Hegemonic Masculinity and Un-Made Men in the Sopranos Jordan Senior
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Huddersfield Repository WALK LIKE A MAN: HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY AND UN-MADE MEN IN THE SOPRANOS JORDAN SENIOR A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters by Research in English Literature. May 2017 ABSTRACT This thesis is intended to provide a re-evaluation of The Sopranos in response to recent contributions made to the field of film and television studies regarding the rise of “Quality Television” (Albrecht 2015 p. 5) and the “male-centred serial” (Lotz 2014 p. 21) as a popular medium. The thesis will examine the degree to which the depiction of a crisis in masculinity in The Sopranos can be said to represent a patriarchal or feminist configuration of masculinity (Lotz 2014 p. 35), and to what extent it either reaffirms or repudiates Connell’s (2005) model of hegemonic masculinity. The argument will focus on three main areas; the embodiment of masculinity, the performance of masculinity, and the presentation of violence in The Sopranos. The argument of this essay is that The Sopranos employs gendered processes of pleasure, unpleasure and identification to deconstruct hegemonic masculinity as part of a demythologising project which uses affective learning to achieve its aims (Tan 1996 p.28), and in doing so, the thesis suggests that The Sopranos creates a space for imagining new ways of performing masculinity and new, feminist configurations of male gender identity based on the acceptance and internalisation of “prohibit[ed] forms of emotion, attachment and pleasure” (Connell 2005 p. 85). The thesis uses Connell’s sociology of hegemonic masculinity to interrogate the presentation of masculinity in the text because hegemonic masculinity remains the most “visible” and culturally “honoured” masculinity (Connell 2002), and as such, constitutes a standard by which all marginalised masculinities are measured. The idea of catharsis as the key characteristic of pleasure is used to explore the possibility that both viewer identification and viewing pleasure in The Sopranos are codified as feminine. The thesis argues that the central tension of the series is the internal conflict between masculinity and femininity, and that masculinity is presented as a “Complication” (Tan 1996 p.59) in the narrative which generates tension; a tension which is only relieved through the reaffirmation of femininity. 2 NOTE ON THE TEXT: The thesis will provide numerical citations for individual episodes of The Sopranos in place of episode titles, following the format (season: episode), such that “The Sopranos”, episode one of season one, will be written as 1.1. The reason for this choice of reference is so that the reader is made aware of the episode’s place within the chronology of the series as a whole, and as such, can come to meaningful conclusions about the coherence and consistency of the series’ characterisation and themes. Episode titles will still be used separately as and when they prove relevant to the argument. In the case of ebooks, “Loc. 1” is used to signify the location of the quote within the text if page numbers are unavailable. 3 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………..5 2. THEORY……………………………………………………………………………………..10 3. EMBODYING MASCULINITY IN THE SOPRANOS………………………….25 4. PERFORMING MASCULINITY IN THE SOPRANOS………………………..38 5. VIOLENCE AND MALE FANTASY IN THE SOPRANOS……………………60 6. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………..83 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………..85 4 Introduction The argument of this thesis is intended to provide a re-evaluation of The Sopranos in response to recent contributions made to the field of film and television studies regarding the rise of “Quality Television” (Albrecht 2015 p. 5) and the “male-centred serial” (Lotz 2014 p. 21) as a popular medium. The thesis will examine the degree to which the depiction of a crisis in masculinity in The Sopranos can be said to represent a “patriarchal” or “feminist” configuration of masculinity (Lotz 2014 p. 35), and to what extent it either reaffirms or repudiates Connell’s model of hegemonic masculinity (2005). The argument will focus on three main areas; the embodiment of masculinity, the performance of masculinity, and the presentation of violence in The Sopranos. The argument of this essay is that The Sopranos employs gendered processes of pleasure, unpleasure and identification to deconstruct hegemonic masculinity as part of a demythologising project which uses affective learning to achieve its aims (Tan 1996 p.28), and in doing so, the thesis suggests that The Sopranos creates a space for imagining new ways of performing masculinity and new, feminist configurations of male gender identity based on the acceptance and internalisation of “prohibit[ed] forms of emotion, attachment and pleasure” (Connell 2005 p. 85). The thesis uses Connell’s sociology of hegemonic masculinity to interrogate the presentation of masculinity in the text because it remains the most “visible” and culturally “honoured” (Connell 2002) model of masculinity, and as such, constitutes a standard by which all marginalised masculinities are referred. The work of Mulvey (1975) and Neale (1983) on narcissistic identification (Neale 1983 p. 5) is used to evaluate the extent to which the male viewer’s identification with Tony Soprano validates the hegemonic model, and the thesis also refers to Tan’s work on empathetic identification (Tan 1996 p. 171-174) to analyse the possibility that the viewer’s identification with Tony is based on shared feminine, rather than masculine, traits. Tan’s work is also used to analyse the ways in which pleasure contributes to affective learning (Tan 1996 p. 28) in The Sopranos; the 5 thesis draws on Tan’s assertion that pleasure is predicated on a pre-existing tension, the “resolution” of which prompts an “emotional catharsis” (Tan 1996 p. 35). The idea of catharsis as the key characteristic of pleasure is used to explore the possibility that viewing pleasure in The Sopranos is codified as feminine alongside identification; the thesis argues that the central tension of the series is the internal conflict between masculinity and femininity, which is resolved through the reaffirmation of femininity. Tan’s work is considered appropriate to the aims of the project because his characterisation of pleasure as revolving around the “experience and expression of emotion” (Tan 1996 p. 24, discussing Scheff 1979) is something which is prohibited by the hegemonic model. The re-assessment of The Sopranos was prompted in part by Lotz’s acknowledgement that The Sopranos, as one of the first male-centred serials, represented a “seismic shift” (2014 p. 64) in television production, and also in part by Albrecht’s observation that recent television programmes, such as Breaking Bad, present the protagonists’ turn to patriarchal configurations of masculinity as a form of self-fulfilment which confirms, and even celebrates, the “alluring” “mystique of masculine power”(Albrecht 2015 p. 71-72). While it is beyond the scope and ambitions of this project to address this issue, the work on The Sopranos done here may suggest a regressive, rather than a progressive trend in contemporary depictions of masculinity in popular culture. There are several concerns that must be addressed before the thesis can proceed with the analysis, namely, the nature of Lotz’s and Albrecht’s work on the medium and the influence it will have on the contributions made by this essay; as such, the thesis will begin with a discussion of the key characteristics of “Quality Television” (Albrecht 2015 p. 5) and the “male-centred serial” (Lotz 2014 p. 21). It should be noted that, as Lotz and Albrecht both base their definitions on the same generic characteristics regarding the format, the medium, the thematic and narrative preoccupation, and the historicity (Lotz p. 21, 33-34, 84, Albrecht 2015 p. 5, p. 67) the thesis will use “male-centred serial” as an interchangeable term for both; however, Albrecht ‘s model(2015 p. 5) also incorporates critical and academic attention, and as such characterises the medium as “Quality Television” on the basis that “[…] certain scholars, critics and media producers have forwarded [the medium as 6 maintaining] greater aesthetic value than others, and [deserving of] scrutiny as works of art” (2015 p. 5). Lotz states that male-centred serials “overwhelmingly originate” from cable channels funded by viewer subscriptions and pay-per-view media (Lotz 2014 p. 32), as opposed to those episodic or procedural shows that predominate on broadcast networks, funded through commercials and advertising. The archetypal protagonists of male-centred serials are middle-class, middle-aged, heterosexual white men, and the main thematic concern of the serial is the protagonist’s negotiation of a “masculine identity crisis” caused by “the revised gender scripts” for both men and women produced by the social, cultural, and political gains of second-wave feminism (Lotz 2014 p. 33-34). As a result, the male protagonist experiences: “…difficulty [in] merging newly valorized aspects of masculinity, such as paternal involvement and nonpatriarchal marital relations, with residual patriarchal masculinities that require great responsibility of men for familiar provision” (Lotz 2014 p.84) Lotz states that the historical context of this change mean that the “generational identity” of both the protagonist and the viewer1 becomes: “[…]an important consideration because of the degree to which those in the post-Baby-Boom generations[…] came of age in a culture negotiating gender politics very differently from those born previously.” (Lotz 2014 p. 27-28). As a result of this, Lotz asserts that the “spectrum of masculinities” in the male-centred serial can be “plotted between poles of “patriarchal” and “femininist”” (2014 p. 35); however, she states that the male protagonists of these serials “[do] not presume that reinstating women’s subordination is the solution” (2014 p. 58) to this crisis of masculinity, nor do they blame “Women, wives and feminism” (2014 p.