty seeks to disseminate.”61 I argue the significance of this scene is not Lester’s hypocrisy, but the way in which the film attempts to use the interaction to pinpoint the different attitudes that Lester and Carolyn have towards consumption. The film does not aim to critique materialism as a whole, as Arthur claims, but clearly criticizes Carolyn’s use of property to measure success. Through its portrayal of Carolyn, American Beauty positions consumerism within a feminine domain, providing an excuse for Lester to buy something overtly masculine to offset this association. The film privileges Lester’s attitude and romanticizes his purchase as an expression of his newfound freedom and agency. Lester’s privileged position, both as a white man and the protagonist, allows him to engage in the same superficial practice as his wife.

Like the Narrator in Fight Club, Lester quits his oppressive job and exercises a certain amount of entitlement in doing so. During a meeting with his supervisor Brad

61 Ibid, 137. 68

(Barry Del Sherman), Lester offers to keep quiet about his boss’ use of company money on prostitution for a year’s worth of salary. Brad, amused by Lester’s attempt to blackmail the company, tells Lester candidly that he will not receive his demands. Lester then tells Brad that he will allege that Brad offered to save Lester’s job in exchange for sexual favors. This power play, the equivalent of the Narrator’s fight with himself in his boss’ office, is enough to convince Brad to give in to Lester’s demands.

American Beauty frames Lester’s act as a moment of triumph, with light, fun music playing under Lester’s celebratory fist pump as he leaves the office for the final time. His quitting is meant to be a victory for all men who can relate to Lester’s occupational situation. As he tells Brad, “For fourteen years I’ve been a whore for the advertising industry.” Again, the film’s use of its protagonist as a heroic conqueror of the crisis of masculinity elicits damaging consequences in terms of gender relations. By resorting to a false sexual harassment claim, Lester cheapens the seriousness of sexual harassment both in the diegetic world and to the viewer. He repurposes a law meant to protect a historically discriminated group, in this case women, to his advantage.

This scene acts as a microcosm for the film’s view of the crisis of masculinity as a whole. As mentioned earlier, the cultural shifts that resulted in the crisis of masculinity can be attributed to an effort to include those who previously felt excluded because they did not identify as white, heterosexual, and male. These films demonstrate how white men used a projection of victimization to their advantage, just as Lester uses a policy put in place to protect women for his own purposes. Additionally, unlike the Narrator,

Lester’s stunt leaves his family in a compromised position. Over dinner, Carolyn 69 expresses her concern about becoming the only source of household income, a concern

Lester neither shares nor respects. Lester has but one concern—getting back what he lost—and the film treats this concern as paramount.

2.5 Conclusion

As many before me have pointed out, the feeling of losing cultural relevance at the heart of the crisis is not necessarily specific to men during the 1990s. In “The Psycho in the Grey Flannel Suit,” a chapter from his book Masculinity in Fiction and Film:

Representing Men in Popular Genres 1945-2000, Brian Baker argues that filmic depictions of the 1990s crisis of masculinity mirror issues broached by films of the

1950s. He evokes Fredric Jameson’s idea of ‘postmodern hyperspace,’ in which subjects feel alienated from society and unable to place themselves into a larger sense of contemporary history; Tyler induces this concept when he calls the men of fight club “the middle children of history.”62

Previous threats to popular constructs of masculinity can often be tied to temporary circumstances. However, the 1990s crisis cannot be easily attributed to a major event like World War II. Rather, the anxiety felt by white men in the late 1990s represents a growing dissatisfaction with late capitalism as a whole, though as the films demonstrate, anger from this discontentment is erroneously redirected at women. I tend to agree with Sally Robinson and others who argue that the crisis is a larger event than the

1990s timeframe with which it is often associated. As my previous chapter indicates, men

62 Baker, 76. 70 struggled with factors often attributed to the 1990s crisis in the 1980s and before. But unlike the films in Chapter 1, Fight Club and American Beauty recognize a need to transform masculinity in light of growing female participation in the workforce. As such, the two films stray from the traditional gender labor roles emphasized by films like Three

Men and a Baby (Nemoy, 1987) and Mr. Nanny (Gottlieb, 1993). Instead, the Narrator and Lester seek new masculine outlets explicitly separate from women.

Approaching the male protagonists in crisis movies as exemplars of occupational indifference and powerlessness as many scholars do only scratches the surface of the ways in which these films incorporate anxieties tied to the crisis of masculinity. While the men in these films are all office workers, this role does not truly define them. Above all, the protagonists in these crisis films are defined through their fraught relationship to their masculinity. Their monotonous jobs are a symptom of the helplessness they feel in their lives. As such, reclaiming agency requires more than simply quitting their oppressive jobs. These characters relocate masculinity from its role within the family unit to recapture and practice other kinds of sexual positions.

For the Narrator, that happens by rejecting women, namely Marla, and embracing an aggressive all-male culture. By using Tyler as a mask, as it were, the Narrator finds a way to receive sexual fulfillment without actually having to interact with women. He rejects consumerism, and by (the film’s) extension femininity, and finds a way to receive sexual gratification while he is in a state of insomnia. Thus, all his energy can be devoted to the violent homosociality of the fight clubs and the therapeutic function it serves in his life. 71

Lester regains control of his masculinity by embracing the primal impulses that motivate his desires. He starts to lift weights, pursues a teenage love interest, smokes marijuana, and starts to work at a fast food restaurant. Every decision he makes is prompted by his own needs, in spite of and at the expense of his family. He no longer defines himself as a father or husband, but regresses to thinking of himself as a man.

Because of this change in his mindset, he compromises his family both financially and on a personal level and acts as a sexual predator to a high school girl. As the narrator, however, he elicits sympathy, an act the film condones by allowing him to narrate the story.

Fight Club and American Beauty disguise the targets of their scorn by thrusting the brunt of their animosity onto work, as well as society itself. Consumerism is not a lone culprit in these films, nor are women. The two films set their sights unequivocally on commodity capitalism; however they associate commodity capitalism with women and femininity. They rarely link their oppressive work conditions and home life to women, but spend a considerable amount of time condemning a consumerist culture that the film and its characters closely link to women. Additionally, they do not need to evoke women directly because the viewer intuits these aspects of the crisis of masculinity while identifying with the Narrator and Lester.

By targeting women, the two films undermine their own overarching critiques of commodity capitalism. In arguing that consumerist ideals of modern capital are more closely related to women, the four crisis films—American Beauty and Fight Club in particular—frame the shortcomings of late capitalism as a male dilemma. In The Problem 72 with Work, Kathi Weeks outlines the ways in which work society dominates modern living and the problems that arise from this. Weeks deconstructs work society and traditional ways of thinking about labor in order to develop more apt ways to discuss the problems with work. She then offers, “postwork utopianism to replace socialism as the horizon of revolutionary possibility and speculation.”63 Were the films to take a similar approach they might have staged an effective critique of contemporary labor conditions; each film clearly demonstrates a desire to critique late capitalism. But by presenting consumerist culture as a male problem and treating the protagonists as heroes despite their selfish acts, Fight Club and American Beauty perpetuate a damaging us-versus-them approach to gender relations.

Films like Fight Club and American Beauty demonstrate how white masculinity splintered off into a completely separate direction in a vain attempt to reassert control.

The results of this split as demonstrated in contemporary cinema will be discussed in

Chapter 3, using films that recognize the progress of gender integration and evaporating male privilege and create an entirely new narrative space for men. Were the circumstances of the crisis—the perceived decentering of white men in favor of a more culturally diverse society—embraced and incorporated into modern constructs of masculinity, gender relations going forward likely would be very different. As it were, the two films helped perpetuate the perception of a white male crisis and served as an access point for many men struggling with the effects of their dwindling privilege.

63 Kathi Weeks, The Problems with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 30. 73

CHAPTER 3: FIGURING MALE UTOPIA AT THE END OF THE WORLD

In 2012 and 2013, the apocalypse served as the narrative backdrop for five comedic films: The World’s End (Wright, 2013), This is the End (Goldberg/Rogen,

2013), Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Scafaria, 2012), It’s a Disaster

(Berger, 2012), and Rapture-Palooza (Middleditch, 2013). By using disaster as a function for comedy, each of these films repurposes the apocalypse, a subject that many post-9/11 films treat as a stage for triumphant male heroics or through a dystopian pessimism. Read collectively, these films convey anxieties regarding social and economic concerns stemming from the perception of male disempowerment. Through the configuration of the apocalypse and their reductive approach towards female characters, they demonstrate a consistent narrative strategy of restoring male privilege.

One of the most significant aspects of these films is the way they address, or more often avoid, the topic of labor. Whereas labor serves as a fundamental channel by which the films in previous chapters position themselves in relation to masculinity, it only peripherally surfaces in the apocalypse comedies. When these films address the topic, they do so to emphasize the insignificance of capitalism in comparison with the more immediate life-and-death consequences of the apocalypse. This approach towards labor demonstrates a strategy shift for reviving male privilege and is directly related to the way in which these films consider the apocalypse and female characters.

All of these apocalypse comedies attempt to reestablish agency for their male characters. Two of the films—The World’s End and This is the End—revolve around 74 male friends navigating the beginning of the apocalypse together. In focusing on these core all-male groups, the films push female characters to the periphery where they serve as objects of desire or plot devices. As such, they function much in the same way as

Teresa de Lauretis outlines in Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. De Lauretis builds on Laura Mulvey’s concept of visual identification and considers how the role of narrative codes influence female spectatorship. She asserts that films sell the image and narrative position of the woman or women in the film, who represent narrative promise as the object to be looked at.64 The World’s End adheres to the narrative function of female characters as examined by de Lauretis and though This is the End tries to subvert those same expectations, the film nevertheless proves complicit with them. It’s a Disaster and

Seeking a Friend feature shy male characters who use the apocalypse to renew a sense of agency they lack in their pre-apocalypse lives, particularly in dating. Spurred by circumstance, these meek men act and ultimately benefit from their action.65

The congested release of these similarly themed movies is not a coincidence; they address related anxieties stemming from dissatisfaction with society, a catalyst for fictional utopian depictions. In creating a narrative space of male domination and exclusivity, imagined in an end of the world scenario, the films adhere to Fredric

Jameson’s notion of the apocalypse as a vehicle for utopia. Disaster allows the male characters in these films to live in a utopic world of their own making, no longer bound

64 Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 140. 65 For the sake of brevity I will not discuss Rapture-Palooza. The film takes a similar approach to gender relations, labor, and the apocalypse as the other four films and, therefore, would be a gratuitous example of the themes I will discuss. 75 by the aspects of society they feel hold them back. The apocalypse restores male privilege and, as a result, the male characters are more satisfied by film’s end despite the constant—and realized—threats of death and destruction.

As discussed in the previous chapter, the Narrator (Edward Norton) in Fight Club

(Fincher, 1999) retreats into male-only spaces and American Beauty’s (Mendes, 1999)

Lester (Kevin Spacey) finds solace in his strives towards self-improvement and his sexual pursuit of a high school girl. Their exploits speak to specific anxieties regarding a lack of fulfillment with their jobs and family life—topics broached by contemporaneous works like Susan Faludi’s 1999 book Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man. Though the very structural organization of modern society inherently favors men, and white men in particular, male disempowerment remains a pervasive topic in the social and political imaginary. In Angry White Men, Michael Kimmel writes that many white men see gender and racial equality as coming at the expense of their own privileged position; the perception of this occurrence trumps the actuality of the situation for these men.66

Kimmel himself declares, “The era of unquestioned and unchallenged male entitlement over,” a statement that reflects a noteworthy and growing sentiment.67 Though I will not go so far as to agree with his strong claim, the increasing number of challenges to male entitlement makes the opinion a hard one to ignore.68

66 Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity and the End of an Era (New York: Nation Books, 2013), 16. 67 Ibid, xi-xii. 68 See also Kay S. Hymowitz’s 2011 book Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys, Hannah Rosin’s 2012 book The End of Men: and the Rise of Women, and Gary Cross’ 2008 book Men to Boys: The Making of Modern Immaturity. 76

The apocalypse comedies discussed in this chapter are symptomatic of the anxiety emanating from this shifting power dynamic and the perception of male disempowerment. Though It’s a Disaster largely avoids gender tropes and sexist humor, it remains the exception that challenges and proves the rule. Additionally, the film still favors its male protagonist, demonstrating the extent to which male privilege is inscribed in film. I argue that these films incorporate the apocalypse as a way to reset cultural standards and reassert male dominance, both in their narrative structures and by using comedy—particularly jokes about rape—to undermine recent social progress in terms of gender relations.

3.1 Pushing the Boundaries of Late Capitalism

As previous chapters indicate, capitalist economics continues to present problems for constructs of masculinity, particularly as women enter previously male-dominated labor markets. Of course the domestic sphere and the production sphere have always had an overlapping, interdependent relationship. Both productive and reproductive labor remain necessities for the long-term success of a capitalist economy.69 Two major feminist strategies—seeking equal access to waged work and accessing value to unwaged domestic work—predicate themselves on an inherent value placed on work.70 The first strategy continues to yield noticeable results: in 2011, women accounted for 51 percent of

69 Leopoldina Fortunati, “Immaterial Labor and Its Machinization,” Ephemera 7, No. 1 (2007): 147. 70 Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 12-13. 77 all employed persons in the United States.71 Although one can interpret this statistic as an indication of occupational progress, women remain largely unrepresented in top corporate positions and, as a result, as top wage earners.72 Nevertheless, the strides towards labor equality made by feminism, albeit slow and unfinished, continue to complicate masculine constructs as they relate to women, work, and capitalism.

These apocalypse comedies abandon the strategy of linking labor and masculinity, in large part due to the continued prominence of women in the work force. The “labor role reversal films” of Chapter 1 focus on traditional gender roles as they relate to labor, and although office work is not the unadulterated source of anxiety in the films in

Chapter 2, it acts as a conspicuous presence throughout. Though concerns about work and gender still exist, the men in these apocalypse comedies look elsewhere in their attempts to strengthen male privilege, recognizing that restoring privilege via labor concerns is no longer a viable or effective strategy.

Though allusions to work are rare, labor does not go completely unaddressed in these films. The triviality of capitalist values in light of the apocalyptic backdrops often serves as a punch line. For example, Seeking a Friend opens with the news that a meteor will collide with Earth in twenty-one days, killing all human life. In the following scene,

Dodge (Steve Carell) returns to his desk job as an insurance adjustor. While fielding a

71 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” BLS Reports: Report 1040 (2012): 2, (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2012.pdf), 11 Jun. 2014. 72 Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, “‘It’s All About the Benjamins’: Economic Determinants of Third Wave Feminism in the United States,” Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration, eds. Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie, and Rebecca Munford (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 15. 78 phone call regarding the recent confirmation of doomsday, he explains the company’s stance on the situation: “I’m sorry sir, that’s not covered under your current policy. I’m afraid the Armageddon package is extra, yes.” He then continues to describe the benefits of said package, designed to protect a family from “apocalyptic disaster.” The conversation functions as an indictment of insurance companies and profit-driven business as a whole. Designed to reduce the financial consequences of catastrophe, his company has been rendered futile, unable to protect its customers from the ultimate disaster. Nevertheless, Dodge attempts to sell an enticing package intended to garner more revenue.

From the scene in Dodge’s office, the film cuts to a company-wide meeting led by an unnamed authoritative figure and attended by only a handful of employees, Dodge included. The man in charge offers “a few positions in upper management that have been made available,” including CFO. As the offer fails to draw any interest, the man sitting next to Dodge remarks, “Life has no meaning.” His comment invites a parallel between the meaning of life and capitalism. Their company and the formerly powerful positions therein offer nothing immediately necessary and, in a world in which living is the only priority, offer no meaning.

This sequence, and those of a similar nature in other films discussed throughout this chapter, demonstrates a growing frustration with the trajectory of late capitalism.

Men formerly enjoyed power that stemmed largely from their role as laborers.

Globalization, however, has obscured and diversified the once fundamentally homogenous proletariat. In Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri point out the need 79 to understand ‘proletariat’ as a broader category and acknowledge its role in globalization. Proletariat internationalism, they argue, existed as a cycle of related struggles, each providing a link to a longer chain of incidents that “drove the development of the institutions of capital and that drove it in a process of reform and restructuring.”73 Although the struggles were local, the causes were inextricably connected and called for a similar solution: deterritorialization. The composition of the proletariat has dramatically shifted with globalization. While it once consisted of an

“industrial working class” that “was often accorded the leading role over other figures of labor,” today that working class “has been displaced from its privileged position in the capitalist economy and its hegemonic position in the class composition of the proletariat.”74

In a 2005 article, R.W. Connell and Julian Wood explore the relationship between masculinity and globalization via interviews with Australian businessmen. Connell and

Wood write: “By virtue of the cultural, political, and economic dominance of the institutions of multinational business, the masculinity formed in their matrix is in a strong position to claim hegemony in the gender order of the societies they dominate.”75 They conclude that “global markets and transnational corporations provide the setting for a transformed pattern of business masculinity, which is achieving a hegemonic position in

73 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 51. 74 Ibid, 53. 75 R.W. Connell and Julian Wood, “Globalization and Business Masculinities,” Men and Masculinities 7, No. 4 (2005): 362. 80 global gender relations.”76 Essentially business managers have become a new model for masculinity. Globalization and late capitalism, once a hallmark of systematic male privilege, favor a certain type of driven, economically-minded person. The privilege that stems from capitalism still exists for men, but must be pursued in a heavily competitive profit-driven environment to be enjoyed at anything more than an institutionalized level.

The relentless drive for profit is at the heart of Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Late

Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. With the emergence of the global market comes a constant, 24/7 business day in which sleep interferes with profit. One can neither consume nor produce while sleeping and as a result, “nothing of value can be extracted from it.”77 As Crary points out, capitalists have worked for centuries trying to illuminate the night and maximize its potential for profit. He argues, “a 24/7 world is a fulfillment of that earlier project, but with benefits and prosperity accruing mainly to a powerful global elite.”78 The number of individuals who benefit from capitalism continues to dwindle.

That global elite, almost exclusively men, limits the potential power and influence of women despite strides made in other areas such as labor participation.

The male characters in the previous two chapters were caught in the midst of a change in the perception of work in relation to gender. Labor could no longer serve as the foundation for masculinity and without masculine constructs tied to work, many men struggled to redefine themselves and their place in families and society. The male characters in this chapter have a different relationship to work. In many of these films

76 Ibid.! 77 Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (London: Verso, 2013), 11. 78 Ibid, 17.! 81 men abandon their jobs, rendered meaningless by the apocalypse, for the sake of survival.

As I will demonstrate, these films fantasize the end of the world and thus, the only reasonable end to capitalism. When contrasted with the films in the previous two chapters, they feature a palpable lack of labor related concerns, which nevertheless draws attention to the few critical references to labor they do contain. Given the contemporary circumstances regarding capitalist production, the apocalypse comedies undertake a new strategy, figuring an absence of labor within an end of the world scenario and thus eliminating the conditions of “crisis” embedded in gendered labor transformations.

3.2 Breaking Away From the End of History

In “Future City,” Fredric Jameson writes about the ways in which we imagine history and the future, the latter of which is often thought of as a monotonous repetition because, as he says paraphrasing Slavoj Zizek, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.”79 The apocalypse provides an end to history, which is to say an end to the cycle society seems otherwise destined to repeat.

For this reason works of fiction often use the apocalypse as a means for wish fulfillment, an idea on which Jameson expands in Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called

Utopia and Other Science Fictions. Utopian depictions rely on difference from contemporary circumstances—economic, political, and social. Because globalization and capitalism are thought to be inevitable pillars of modern economics, they are often aspects against which utopias posit themselves.

79 Fredric Jameson, “Future City,” New Left Review 21 (2003): 76. 82

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama argues that liberal democracy may be an ideal incapable of being improved. Thus, mankind’s ideological evolution and history itself will come to an end. Fukuyama thought of history not as a series of events, but as “a single, coherent, evolutionary process,” in the same vein as

G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx.80 In this sense, historical progress has led to our contemporary situation, resulting in the spread of democracy and a global market.

Fukuyama points to recent attempts to break away from economic unification and the eventual failure of such systems in large part due to an inability to incorporate new technologies.81 As a result, Fukuyama claims: “the logic of modern natural science would seem to dictate a universal evolution in the direction of capitalism.”82 Hardt and Negri come to a similar conclusion in analyzing the contemporary worldwide economy:

“Empire presents its rule not as a transitory moment in the movement of history, but as a regime with no temporal boundaries and in this sense outside of history or at the end of history.”83 Capitalism sets itself up to be the apex of economic and social relations.

More recently, Mark Fisher builds on the work of Jameson and Fukuyama when he introduces the term “capitalist realism” to describe the pervasive, multi-pronged ideology of contemporary capitalism.84 The writers of the anthology Reading Capitalist

Realism approach capitalist realism as more of a concept and in J.D. Connor’s

80 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: The Free Press, 1992), xii. 81 Ibid, 93. 82 Ibid, xv. 83 Hardt and Negri, xiv-xv.! 84 Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative (Winchester: O Books, 2009). 83 contribution to the volume, he discusses the film Déjà Vu (Scott, 2006), the first major production filmed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Connor argues that Déjà Vu internalizes its relationship with financing. He points to the filmmakers’ insistence in the

DVD commentary track that New Orleans was the right place to shoot, though they never acknowledge the financial benefits of filming in Louisiana.85 In the wake of a financially devastating event, the film “benefitted from a city and state that could not afford to say no.”86 Connor writes that a relationship between money and a film’s thematic and aesthetic qualities is nothing new; however, the political and economic implications of the tax credit system on which the film capitalizes proves troubling.

Déjà Vu serves as a microcosm for the value contemporary Hollywood production places on financial stability. As Connor points out, film productions act as smaller corporations within a larger one, designed for profit.87 Marketers often divide potential audiences into four quadrants: women twenty-five years old or older, women under twenty-five, men twenty-five or older, and men under twenty-five.88 For years

Hollywood considered the latter group the most dependable on which to rely financially, although recent box office analysis highlights the negative consequences of depending on

85 J.D. Connor, “Like Some Dummy Corporation You Just Move Around the Board: Contemporary Hollywood Production in Virtual Time and Space,” Reading Capitalist Realism, eds. Leigh Claire La Berge and Alison Shonkwiler (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2014), 150. 86 Ibid, 153. 87 Ibid, 143.! 88 Tad Friend, “The Cobra: Inside a Movie Marketer’s Playbook,” The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/01/19/the-cobra, 19 Jan. 2009), 9 Jan. 2015. 84 this misconception.89 Still, Hollywood targets young male viewers more often than any other demographic; the first two films I discuss in depth below—The World’s End and

This is the End—showcase this preference for male audiences, as evidenced by casts that are almost exclusively men.

Fisher argues that dystopian films and novels once posited alternative depictions to reality, but now films like Children of Men (Cuaron, 2006) exhibit a tendency to amplify the negative aspects of current systems to figure their dystopias, thus highlighting the pervasiveness of capitalist realism.90 By incorporating catastrophe into their narratives, the films in this chapter answer the question posed by Fisher’s title.

These apocalypse comedies sense anxiety surrounding the ubiquity of late capitalism and respond to the idea that capitalism, and the ideals derived thereof, are unavoidable without apocalyptic transformation. They use the apocalypse as a figure for utopia and either eliminate labor or portray it as an aspect of pre-apocalyptic circumstances. While the lengths to which these films go in offering an alternative suggests the difficulty of reforming capitalism, their willingness to undermine capitalist ideology challenges

Fisher’s contention. Reading the films within this context underscores depictions of male angst stemming from a perception of eroding economic and cultural power. In order to

89 Pamela McClintock, “Box-Office Woes: Age and Gender Gap Helping Fuel Summer Decline,” The Hollywood Reporter (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office- woes-age-gender- 718812?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_head lines&utm_campaign=THR%20Headlines_2014-07- 16%2005%3A00%3A00%20America%2FLos_Angeles_acouch, 16 Jul. 2014), 9 Jan. 2015. 90 Fisher, 2.! 85 combat such anxieties, the films cling to notions of masculine superiority that rely on inscribed structures of gender inequality.

3.3 Pub Crawls and Alien Brawls: The End of the World as Male-Only Refuge

The World’s End and This is the End address the role of women on contemporary masculinity through their omission and objectification. In their strict adherence to traditional gender roles, the films exemplify Teresa de Lauretis’ theory of narrative identification, continuing a strategy of relegating woman to either objects of desire or obstacles. Labor, too, is largely absent from the films. The topic of labor appears at the beginning of The World’s End, as the film introduces the principal characters before the apocalypse starts, and at the end, when the film attempts narrative resolution, but remains absent during most of the film. Direct references to labor are even scarcer in This is the

End, though the nature of the film guarantees the ubiquity of the topic. The film blurs the line between actors performing a character and actors simply acting as themselves. By doing so, the film reflexively and continuously undercuts acting and filmmaking as types of labor.

In each film, groups of men find themselves at the beginning of the apocalypse and must survive the ordeal together, almost entirely in the absence of women. This scenario, in which meek men exclusively spend their time with other men, suggests a utopia for many of the male characters. However, as I will address later, the exclusion of women is not an entirely new strategy for comedies. David Greven refers to these films, which often revolve around average, every-man characters and star male actors who defy 86 the physical traits of traditional male lead actors, as beta male comedies.91 The difference between The World’s End, This is the End, and other beta male films of the 2000s and

2010s is the apocalyptic backdrop which provides an opportunity for otherwise hesitant male characters to perform heroic and sacrificial acts, albeit on a smaller level from those in pre-9/11 disaster films like Independence Day (Emmerich, 1996) in which male heroes save humanity. These two films posit that the apocalypse gives these men an opportunity to assert their masculinity that modern life and their jobs no longer offer.

In Manliness, Harvey C. Mansfield challenges the cultural strive for a gender- neutral society, arguing that this movement ignores distinct qualities that more inherently, though not exclusively, apply to specific genders; he focuses on characteristics he categorizes as manly. He writes:

The definition of manliness I have given—confidence in the face of risk—is composed of a number of qualities thought to belong to men. Some apply to all men, others only to certain men, manly men. All are thought to be more or less characteristic of men, not equally true of every man. These ingredients of manliness make manliness specifically male. Without them confidence could as well be womanly (and I have said there is a womanly confidence).92

Essentially, these two films support the flawed claim by Mansfield. Spurred on by the life-threatening circumstances, the characters in The World’s End and This is the End feed and promote the narrative that at their core, men possess a fundamental masculine quality that sets them apart from women. The apocalypse gives them an opportunity to exercise their intrinsic manliness.

91 David Greven, “American Psycho Family Values: Conservative Cinema and the New Travis Bickles,” Millennial Masculinity: Men in Contemporary American Cinema, ed. Timothy Shary (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013), 151. 92 Harvey C. Mansfield, Manliness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 23. 87

The World’s End revolves around five old high school friends returning to their hometown, the fictional English town Newton Haven, for a pub crawl. Gary King (Simon

Pegg) arranges the reunion in order to relive the best night of his life, one in which he and his friends attempted the Golden Mile—one pint of beer at twelve different pubs. Gary, the only man hell-bent on completing the challenge, constantly reminisces about memories from twenty years earlier while the other four men find Gary’s immature attitude and mindset exhausting. Over the course of the evening they realize that alien robots are replacing many of the townspeople with robot likenesses of those same people.

In order to hide their knowledge of the alien takeover, they must remain inconspicuous and, thus, continue the pub crawl.

The film introduces Gary’s friends through their relationship to labor. Jobless

Gary first proposes the reunion by visiting each man at his job: Peter (Eddie Marsan) at his father’s car dealership, Steven (Paddy Considine) at a construction site, Oliver

(Martin Freeman) while showing a house, and Andy (Nick Frost) in an upscale business office. These work scenes demonstrate that the four friends have moved on from their hometown. Andy, the most reluctant to return, calls Newton Haven “a black hole.” Not coincidentally, Andy most closely aligns with Connell and Wood’s idea of the masculine business manager. His disdain for Newton Haven no doubt stems from the professional and financial success he has enjoyed since leaving.

Andy acts as Gary’s foil throughout. Gary considers Andy to be his closest friend, though Andy is the most easily annoyed by Gary’s antics. The film alludes to and then explains the details of a past incident in which Gary, suffering from a drug overdose, 88 required Andy to drive him to the hospital in spite of Andy’s drunkenness. Andy crashed the car and, after life-saving surgery, was arrested, while Gary “miraculously” recovered and fled the scene. The film implies that Andy’s refusal to drink alcohol during the

Golden Mile challenge—he instead opts for tap water—stems from this incident.

During an argument at the first of twelve pubs, Gary insinuates that Andy’s reluctance to drink makes him less of a man. Andy argues that ordering water, regardless of what people like Gary may think, is a more manly act. Andy continues by saying they are “no longer children,” implying that he is no longer susceptible to the influences of others shaping his view of his own masculinity. Andy’s contention appears to illustrate a basic tenant of contemporary masculinity. R.W. Connell writes, “That gender is not fixed in advance of social interaction, but is constructed in interaction, is an important theme in the modern sociology of gender…”93 Gary antagonizes Andy because he thinks of manliness as an inarguable constant. Andy views his own masculinity as a product of social interaction, and in particular his indifference towards social expectations. He seems to have a better understanding than Gary how masculinity exists in his own life.

However, midway through the film Andy undermines his own claim when he succumbs to Gary’s pressure, stating, “it’s pointless arguing with [him],” and begins drinking again.

The World’s End treats Andy’s character differently after he starts drinking, even glamorizing his return to drinking by framing it as an overtly manly action. He drinks a number of shot glasses full of alcohol, ordered by Gary, and almost immediately becomes aggressive. The former rugby star, incited by the alcohol, becomes an asset in the ensuing

93 R.W. Connell, Masculinities. 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 35. 89 physical fights between the men and the alien robots. His attitude towards his own gender performativity may have a place in the contemporary, gender-neutral landscape, but the alien invasion requires him to take a more primal approach. In order to act and help his friends, Andy embraces the characteristics that Gary trumpets. This shift in the way the film characterizes Andy conflicts with the general consensus about the existence of gender relations, as referred to by Connell, and instead more closely aligns itself with the problematic claims of Mansfield.

Andy’s sudden change conflicts with his previous characterization as a thoughtful, successful capitalist. The World’s End establishes Andy as a businessman in order to critique the ways in which late capitalism suppresses his inherent masculinity.

The film clearly indicates that Andy’s career does not afford him the opportunities to express his primal manliness. Within the framework of the film, his transformation serves as an indictment of the intersection between masculinity and contemporary labor.

Even more confounding than the film’s sudden change in approach to masculinity is its portrayal of gender relations. In letting the men spend most of their time in bars, a traditional refuge from work and women, The World’s End tries to avoid discussions of gender relations almost entirely. While most of the film follows the five male friends, even smaller speaking roles are almost entirely filled by men. In fact, only seven different women speak and many of them are directly tied to their relationship to labor, including

Andy’s secretary and a hotel front desk worker. The other female speaking parts belong to women overtly used as targets of objectification—twins Gary claims to have slept 90 with, high school girls in short skirts who seduce several members of the group, and Sam

(Rosamund Pike), Oliver’s sister.

As the only major female character, Sam exists mostly as a plot device and source of antagonism between friends, as exemplified by the first scene in which she appears.

Upon her arrival, Gary and Steven jostle for her attention and affection. When she retreats to the bathroom, Gary interprets her action as a sign that she wants to sleep with him. In a short conversation outside the bathroom Gary directly propositions Sam, who slaps him in return. Despite the seriousness of unwanted and potentially predatory sexual advances, the scene exudes a comedic tone meant to demonstrate Gary’s lack of maturity.

The World’s End relies on the idea that desire for the female body is inscribed into narrative cinema and therefore Gary’s advances contain no potential for sexual assault.

As a woman, Sam’s narrative position and the male character’s relation to it have already been determined.

Her function in the rest of the film is equally reductive. With the remaining men facing almost certain death near the film’s conclusion, Sam drives up in Gary’s car just in time to save the men. Her ability to rescue them hinges on her status as an outsider. The film marks the pub crawl as a male-only activity and as such, will not allow for Sam’s presence. When the alien intrusion changes the dynamics of the pub crawl, her place within the group is equally unwarranted, as the fights exist for men like Andy to express their suppressed masculinity. Sam serves as a plot device to save the more prominent characters from death because, as a female character in a male utopia, her role is entirely determined by her ability to serve the male characters. 91

The film’s conclusion only aids in corroborating its attitude towards the narrative function of women and the apocalypse, especially as the latter relates to Gary. At the end of the film, the aliens abandon their mission and in the process, wipe out all electronic technologies, sending the world “back to the dark ages.” A postscript voiceover sequence narrated by Andy reveals the fate of the group of friends, all of whom find a niche in the apocalyptic wasteland either via labor or familial reconciliation. Oliver, for example, returns to selling homes. The film shows the ways in which Oliver’s new job selling decrepit houses during the apocalypse differs from his old occupation. The contrast proves humorous, juxtaposing a flourishing capitalist economic system with a crumbling world. Steven’s postscript reveals that he forms a romantic relationship with Sam in the apocalypse, further reinforcing Sam’s role as a narrative pawn. As de Lauretis writes,

“The female position, produced as the end result of narrativization, is the figure of narrative closure, the narrative image in which the film, as Heath says, ‘comes together.’”94 Sam gives Steven’s thread closure; her character’s closure is inextricably tied to Steven’s, allowing the film to fulfill its “narrative promise” to its target male audience.95

The World’s End makes a point of showing that the apocalypse proves most beneficial for Gary. The film’s final scene shows Gary, a character constantly living in the past, marching into a bar with the high school-aged robotic versions of his friends and starting a fight. This scene demonstrates the extent to which the world now conforms to

94 De Lauretis, 140. 95 Ibid. 92

Gary’s values. Masculinity can be measured by more reductive traits such as aggression, which now acts as a form of currency, eliminating his need for a job.

Andy’s narration directly refers to a historical regression and in doing so, implies an avenue by which civilization can modify past mistakes and achieve a male-centric form of utopia. The World’s End even eliminates technology, the aspect Fukuyama sees as the biggest obstacle to economic unification alternatives. The film’s conclusion establishes the means through which society can start over while hindering capitalism to such an extent as to render it an impracticable possibility.

This is the End functions as a buddy comedy much in the same way as The

World’s End. The self-aware film features movie stars, mostly men, playing caricatures of themselves. The core group—actors Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah

Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride—fight for survival during the biblical apocalypse. Though The World’s End contains a number of fight sequences in which

Gary and his friends must fight off alien attackers together, This is the End includes a more explicit theme of friendship and sacrifice in the face of danger—one of the key components of Mansfield’s conception of manliness.

This is the End begins with Jay’s arrival to Los Angeles to spend time with his longtime friend Seth. The pair goes to a party at James Franco’s house attended by some of Seth’s new friends as well as other Hollywood actors. While at Franco’s party, the biblical apocalypse begins, causing some people to be raptured up to heaven while others are left to survive the volcanic wasteland that was once the Hollywood Hills. Most of the attendees scatter or are killed, leaving the six men essentially quarantined in Franco’s 93 house. During their struggle for survival, they discover that by sacrificing themselves for their friends in the face of danger, they can still gain entry into heaven. With various degrees of success and authenticity, the men try to save themselves by saving each other.

The extent to which This is the End embraces self-awareness dictates how the film approaches labor and gender as related to the apocalypse. Characters constantly refer to their own films and those of others, distorting any distinction between the actors and their diegetic characters. This tactic creates a constant tension between the acting performances in This is the End, which are not meant to be performances within the diegesis of the film, and the past work of the actors. At times the film directly addresses its relationship to work. For example, while speculating about their prospects of getting into heaven, the men talk about how they bring joy to people’s lives as actors and, humorously, discuss the difficulties that come with the job. In actuality though, This is the End views acting the same way The World’s End regards Andy’s office job. Neither job offers sufficient opportunities to express and exercise manliness. However, the apocalypse presents an actual situation in which they can be real heroes.

Mansfield talks extensively about thumos, “a quality of spiritedness, shared by humans and animals, that induces humans, and especially manly men, to risk their lives in order to save their lives.”96 This is the End creates a narrative condition to which this concept can be applied. When Craig Robinson offers to distract a demon to allow his friends to escape danger, he knows that his brave act will almost certainly end in death.

However, his actions allow him to bypass death and be raptured into heaven. Essentially,

96 Mansfield, xi. 94 adhering to Mansfield’s idea of thumos is the only way for characters to save themselves in the apocalypse. From this point in the story forward, Seth, Jay, and James reluctantly embrace the idea that in order to be raptured, they need to risk their lives for their friends.

These narrative circumstances directly align with Mansfield’s reductive notions of manliness that try to naturalize gender, a social construct, and underscore the reason why the apocalypse figures as a male utopia.

Cognizance also shapes the film’s attitude towards gender. This is the End demonstrates an awareness of its target audience, men under twenty-five years old, and caters its humor to this quadrant. It and other oft-discussed beta male comedies—

Knocked Up (Apatow, 2007), Superbad (Mottola, 2007), She’s Out of My League (Smith,

2010)—appeal to a male demographic oscillating between adulthood and adolescence, much like the characters in the movies. Beta male comedies establish a tone that is decidedly male-centric and attempt to show authentic depictions of men by using actors who are not traditionally handsome and broaching controversial topics that more often come up in discussions between close friends than casual conversation.

These efforts to present depictions of male characters as normative examples of masculinity have not gone unchallenged. Greven, for one, writes:

The reason to be critical of the Rogen persona is that as the chief screen embodiment of the beta male, he represents a potential for the critique of normative masculinity but instead recuperates and perpetuates its worst excesses while claiming to be the victim of larger forces, chiefly embodied by strong, tough, demanding women and nonwhites.97

97 Greven, 153. 95

The characters Rogen plays, as Greven points out elsewhere in his essay, alter slightly across his films, but stay roughly the same. This is largely due to the fact that the films in which he stars feature the same style of comedy and largely rely on Rogen’s every-man looks and sense of humor, making him a more relatable character to the target male audience.

In an article following the attacks in Isla Vista by a male college student,

Washington Post movie critic Ann Hornaday pointedly attacks the contemporary

Hollywood culture that presents male-centric views and attitudes as dominant. Citing a video manifesto in which the perpetrator, whose father works in the film industry, vows revenge on women who rejected him and men who enjoy casual sex, Hornaday writes,

“his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in.”98 She continues, “How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude ‘It’s not fair’?”99 Her argument centers around the fact that most Hollywood filmmakers are male and as a result, films more often reflect male attitudes and desires. Hollywood films continue to follow the same narratological structure that de Lauretis analyzes, coding the objectification and narrative function of women into their stories as well as their filmmaking techniques, as outlined

98 Ann Hornaday, “In a final videotaped message, a sad reflection of the sexist stories we so often see on screen,” The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-a-final-videotaped-message-a-sad- reflection-of-the-sexist-stories-we-so-often-see-on-screen/2014/05/25/dec7e7ea-e40d- 11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html, 25 May 2014), 12 Nov. 2014. 99 Ibid. 96 by Mulvey. This is the End embraces the same tone that Hornaday condemns and functions as an “escapist fantasy.”100

Like The World’s End, This is the End leaves almost no room for women. Only a handful of women have speaking parts in the film, including actresses Emma Watson and

Mindy Kaling and singer Rihanna. Women serve as little more than fleeting sources of humor and objects of desire. Craig Robinson and actor Michael Cera objectify Rihanna, a publicized victim of domestic abuse; Cera even slaps Rihanna’s butt before she punches him back. Mindy Kaling’s most notable addition to the film is saying that she wants to have sex with Cera.

Emma Watson plays by far the largest female role, but even her insertion merely functions as a contrast to the pervasive male presence in the film, at once subverting and substantiating de Lauretis’ theory of the function of women in Western narrative. Though she makes several remarks during the party scene, her biggest contribution comes after the apocalypse starts. Watson startles the group when she emerges from outside Franco’s house, desperate for shelter. Her timely appearance offers the potential for her to have a comparable narrative function to Sam’s in The World’s End; however, her role is even more stinted.

The men quickly become self-conscious about the possibility that Watson may not feel comfortable as the only woman in the house and they don’t want to exhibit a

“rapey vibe.” They understand her function as an object of desire, but fail in appropriately allowing Watson to act as anything but. She overhears the conversation,

100 Ibid.! 97 which moves to an accusatory discussion about which among them is mostly likely to be a rapist, and confronts the group. She robs the men of their food and water and leaves the house, choosing to face the unknown threats outside rather than stay in the all-male household.

Again, rape becomes a subject for humor, this time more overtly than in The

World’s End. With the apocalypse creating panic both outside and within the house, the men think of Watson not as a fellow survivor, but as a desirable object and as such, the target of a potential rape. By escaping, Watson defies the expectation that she will function as a romantic interest, though her role in the movie revolves around the group’s awareness of her gender. The men’s attempts to confront and quash the effects of their gaze cannot prevent the way to which their approach towards Watson, and the approach of the film, still complies with narrative expectations for women.

Both films induce archaic notions of masculinity in order to justify the actions of their characters. The conversation in the bar between Gary and Andy reflects the discourse with which Mansfield engages. Both characters have separate definitions of masculinity, but Andy’s transformation implies that Gary’s is the more apt. In This is the

End, the apocalypse allows the men an opportunity to embrace risk, exercise their manliness, and reap the possible rewards. In a statement that applies directly to the situation in the film, Mansfield writes, “Manliness is knowing how to be confident in situations where sufficient knowledge is not available.”101 By providing a setting almost completely devoid of women, each film isolates masculinity and provides a stage by

101 Mansfield, 21. 98 which the values of manliness, as defined by Mansfield’s problematic text, can be practiced and embraced.

3.4 Dating and Social Convention in the End of Days

The male utopias that emerge in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and

It’s a Disaster figure differently than those in The World’s End and This is the End.

Unlike the latter two movies, which reduce the role of women by coding the apocalypse as a setting that rewards “manliness,” heterosexual dating features prominently in the former two films. Consequently, women play a much larger role in their narratives.

Nevertheless, the male protagonists in Seeking a Friend and It’s a Disaster both benefit in social situations from the impending danger. When Dodge learns the world will end in twenty-one days, he reacts with an indifference that Seeking a Friend demonstrates is the result of his dissatisfaction with his life in general. Only after meeting his neighbor Penny

(Keira Knightly) does Dodge experience a level of contentment and happiness that otherwise eludes him. Glen (David Cross), on his third date with Tracy (Julia Stiles), spends the beginning of It’s a Disaster trying to make a good first impression on Tracy’s friends at a couple’s brunch. He struggles to fit into the well-established group dynamic until a series of coordinated worldwide attacks leaves the friends scrambling to survive and gives Glen an objective outside of social interaction.

Despite similar themes, the two films take far different approaches to labor and gender. Seeking a Friend stages the apocalypse as an opportunity to undercut the ideology of late capitalism. The film offers several glimpses into the ways in which 99 different sectors of waged labor approach the end of the world. Each instance serves to highlight how the ideals capitalism promotes crumble in a world that values living over social constructs revolving around capital. To this end, the story follows Dodge’s attempts to find happiness. He eventually achieves this goal through a romantic relationship with Penny, a character who exists to deliver Dodge from his despondency and give the film narrative closure. Penny’s function within the framework of the narrative demonstrates the film’s compliance with traditional, reductive gender roles.

It’s a Disaster eschews gender stereotypes and tropes. As a direct result of this commitment to gender neutrality, the film almost completely avoids references to labor.

Though avoiding labor as a major topic serves as a strategy for the other apocalypse comedies, its exclusion from this story emphasizes the film’s indifference towards restoring male privilege. Its approach to comedy also differs from the other films. Rather than using social gender differences as the basis for humor, the film relies on awkward social interaction predicated on conversations between dissimilar characters; It’s a

Disaster is the only apocalypse comedy without a rape joke. Still, the film cannot escape structural preference towards men as the dire circumstances work in Glen’s favor.

Though they feature similar male protagonists, the two films demonstrate the ways in which differing approaches towards female characters and gender relations influence each film’s relationship to labor and male privilege.

More overtly than any other film in this chapter, Seeking a Friend embraces the fun possibilities of an end of the world scenario and approaches the apocalypse as a fantasy. By staging its love story as a comedy, the film highlights Dodge’s initial 100 numbness as compared to the reactions of other characters. Most people in the film approach the apocalypse in one of two ways: panic or celebration. Characters embrace their vices and the film indulges the audience with the potential fun of living with no time for regret. Still, Dodge has no desire to live his life any differently, as evidenced by his return to work. Unlike his friends who see their limited time as an opportunity to live recklessly, Dodge makes few changes to his routine. Nevertheless, the film manifests the circumstances necessary for Dodge, too, to enjoy the end of the world despite his timid nature.

When a fire forces Dodge from his apartment, he escapes with Penny, a virtual stranger, and tells her that he knows someone with a private plane who can reunite her with family in England. This promise keeps the pair together long enough for romantic feelings to develop, a relationship Dodge admits at the end of the film “couldn’t have happened any other way.” Dodge and Penny spend their final days together until they blissfully die in each other’s arms. Though Dodge views his promise as an altruistic act, he nevertheless benefits from the opportunity afforded by the apocalypse and dies markedly happier than he is at the beginning of the film.

Seeking a Friend explores the relationship between labor and the end of the world in a number of instances. When changes in demeanor and approach to labor are minimal, such as the sequence that takes place in Dodge’s office, the film highlights the frivolity of dedication to one’s job. Another example occurs in the film’s opening scene, when a radio broadcaster informs listeners about the failure of a rescue mission to save humanity.

As the man finishes reporting the damning news, the intonation in his voice changes and 101 he falls back into his disc jockey persona before playing “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the

Beach Boys. This quick transformation from bearer of devastating news to exuberant DJ personality highlights the sudden triviality that he and his radio station will be

“bringing…the countdown to the end of days along with all your classic rock favorites.”

In another scene, an overzealous police officer throws Dodge and Penny in jail for a minor traffic violation. When the sheriff arrives at the jail, he releases the pair and profusely apologizes. The film uses its end of the world scenario to create a utopia whose values clash with those inscribed into capitalist labor and societal control, often in comedic ways. Dodge’s own path to happiness, which coincides with his decision to leave his job and pursue more immediate, personal goals such as romantic fulfillment, demonstrates this shift in priorities.

Seeking a Friend achieves narrative closure by coupling the otherwise unlikely pair, serving as a prime example of Rachel Blau DuPlessis’ assessment of the narrative pattern found in romance plots. DuPlessis’ Writing Beyond the Ending: Narrative

Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers tracks the work of female writers who recognize and challenge the role women regularly occupy in narratives and the ideology behind such frequently used gender tropes. She writes, “As a narrative pattern, the romance plot muffles the main female character, represses quest, valorizes heterosexual as opposed to homosexual ties, incorporates individuals within couples as a sign of their personal and narrative success.”102 Despite the time they spend together in their final days, Penny and Dodge have conflicting goals. Penny wants to fly to England to be with

102 Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Writing Beyond the Ending: Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-Century Women Writers (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 5. 102 her family and Dodge hopes to reunite with a past love interest. Though neither completes the quest for which they set out, Dodge fulfills his general goal of romantic coupling; Penny never reunites with her family, succumbing to Dodge’s end of the world fantasy at the expense of her own.

Penny gives Dodge a purpose that he previously lacked. After the two escape the fire and ensuing riot at the beginning of the film, delivering Penny to her family becomes

Dodge’s reason to live. Her dependence persists in the penultimate scene in which she forgoes the opportunity to see her family, instead choosing to die with Dodge. In the final scene, Dodge strokes Penny’s hair and comforts her as she cries, frightened by the sounds outside that indicate the imminence of their death. She tells Dodge, “I thought that somehow we’d save each other.” He replies, “we did.” Penny’s cheerful outlook and dependence throughout the relationship clearly improve Dodge’s life and allow him to achieve narrative closure. Dodge provides Penny, a self-described “serial monogamist,” with companionship, but the film fails to demonstrate if and how Dodge saves Penny as she claims.

The fact that Seeking a Friend is written and directed by a woman demonstrates the extent to which male-centric ideology penetrates storytelling and complicates

Hornaday’s criticism of Hollywood. Many of the tropes and beats that favor men are ingrained in contemporary filmmaking; Scafaria’s involvement with the film does little to combat them. Despite the obvious need for a more gender-balanced industry, this problem demands a more complex solution. Seeking a Friend clearly prefers Dodge’s narrative quest to Penny’s and relies on the end of the world scenario and traditional 103 gender roles to restore male privilege and give Dodge hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.

Unlike every other film in this chapter, It’s a Disaster features a balance of male to female characters and treats the women in the film like fully-formed people rather than stock characters. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that among the eight main characters,

Glen is unquestionably the beneficiary of the circumstances. Throughout the early part of the film, Glen awkwardly tries to fit in amongst the other friends, all of whom are clearly comfortable around each other. He is quiet, agreeable, and polite, even asking permission at one point to follow the men into another room to check the score of a football game.

When personal conflicts arise, Glen tries to stay neutral.

Glen’s situation changes when the characters learn about a series of coordinated worldwide attacks that threaten their safety. The entire dynamic of the group shifts as they enter survival mode. Though the other seven characters experience different levels of panic and anxiety, Glen is noticeably more comfortable than before. No longer forced into tricky social situations, he focuses on helping the group prepare the house to sustain the chemical attack. His distance from the social dynamic becomes an asset when personal revelations distract the other characters from their tasks. Unfazed by and uninterested in these revelations, Glen restores focus when personal conflicts threaten to derail survival efforts.

It’s a Disaster remains an outlier when compared to the other apocalypse comedies. It eludes reductive gender stereotypes and subverts the trope of achieving narrative fulfillment through romance. Though Glen and Tracy share a tender moment 104 after the group learns they will die in a matter of hours, the film undercuts their romance by the end of the film. Because the film actively avoids undermining gender equality, a function of the humor and narratives of the other apocalypse comedies, labor too works differently. When briefly discussed, the topic of work merely serves as a commonality for

Glen, a third-grade teacher and Hedy (America Ferrera), a twelfth-grade teacher. The film does not try to invoke labor as a subject to elevate men over women or express disconcertion about late capitalism and as a result, its absence lacks the saliency present in the other films. Nevertheless, the apocalypse itself still favors the shy, awkward male character, albeit not at a level of narratively motivated inscribed sexual difference.

Glen acts as a proxy for the viewer, experiencing the group of friends for the first time as the audience does. He is the most relatable character and undeniably benefits from the imminent danger, regaining a sense of agency otherwise stifled by his status as an outsider. Although the film takes a more progressive approach towards gender relations and tropes, the fact that the male protagonist still serves as the surrogate for the viewer points to a level of male privilege not easily offset by progressive intentions. For both he and Dodge, the apocalypse provides a convenient escape from otherwise undesirable situations.

3.5 Conclusion

As I have argued, gender and labor are intrinsically linked. These films introduce the apocalypse into that dynamic in order to create the circumstances necessary to tilt power in the favor of men. By eliminating the need for capital, albeit through drastic 105 means, the films establish male utopias and in the absence of labor, men reclaim a culturally dominant status over women. Conversely, with no motivation to restore male privilege or criticize capitalism, there is no narrative emphasis on socially constructed gender positions, as in It’s a Disaster.

Many works emphasize the ties between capitalism and the possibility of the end of the world more explicitly than these films. Recent conversations surrounding the effects of climate change largely blame the unchecked expansion and practices of capitalism for exploiting the environment for profit. Naomi Klein’s This Changes

Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate argues that climate change offers both the potential for disaster and the opportunity for systematic reform. She writes: “As part of the project of getting our emissions down to the levels many scientists recommend, we once again have the chance to advance policies that dramatically improve lives, close the gap between rich and poor, create huge numbers of good jobs, and reinvigorate democracy from the ground up.”103 Other works like Chris Harman’s Zombie Capitalism:

Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx and Joel Kovel’s The Enemy of Nature: The

End of Capitalism or the End of the World? make similar arguments regarding the destructive and often unacknowledged relationship between capitalism and climate change. It is worth noting that none of the five apocalypse comedies use climate change as the catalyst for their disasters, suggesting that their criticisms of capitalism are more closely tied to its effect on masculinity than its influence on the end of the world.

103 Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), 10. 106

Facilitating agency through the figure of the apocalypse demonstrates the extent to which these films view the current state of masculinity. Like Fight Club and American

Beauty, the apocalypse comedies present average, unspectacular characters; even This is the End uses the dire circumstances to make the actors more relatable. However, unlike

The Narrator, Lester, and the other male characters examined in Chapter 2, the characters in this chapter confront the problems with work largely through its exclusion.

More broadly, these films represent a distinct break from the dystopian films that

Fisher reads as accelerated depictions of contemporary problems. Because they are more concerned with the effect of capitalism on masculinity than its principal problems, the films merely adjust their settings through disaster. Fisher refers to films like Children of

Men that are “specific to late capitalism” and “an extrapolation or exacerbation” of our world.104 The apocalypse comedies manifest fantastic or unlikely disasters such as the rapture and alien invasion to create situations that pivot away from the premise of capitalist realism as Fisher presents it. They instead create male utopias that narratively cater to the desires of their male characters.

This problematic strategy demonstrates contemporary male attitudes towards gender relations and the pervasive male-centric ideology still present in Hollywood filmmaking. It remains to be seen how strives towards gender equality will affect future depictions of gender relations. While the perception of diminished male privilege motivates these films in many regards, men still occupy a position of advantage both socially and economically. The direct affront to equality present in Fight Club and

104 Fisher, 1-2. 107

American Beauty changed into a systematic one in The World’s End, This is the End,

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and It’s a Disaster. Though less obvious, their approach towards gender relations demonstrates a persisting manner of male entitlement conservation.

108

CONCLUSION: THE LAST MAN ON EARTH AND THE FUTURE OF CINEMATIC

MASCULINITY

In March 2015 The Last Man on Earth, a weekly half-hour television comedy, premiered on Fox. The show follows Phil Miller (Will Forte), presumably the last human alive, living in Tucson after a virus kills most of humanity. After a 48 state tour during which he searches for any signs of human life, Phil returns to Tucson and finds creative ways to entertain himself. In one sequence he progresses from bowling with pins and a bowling ball to using fish tanks as pins and, finally, colliding cars in the same vein.

Upon first glance, The Last Man on Earth would seem to place itself in the same faction as the apocalypse comedies in Chapter 3. Much as it does in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Scafaria, 2012), the apocalypse provides an opportunity for fun.

Additionally, the show adheres to the same outdated and oversimplified narrative gender roles as many of the apocalypse comedies.105 During the first episode it appears as though

Phil is, indeed, the last man on earth, leaving viewers with no alternative characters with whom to identify. Little changes when the show introduces its second character Carol

(Kristen Schaal), a woman who does not embrace the fun possibilities of an uninhabited world. For example, Carol scolds Phil for parking in a disabled parking space, demonstrating a comically ridiculous adherence to the rules. Phil responds by driving the car through the glass doors, directly into the store. Carol diminishes the amusement that

105 See my discussion of Teresa de Lauretis’ Alice Doesn’t in relation to The World’s End (Wright, 2013) and Rachel Blau DuPlessis’ Writing Beyond the Ending in relation to Seeking a Friend for the End of the World in Chapter 3.! 109

Phil, and by extension the viewer, enjoy as a result of the show’s premise. However, the show challenges Phil’s likability and privileged relationship to the narrative circumstances as it introduces new characters, first Melissa (January Jones) and then

Todd (Mel Rodriguez).

The Last Man on Earth pivots slightly from the apocalypse comedies of Chapter

3, suggesting a new dimension in its depiction of gender relations. Though the show’s approach to female characters remains reductive, its presentation of Phil intimates a recognition of and desire to stray away from the power dynamics on which male characters capitalize in films like Seeking a Friend and The World’s End (Wright, 2013).

The apocalyptic circumstances that initially favor Phil work against him as the story continues. After Melissa arrives, Phil, Carol, and Melissa mutually decide that they need to work together to repopulate the earth. Phil, who cannot hide his romantic interest in

Melissa, is giddy at the prospect of having sex with her. However, Todd’s initial arrival interrupts Phil’s preplanned sexual encounter with Melissa. Todd proves to be more likable, more resourceful, and a better romantic match for Melissa than Phil. Though the apocalypse initially figures as a utopia for Phil, much as it does in the apocalypse comedies, the introduction of a second male character changes the dynamics of the situation. When Todd and Melissa become romantically involved, the apocalypse proves beneficial for the three characters other than Phil.

Because The Last Man on Earth is still airing new episodes, the consequences of this change in the group dynamic have yet to be fully explored. For now the show offers a potential challenge to my argument in Chapter 3, as the apocalyptic circumstances work 110 against Phil, the male protagonist. As the story progresses, the show will continue to clarify its approach to gender relations largely based on how it develops its female characters and whether Phil will return to a privileged position. Whether it adheres to or challenges gender role tropes, The Last Man on Earth may prove to be an indicator of future Hollywood approaches to masculinity.

Throughout this thesis I have argued that strategies for white male privilege preservation symptomatically emerge within the depictions of masculinity and gender relations in each film. The labor role reversal films in Chapter 1 cling to the idea that traditional labor gender roles exist because of the comic inefficiency of straying from those roles. In doing so the films naturalize the division of labor within the family, thus reaffirming the importance of the nuclear family. Though the films suggest success is possible for men performing tasks coded as women’s work, they undercut this success by tying narrative closure to familial changes rather than explicitly declaring to what extent, if any, the male protagonists will continue their domestic duties.

In 1999 the labor force participation rate for women reached an all-time high in the United States.106 As a result, strategies for sustaining and exercising male privilege evolved past naturalizing gender roles in an attempt to halt cultural progress. Instead, the films of Chapter 2 offer male characters as “crisis conquerors,” exemplars for white, middle-class men who felt disenfranchised during the 1990s “crisis of masculinity.” Fight

Club (Fincher, 1999) and American Beauty (Mendes, 1999) allow the Narrator (Edward

106 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Databook.” BLS Reports: Report 1040 (2012): 11, (http://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook-2012.pdf), 11 Jun. 2014. 111

Norton) and Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) to narrate their own redemption stories.

Both films demonstrate a desire to critique consumer capitalism; however, in drawing parallels between women and consumption, the films frame late capitalism as a male problem at the hands of women. When The Narrator and Lester quit their jobs, they do so because they feel they are on the wrong end of the power structure that is capitalist labor.

Rather than explore this dynamic, the films provide circumstances by which the characters do not need their jobs. Because the films maintain such a tight focus on their protagonists, not only are the consequences of their selfish actions underdeveloped, but they are actually presented as justified given their alleged victimization and newfound agency.

The way in which the apocalypse comedies approach labor in Chapter 3 reflects a continuation of the strategies in Fight Club and American Beauty. The apocalypse comedies almost entirely avoid labor except to emphasize the inessentiality of capitalism at the end of the world. Instead they rely on the apocalypse to reset cultural standards and create a male dominated utopia. Meek, ordinary characters use the narrative circumstances as a chance to exert themselves in ways that the films present as uniquely masculine. Additionally, female subordination recurs as a theme, both within the comedy—through the use of rape jokes—and more broadly in the narrative function of the female characters. Though the films intersperse criticisms of late capitalism throughout, they use the apocalypse as a way to reassert control that men never really lost. 112

All the films discussed in this thesis, and those in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 in particular, funnel their anxieties regarding late capitalism as attacks on women in an attempt to preserve male privilege. These attacks suggest a lack of awareness regarding the ubiquitous effects of globalization and capitalism on men and women alike. In “‘It’s

All About the Benjamins’: Economic Determinants of Third Wave Feminism in the

United States,” Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake examine the impact of contemporary economics on third wave feminist thinking. Globalization, they argue, aided in the

“erosion of the gendered division of labour” while at the same time contributing “to a further concentration of wealth at the very top of the pyramid, shifting venues of political struggle from patriarchy to the World Trade Organization.”107 This account of globalization helps explain why the films vilify women for the brunt of male anxiety. As the authors point out, “the economic situation may look better in terms of gender equality, but in terms of overall economic well-being, the situation is worse for both women and men with the exception, again, of the very top wage earners.”108 Though the negative consequences of globalization and capitalism extend to men and women, men who retain anxiety tied to lost privilege see women as the cause and benefactors of their anxiety. This animosity towards women exists at a fundamental level, as demonstrated by the films in this thesis.

107 Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, “‘It’s All About the Benjamins’: Economic Determinants of Third Wave Feminism in the United States,” Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration, eds. Stacy Gillis, Gillian Howie, and Rebecca Munford (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 16-18. 108 Ibid, 15.! 113

The manner in which future narrative films approach and depict masculinity will largely depend on the extent to which men recognize how deep their privilege runs and embrace the possibility of ending privilege. This notion applies both within social gender relations and narrative tropes. Future depictions of filmic masculinity will carry little significance in and of themselves. Male characters must be considered in concurrence not only with female characters, but also the social and economic circumstances that shape their interactions. Only through the consideration of its place within gender relations can male privilege, and by extension masculinity, be fully explored.

114

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Television

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The Last Man on Earth. Fox. 2015. Television.

Magnum, P.I. CBS. 1980. Television. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

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