Masculinity, Melancholia and Misogyny in the Films of Elsa Machado Anthony Barker Department of Languages and Cultures, Centre for Languages, Literatures and Cultures, University of Aveiro

METHODOLOGY

Sam As one of the main strands of this thesis Peckinpah is the analysis of the way masculinity is portrayed in Peckinpah’s films, it is apparent that this cannot be dissociated from feminist theorization. Masculinity ABSTRACT studies came into being when feminists rendered manhood “visible” and With this thesis I have attempted challenged the phallocentric postulates Fig. 2. CHILDREN IN THE WILD to analyse three salient features in which have secured its universalizing BUNCH IN THEIR DEADLY GAME Sam Peckinpah’s films: status. Accordingly, the work of feminist masculinity, melancholia and critics was incorporated insofar as their The scene where children watch a Fig 5. HOMOSOCIAL BONDING misogyny. Having made only critical reasoning brings to the fore the scorpion being devoured by ants.Their THREATENED BY THE fourteen films, Peckinpah thin veneer of patriarchal authority which delight while watching the destruction ENCROACHMENT OF CORPORATE distinguished himself as an the - par excellence Peckinpah’s suggests the perverse pleasures entailed by POWERS impromptu violent deeds, contrasting with important director in the history of privileged genre - has always projected. Peckinpah was interested in polarized Fig. 8 DUSTIN HOFFMAN AS DAVID their former innocent expressions. American cinema not only Since melancholia constitutes one of the male relationships. Pat Garrett and Billy SUMNER REGAINING HIS PHALLIC because of his innovative main structuring axes in this work, I have the Kid is a melancholy reflection on the POWER IN STRAW DOGS tecnhiques but also because his traced its checkered historical path and travails of male bonding and the threat work was so much in tune with its associations with the construction of posed to it by materialistic values. A gun-wielding David Sumner (Dustin the zeitgeist of the turbulent times an alluring image of a brooding Hoffman) finding his phallic power during in which he lived. The analysis of manhood. Intent on showing how cinema the siege to his “castle”. these three main themes aims to has apprehended this “mood” and has If the film seems to legitimize violence, in cast some light on the work of a also connoted it differently in gender the trope of the worm turning, the former director whose temperamental terms, I realized that Peckinpah’s films victim Sumner taking revenge on the thugs traits and difficult relation with dramatize a pervasively melancholy who had humiliated him in such an the film industry tend to obfuscate stance which problematizes notions of unremitting way, it also considers the an un-romanticised view of his male self-sufficiency and authority. dangers of a frontier-style vigilante justice. oeuvre. Peckinpah’s best work Freud’s seminal work on “Mourning and Sumner’s “rebirth” at the end is sullied by a was within the generic traits of the Melancholia” has been an important sense of psychic alienation, a Travis Bickle- Western but he also made forays theoretical framework to delve into like unanchored loneliness, eventually cut into other genres, never forsaking questions of loss and the way the Fig. 3 WALLOWING adrift from any sense of ontological safety. the main worries and worldview Western, and more particularly IN ABJECTION When he leaves his wife behind, getting into that give his films a sense of Peckinpah’s films, express a libidinal Peckinpah’s bitter experience with Major the car with Niles who pathetically remarks thematic coherence. Peckinpah attachment to an unmourned object of Dundee. This early film points already to an “I don’t know my way home” David replies became notoriously associated love. My methodological concerns in image of a tarnished masculinity. Here “That’s okay, I don’t either”. with misogyny not only because respect of misogyny rely on the notion playing Dundee in a scene of his impromptu comments in the that it entails mechanisms of defense where he loses his self-assurance. interviews he gave but also which, rooted in anxiety and in the fear Fig. 6. STEVE MCQUEEN AS because he displayed a of emasculation, take on the form - as in : A NOSTALGIC problematic relationship with Peckinpah’s case - of aggression and the LOOK AT THE WESTERN women in real life, giving them a perceived imbalance underlying dismissive treatment in his films. heterosexual relations. Misogyny is an Nostalgia and melancholia traverse This thesis thus attempts to deal unpalatable characteristic in Peckinpah’s Peckinpah’s gentlest film. Junior with this unsavory feature which work but somehow it has accrued to its Bonner, the eponymous character in many critics disavow or simply underlying contradictions and Peckinpah’s Junior Bonner, represents ascribe to inflamed feminist complexity. But this thesis attempts to an anachronistic way of life in the criticism. explain its darker workings and put them rodeo. I hope with this work I have in historical contexto. managed to address the richness of Sam Peckinpah’s films and to reveal how he left a legacy which EXAMPLES surpasses the technical artistry for which he became known and the violence which he stylized with Fig. 4 THE BUNCH MARCHING Fig. 9 MISOGYNY IN THE GETAWAY the details of his obsessive INTO directorial imprint. This legacy SELF DESTRUCTION Carol (Ali McGraw) is slapped by Doc lies in the melancholy mood that (Steve McQueen ) after revealing her Peckinpah had a fondness for losers, outsiders traverses his work, resulting from unfaithfulness. In both examples misogyny and loners. Here, the Bunch march into their disenchantment and loss. is apparent as women are deemed suicidal denouement and are crystallised into unreliable and untrustworthy. myth. EXPECTED OUTCOMES

With this work I hope to unveil the most Fig. 7. THE NOTORIOUSLY original traits of a director whose career FAMOUS RAPE SCENE IN STRAW seesawed between appraisal and upbraiding. DOGS Whereas his misogyny is one of the most unconscionable aspects of his work, The scene where Amy (Susan George) is melancholia infuses his films with nostalgia raped by the local thugs acquires a Fig. 1 SAM PECKINPAH IN HIS and longing. The image of a blemished notorious quality since she acquiesces in REBEL POSTURE masculinity belies the construction of an her predicament. This strengthened unassailable, indomitable manhood which Sam Peckinpah was known for his Peckinpah’s association with misogyny. difficult relation with the studios. His runs against the grain of classical narratives films invariably went over budget and and bespeaks the climate of pessimism and fell behind schedule. He cultivated a doubt that riddled late 60s and 70s America. rebel posture which eventually wreaked havoc on his reputation.