The Transformation of Masculinity in Late Capitalism Narratives of Legitimation and Hollywood Cinema
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The Transformation of Masculinity in Late Capitalism Narratives of Legitimation and Hollywood Cinema Tom Harman A thesis submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Critical and Cultural Theory Cardiff University 2013 DECLARATION This work has not been submitted in substance for any other degree or award at this or any other university or place of learning, nor is being submitted concurrently in candidature for any degree or other award. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 1 This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of …………………………(insert MCh, MD, MPhil, PhD etc, as appropriate) Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 2 This thesis is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by explicit references. The views expressed are my own. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date ………………………… STATEMENT 4: PREVIOUSLY APPROVED BAR ON ACCESS I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loans after expiry of a bar on access previously approved by the Academic Standards & Quality Committee. Signed ………………………………………… (candidate) Date ………………………… Summary This thesis contends that a number of popular Hollywood films from the 1990s present evidence of a transformation in the legitimate ways of acting for white heterosexual men in contemporary Western metropolitan society. I argue that the transformation is intimately tied to the rising dominance of what I call a neoliberal ‘narrative of legitimation’. What is significant about my intervention, and distinguishes it from previous studies of representations of masculinity in film, is the use of the theoretical lens of legitimation and my focus upon late capitalism as a normalising principle. Each of the four chapters is dedicated to a close reading of a single film, Falling Down, Se7en, American Psycho and Fight Club. Through an interrogation of the films, as well as an appraisal of the critical literature that has responded to them, I will argue that a fundamental change has taken place in the legitimate expectations, motivations and justifications that inform the representation of masculinity in late-twentieth-century Hollywood cinema. The necessity for such a change is framed in the films as a response to an urban environment represented as a cynical, indifferent and chaotic hell that has to be resigned to as the only ‘real’ reality. My analysis proposes that through the narrative trajectory of these films conflicting models of masculine conduct are put forward yet successively abandoned, leaving only a single model that is fully aligned to neoliberal ends. This model abandons any attachment to family, nation or community and affirms a resigned individualism that merely maintains itself, unable to attach to or affect the world around it. Such a conflict of narratives, however, also leaves open the possibility of attesting to alternative narratives incommensurable with the prevailing neoliberal narrative of legitimation. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the School of English, Communication and Philosophy for supporting my research with the ENCAP year-one bursary and the Edward Rhys-Price Endowment Fund award. The encouragement and support of my supervisors Ian Buchanan, Iain Morland, Chris Weedon and especially Martin A. Kayman at each stage of the development of this project have been invaluable. The friendship and camaraderie of Aidan Tynan, Chris Müller and Mareile Pfannebecker, as well as their taking time to read and comment on my work, have been generous beyond the call of duty. Members of the Deleuze reading group, Claudio Celis, Phillip Roberts and Lindsay Powell-Jones, have been an inspiration. Thanks are due to Cardiff University Library Service, in particular Suzie Hathaway and Vicky Stallard, who have supported the production of the thesis morally, academically and financially. Julia Burkhardt has been the light at the end of all tunnels. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my parents whose unwavering support has made its completion possible. CONTENTS Introduction 1 A transformation in the understanding of masculinity 4 Norm and neoliberalism 10 Legitimation and the normative statement 15 Metanarrative and postmodernity 18 Narrative, genre and cinema 23 Overview of chapters 28 1 Falling Down 34 1. Falling Down as white male identity politics 37 Falling Down as American imperialism 40 Falling Down and patriarchy 43 Falling Down and cynical realism 47 2. Legitimation 52 Lyotard and legitimacy 54 Mythic narrative 56 Metanarrative 61 Postmodernism 65 3. Violence and legitimacy 69 The scapegoat 70 Sacrifice, myth and tragedy: Oedipus 73 Falling Down 76 Conclusion 83 2 Se7en 87 1. The city 90 2. Mills 96 Mills and organic representation 98 Mills and the action-image 101 Doe and the encounter 104 Doe and transcendental recognition 108 From Mills to Somerset: acting to seeing 112 A crisis of the action-image 115 Somerset and the crisis of belief 118 3. Narratives and events 121 Conclusion 126 3 American Psycho 129 1. American Psycho 131 The film American Psycho 135 2. What is the genre of American Psycho? 141 The language of American Psycho 144 Tropes of language in American Psycho 145 Lacan and psychosis 148 Deleuze and sadism 152 3. Foucault and the genre of neoliberal capitalism 157 The market as the organising rationale for society 158 Homo œconomicus 160 The invisible hand 164 Deleuze and Guattari: capital become transcendent 169 4. American Psycho 173 Patrick Bateman: the subject of capitalism 176 Conclusion 180 4 Fight Club 182 1. Critical readings 186 Giroux and the problem of violence 186 Žižek, Fight Club and violence 192 2. A movie about thought 199 Capitalist drone 204 Support group addict 208 Fight Club leader 211 Traitor of Project Mayhem 216 3. The specifics of masculinity’s neoliberal narrative of legitimation 223 Conclusion 233 Capitalist cynicism or belief in the world? 236 Bibliography 241 Filmography 250 1 Introduction This thesis contends that a number of popular Hollywood films from the 1990s present evidence of a transformation in the legitimate ways of acting for white heterosexual men in contemporary Western metropolitan society. I will argue that this transformation is intimately tied to the rising dominance of what I will call a neoliberal ‘narrative of legitimation’.1 What is significant about this intervention, and distinguishes it from previous studies of representations of masculinity in film, is the use of the theoretical lens of legitimation and its focus upon late capitalism as a normalising principle. Each of the four chapters is dedicated to a close reading of a single film released between 1993 and 2000 that displays representations of masculinity in crisis. Each reading addresses dominant themes raised in the critical literature that responds to these movies in order to situate my own focus upon narratives of legitimation. I then 1 I have kept the American spelling of legitimation, rather than the English ‘legitimisation,’ throughout the text to remain consistent with the translations of Lyotard’s work. 2 go on to map out a number of the narratives that are contested in the films. The theoretical components that construct my argument will be gradually introduced and expanded upon throughout the four chapters. Through the interrogation of these films, as well as an appraisal of the critical literature that has responded to them, I will argue that there has been a fundamental change in the legitimate expectations, motivations and justifications that inform the representation of masculinity in late-twentieth- century Hollywood cinema. The reason for choosing to study the representation of white heterosexual masculinity, a field that some may feel is already overly privileged, comes from a concern not only to address specific popular Hollywood representations that firmly place normative humanity in the figure of the white male hero, but also to trace the transformation in the normative role that this figure performs.2 My aim, therefore, is to intervene in the discourses surrounding the study of masculinity and provide a new means of theorising to account for why there has been such concern with the ‘problem’ of masculinity since the 1970s. This privileging has the undesired effect of banishing other racial, ethnic, sexual and gendered ‘others’ to the margins of the text. Yet paradoxically, it is precisely the question of how to break with this normative model of masculinity and its ‘others’ that motivates this thesis. The goal is to show how narratives, in particular narratives of white heterosexual masculinity, are legitimated so the threat of the ‘other’ is kept at bay. As such, racial, ethnic, sexual and gendered difference haunts the text throughout. Consequently, by tracing the social norms of 2 Rosi Braidotti in an interview with Judith Butler criticised the institutionalisation of gender studies as: ‘the take-over of the feminist agenda by studies on masculinity, which results in transferring funding from feminist faculty positions to other kinds of positions. There have been cases [...]of positions advertised as 'gender studies' being given