From Buddy Film to Bromance: Masculinity and Male Melodrama Since 1969
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FROM BUDDY FILM TO BROMANCE: MASCULINITY AND MALE MELODRAMA SINCE 1969 A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Amy J. Woodworth May 2014 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Miles Orvell, Advisory Chair, English Dr. Patricia Melzer, German Dr. Oliver Gaycken, English, University of Maryland Dr. Laura Levitt, External Member, Religion © by Amy J. Woodworth 2014 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Men’s tears are considered rare, and women’s tears are considered profusive. Thus, we tend to think of tearjerkers and melodrama as the province of weepy women viewers. However, if we look back at the last several decades of Hollywood filmmaking, melodramas focused on men—or “male weepies”—have been a steady staple of American cinema. This dissertation explores cycles of male melodramas since 1969, placing them in their socio-historical contexts and examining the ways that they participate in public discourses about men, masculinity, and gender roles. Melodrama’s focus on victims, bids for virtue, and idealizations of not how things are, but how they should be, have made it a fitting and flexible mode for responding to the changing social landscape of America since the rights movements of the 1960s. Specifically, these films consider both the ways that white capitalist patriarchy has circumscribed the public and private lives of men and the ways that advancements of women and racial minorities are impacting (white) men’s lives. This study analyzes the rhetorical effects of these films through both textual evidence and popular reception. Chapters are organized by chronology and subgenre, discussing buddy films of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Midnight Cowboy, The Last Detail, and Scarecrow), paternal melodramas of the late 1970s and early 1980s (The Great Santini, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Table for Five), films of sensitive men in the early 1990s (The Prince of Tides, Regarding Henry, and Philadelphia), and black male weepies from the 1990s and 2000s (Boyz in the Hood, Antwone Fisher, John Q, and The Pursuit of Happyness). The epilogue also considers the developing genre of the bromance, a hybrid of melodrama and comedy. By classifying and analyzing these films iii as male melodramas, this dissertation challenges both the popular denigrating view that tearjerkers are “chick flicks,” and the continued gender bifurcation within film studies’ work on melodrama as a narrative mode, which tends to treat weepies as a female form of melodrama and action films as a male form of melodrama. While individual subgenres have received some critical attention, this dissertation is one of the first works to look at male weepies collectively. Putting the spotlight on male weepies reveals Hollywood’s interest in gender and the emotional lives of men, though the films display a mix of progressive and conservative strains, often common in Hollywood filmmaking. Specifically, these weepies tend to question and often even reject traditional masculine ideals, and thus exhibit some forms of gender “liberation”; at the same time that they show men suffering under patriarchy and even the pressure to be powerful, these films also shore that power up for men by never forfeiting it. As such, these films reveal the dangers of Hollywood “doing” gender critique: however inadvertently, they contain feminist, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic challenges and re-inscribe the various privileges of characters (in terms of gender, race, sexuality, and often class). However, the films also dramatize the ability of people to change and to empathize with others, and often invite the viewer to do so, even across gender and racial lines. In this way, male melodramas reveal a complex response to social changes; they are marked by an interest in men changing and a more equitable society, even as fully giving up privilege seems difficult. iv To my father, William Woodworth, who cries talking about Cole Porter and old friends, and to my husband, Joe Samuel Starnes, who cries listening to sad country songs. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The part of me that believes every experience, decision, and circumstance shapes who we are and where we end up is tempted to acknowledge every teacher, friend, employer, and relative who may have impacted me and thus helped me arrive at a complete dissertation. Doing so, however, would detract from the truest thanks I’d like to give to those that made the actual process—and product!—possible. Between my graduate studies at Rutgers University at Newark for my master’s degree and at Temple University for my doctoral degree, I had more than my fair share of fortune in friends, colleagues, and teachers that made academic pursuits a joy. From Rutgers, I thank my professors Fran Bartkowski, Janet Larson, Gabriel Miller, and Jack Lynch for their wisdom and guidance, and my two favorite cohorts, Kevin Catalano and my now husband Joe Samuel “Sam” Starnes. I will try to drag them all to McGovern’s Tavern the next time I get over that way. From Temple, I thank my professors Sheldon Brivic, Alan Singer, James Salazar, Sue-Im Lee, Katherine Henry, and Rachel Blau DuPlessis, especially Rachel, who served on my committee through the preliminary exam stage and whom I find so intimidating that her praise made me feel like less of an imposter. I also need to thank the other professors who assisted me and for whom I have worked: Phil Yanella and Ken Finkel, who gave me the chance to cut my teeth in new material and courses as their assistant, and Eli Goldblatt, who provided support for me as a teacher and job candidate. Beyond the professors under whom I studied and taught, I never would have survived without the care and diligence of the best secretaries a graduate student (or anybody in the world, for that matter) could ask for: Sharon Logan, Belinda Wilson, and Gloria Basmajian. Finally, though I’ve had many friends from vi Temple’s graduate programs, including the Women’s Studies certificate program, special acknowledgement is due to the ladies who have stuck with me and commiserated with me until the end: Nicole Cesare, Dana Harrison, and Kara Clevinger. Amazingly, I now have the pleasure of working with both Nicole and Dana at Rowan University. Over the past three years, which also have been my most intense period of dissertating, I have been teaching full-time in the Department of Writing Arts at Rowan University in southern New Jersey. It is here that I have found a home amongst other over-extended, but enthusiastic teachers and scholars who share my desire to “do it all”— teaching, researching, writing, serving, parenting, talking, and laughing. While all of the bonds I have formed there sustain me, I am especially grateful to my chairs, Sandy Tweedie and Jeff Maxson, and the coordinator of First-Year Writing, Erin Herberg, who all have encouraged me, mentored me, and accommodated my crazy life as best they can. No dissertation is possible without a brilliant and supportive committee. Not one, but two professors from the fabulous Women’s Studies Program at Temple graciously read and commented on my dissertation: Patricia Melzer, who chaired my defense, and Laura Levitt, who served as my external reader. Both of these amazing women have been encouraging of my work, but also rigorous in their criticism, all for the better. Oliver Gaycken, with whom I took several graduate courses at Temple and who is now of the University of Maryland, has been a consistent source of inspiration and support for all things film-related; I miss him. And of course, I am beyond blessed to have had one of the most pre-eminent scholars in the country, Miles Orvell, serve as my committee chair. Miles is one-of-a-kind, a generous and genius teacher whose commitment to his students can never be praised enough. vii I was spurred on by the many brilliant role models around me, including my mother-in-law, Dr. Jo Anne Hopper Starnes, and sister-in-law, Dr. Alison Grizzle, both smart women who sympathized with the struggles of dissertating. Both of my brothers, Jeff and Chris Woodworth, have given me a life full of art and of conversation, and share my need to keeping looking and analyzing. No one should ever get in a room with us if they are not prepared to talk! Special thanks are owed to Chris for fostering my love of film and hunting down Raymond Durgnat’s use of the term “male weepie.” My parents, Bill and Diane Woodworth, have provided more inspiration and support than any daughter could ask for. My father Bill made having a Ph. D. seem like something any good student eventually goes and gets; I only now understand how exceptional this is. His love of learning is in my genes, and thus I never had any doubts about plowing forward. My mother Diane, now retired, was one hell of an elementary school teacher, and her work ethic served as a noble, if ambitious, model for me. She worked late at the kitchen table almost every week night, and I now carry the torch at my own dining room table (though my husband hates the overhead light—sorry, Sam!). And my grandmother, Jean Henault, while never a college graduate, was one tough lady who showed me what being tireless and independent truly means; the fighter in me comes from her and my mom, and it certainly helped me finish writing. Finally, my own small family has been a blessing, even as they’ve competed for and usually won my attention while I was writing. My husband Sam, perhaps the most hardcore writer that I personally know, has been a damn good cheerleader through the highs and lows of dissertating.