The Impact of the Cold War on the Representation of White Masculinity in Hollywood Film William Michael Kirkland

Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 The Impact of the Cold War on the Representation of White Masculinity in Hollywood Film William Michael Kirkland Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE IMPACT OF THE COLD WAR ON THE REPRESENTATION OF WHITE MASCULINITY IN HOLLYWOOD FILM By WILLIAM MICHAEL KIRKLAND A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2009 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of William Michael Kirkland defended on November 19, 2009. ____________________________________ Maricarmen Martinez Professor Directing Dissertation ____________________________________ Maxine Jones University Representative ____________________________________ Eugene Crook Committee Member ____________________________________ Ernest Rehder Committee Member Approved: ___________________________________________________ John Kelsay, Director, Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii For Katina, whose love and support made this achievement possible. For my mother, Dianne Kirkland, whose memory I will always cherish. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I must thank my major professor, Dr. Maricarmen Martinez, for the guidance and encouragement she has provided since our first class together in fall 2003. Her support in times of discouragement and stress has been invaluable. I appreciate most the exchange of ideas that has taken place both in the classroom and throughout the dissertation process. Dr. Martinez, my teaching is better as a result of having worked with you. I wish to thank Dr. Eugene Crook. I appreciate your prompt responses to my inquiries and willingness to serve on my committee despite the geographic distance between us. Thank you for your suggestions on numerous drafts along the way. You have also encouraged me and have helped me more than you know. I also wish to thank Dr. Maxine Jones, my University Representative, for her interest in my project. Her expertise brought a valuable perspective to my dissertation topic. I thank also Dr. Ernest Rehder, whose encouragement and confidence in my ability to finish was greater than my own. Your insight and suggestions improved the quality of the dissertation. Most importantly, I thank my best friend and wife, Katina, for her support during my many years in graduate school. There is no doubt that the sacrifices that you made for my goals have made this our accomplishment. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . vi 1. INTRODUCTION . 1 2. FROM HIGH NOON TO MIDNIGHT . 12 3. FROM BRITISH EMPIRE TO BRITISH IMPOTENCE . 42 4. CHALLENGING THE IDEAL . 66 5. FROM HYPE TO HYPOCRISY . 96 6. CONCLUSION . 114 REFERENCES . 123 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . 139 v ABSTRACT This dissertation will focus on the representation of ideal, white masculinity in the films of the Cold War period and how those representations, as they appeared in the form of art, served either to flatter or criticize the times in which they were made. By the term representation, I use, in particular, Stuart Hall’s ideas on representation and the media. Hall contends that meaning is controlled by those who control the means of creation (in this case the Hollywood studios). And since the Cold War influenced society in such a powerful way, Hall’s ideas on how culture determines the interpretation of representation is most important. These representations, therefore, served political purposes, as they captured political messages or represented the political views of the producers and directors. Of particular focus will be the western genre and the spy film genre. Notable film persona and characters include, of course, John Wayne, the representation of the ideal American, and James Bond, the representation of the ideal Englishman. However, the glorification of the military and an emphasis on traditional, patriotic themes in various war films must also be addressed. Furthermore, nearly every major event during the Cold War period was either directly or indirectly tied to Cold War tensions and was represented in the period’s films. This dissertation’s focus on the representation of ideal masculinity in the period’s films, then, will evolve along with the socio-historic events and, most especially, with the changing mindsets and values. For example, the Civil Rights Movement impacted the representation of black masculinity, a representation whose very existence challenged society much the same way the Civil Rights Movement itself did. Also, events such as the Vietnam War or the Watergate Scandal led to the advent of the cinematic anti-hero as well as representations of masculinity that also challenged the previous norm. These events, therefore, led to films that not only interrogated and challenged the ideal representation of the white, heterosexual male, but also harshly criticized Cold War policies. Finally, it is apparent that the United States government had a long-standing partnership with Hollywood film producers to export American culture through film, thus creating markets for American-made goods. vi Through this partnership, the proxy cinematic ambassador for the United States became the representation of white masculinity. vii INTRODUCTION When historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” a paper delivered in 1893 at a conference of the American Historical Association, he faced “bored indifference normally shown a young instructor from a backwater college reading his first professional paper” (Billington 170). In this “frontier thesis,” inspired by the findings of the 1890 census and now among the most famous of American historical works, Turner theorized that the settling of the West shaped the American character – that of being tough, rugged, individualistic, and self- reliant. The thesis, nonetheless, contained flaws. Most notably, Turner failed to acknowledge the role Native Americans, African Americans, women, Mexican Americans, and Mormons also played in shaping the American spirit. This white male only approach to the study of history and to the application of American power would be especially evident in twentieth-century domestic and international affairs, as represented in twentieth-century American cinema. The lack of agency on the part of and the exclusion of minorities in Turner’s study are indicative not just of the nation’s historical narrative but also in much of the century’s movies. William Appleman Williams, in History as a Way of Learning, states that the “ideas of Turner . supplied American empire builders with an overview and explanation of the world, and a reasonably specific program of action from 1893 to 1953” (138). Though it did not meet much fanfare to begin with, Turner’s thesis impacted many political leaders. For example, Theodore Roosevelt’s use of gunboat diplomacy in creating Panama in order to build the Panama Canal and Woodrow Wilson’s interventionist forays into the Dominican Republic and Mexico reflect, through action, the building of empire (150). Desmond King, in The Liberty of Strangers, explains how Manifest Destiny, the concept that God ordained the westward movement of Americans, provided “a political language to privilege the territorial expansion of nation building rooted in the interests of white Americans” (9). Building on Turner’s shortcomings, King cites ample evidence of this white dominated history. King discusses how immigration quotas, the Chinese Exclusion Act, “back to Africa” legislation, and government- sponsored segregation clearly defined, by favoring white immigrants while 1 simultaneously attempting to remove from the country persons of color, who was or who was not an “American” (30). Whites, King stipulates, did not consider blacks (or any other minority group) fellow citizens and “the enactment of [a] restrictive immigration regime is one of the clearest expressions of who [constituted] members of the American nation” (49). Woodrow Wilson, a U.S. president whose education (PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University and former president of Princeton University) would have seemingly placed him beyond the scope of racism and bigotry, stated emphatically that he stood for “a national policy of exclusion . [and a] homogenous population [consisting of] the Caucasian race” (53). It seems, then, that during the Wilson presidency Turner “was an unseen intellectual roomer in the White House” (Williams 147). Unfortunately, however, both men’s narrowly defined concept of an “American” (Caucasian) did not exist in a vacuum. In fact, that mindset prevailed. Wilson’s favorite movie, D.W. Griffith’s very popular Birth of a Nation (1915), glorified the Ku Klux Klan as arbiters of peace and order. Birth of a Nation’s focus on a KKK-stabilized society came during the upheaval of World War I, subsequently followed by a Red Scare and a nativistic response that led to further legalized restrictions of immigration and, therefore, cemented Turner’s and Wilson’s vision of an America dominated by white Europeans. When military conflict ended at the conclusion of World War I, diplomatic and economic tensions between nations intensified. Europeans in particular feared a looming power on the international stage, the United

Load more