White Heterosexual Masculinity in Contemporary Popular Cinema
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ALL AND NOTHING: WHITE HETEROSEXUAL MASCULINITY IN CONTEMPORARY POPULAR CINEMA by Nicola Rehling A dissertation submitted to the Department of English Literature and Culture, School of English, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece In fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2005 i TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………page iii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………v Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………... 1 Part One: The Politics of White Heterosexual Male Victimology Introduction to Part One From Backlash to Betrayal ……………………………………………………………………32 Chapter 1 Losing Ground: Spatial Inscriptions of White Male Disenfranchisement in Popular Cinema 1.1. Falling Down: The “Angry White Male” in a Reterritorialised America…………………..43 1.2. Disclosure: The Feminisation of the Workplace……………………………………………57 1.3. The Full Monty: The Reversals of Gendered Spaces and Places……………………………68 Chapter 2 Literalising the Wound: White Heterosexual Masculinity, Masochism and Popular Cinema 2.1. Wounded White Men………………………………………………………………………..79 2.2. Regarding Henry: The Damaged White Male and the Child Within……………………….84 2.3. Forrest Gump: Wounded Intellect and White Male Redemption…………………………...90 2.4. Paternal Melodramas………………………………………………………………………..96 2.5. Fight Club and the Art of Disavowal ……………………………………………………...101 2.6. Male Hysteria……………….……………………………………………………………...104 2.7. Absent Fathers……………………………….………………………………………….…111 2.8. Fight Club and Male Masochism: Taking It Like a Man………………………………….115 Part Two: Coming Apart at the Seams? White Heterosexual Masculinity and the Body Introduction to Part Two Unveiling the Unmarked Body……………………………………………………………….127 Chapter 3 Fleshing Out White Heterosexual Masculinity: The Commodification of the White Male Body 3.1. The White Male Body on Display…………………………………………………………136 3.2. Sex, Flies and Underpants: The White Male Body as Commodity……………………..…142 3.3. Anxieties of the Flesh: The Commodified White Male Body as a Social Problem……….148 3.4. White Male Bodies in Action……………………………………………………………...162 3.5. Re-Determining White Masculinity: Terminator 2: Judgement Day……………………...168 Chapter 4 Terminal Bodies and Cartesian Trips: White Heterosexual Masculinity in Virtual Reality Fantasy Cinema 4.1. From Cyborgs to Virtual Bodies…………………………………………………………...180 4.2. The Virtual Reality Debate………………………………………………………………...182 4.3. Strange Days: Recycling the Cartesian Legacy……………………………………………189 4.4. Transcending the Flesh: Race, Gender and Christian Discourse in The Matrix…………...197 ii 4.5. Fusing with the Matrix: Pre-Oedipal Imagery and the Monstrous Feminine……………...207 Chapter 5 Queering White Heterosexual Masculinity: Cross Dressing and Transgender Cinema 5.1. Border Crossings…………………………………………………………………………...213 5.2. Contesting the Natural……………………………………………………………………..215 5.3. Queering Sexual Difference: Gender Trouble and the Trouble with Gender Trouble…….217 5.4. The Subversive Potential of Drag………………………………………………………….224 5.5. White Masculinity in Cross-Dressing Comedies………………………………………..…228 5.6. The Crying Game: Queering White Male Heterosexual Identifications…………………...233 5.7. Boys Don’t Cry: Performing White Masculinity…………………………………………..246 Chapter 6 White Skin, Black Masks? “Wiggers” in Contemporary Popular Cinema 6.1. Racial Cross-Overs………………………………………………………………………...263 6.2. Visual Matters: The Performativity of Race……………………………………………….266 6.3. From Minstrels to Wiggers………………………………………………………………...276 6.4. Quentin Tarantino: White Cool, Black Masks……………………………………………..282 6.5. Spike Lee’s Bamboozled: Minstrelsy in the 21st Century...……………………………….288 6.6. Ali G Indahouse: British Wiggers, American Minstrelsy?………………………………...292 6.7. 8 Mile: Eminem, “White Trash” Masculinity and Rap Authenticity………………………299 Part Three: Marking White Male Violence: The Gangster and the Serial Killer Introduction To Part Three White Male Violence in Postmodern Media…………………………………………………309 Chapter 7 White Male Violence in the Gangster Films of Quentin Tarantino 7.1. Quentin Tarantino and his Cinema of Postmodern Cool…………………………………..317 7.2. “Are you going to bark all day little doggie … or are you going to bite?” Deconstructing the Gangster Ideal…………………………………………………………………………..319 7.3. White Heterosexual Masculinity in Tarantino’s Cinema of Hyperreal Violence………….327 7.4. The Violence of Hate Speech: The Instabilities of White Masculinity……………………338 7.5. Phallic Women, Infantilism and Aggression in Tarantino’s Gangster Chic……………….343 Chapter 8 Hollow Men: White Masculinity in Contemporary Serial Killer Movies 8.1. Gendering and Racing the Serial Killer……………………………………………………350 8.2. Sexually Deviant Serial Killers…………………………………………………………….352 8.3. “White Trash” Serial Killers……………………………………………………………….359 8.4. The “Abnormally Normal” Serial Killer…………………………………………………...367 Afterword Popular Cinematic Representations of White Heterosexual Masculinity in a Post-9/11 America………………………………………………………………………………………...376 Works Cited Film and Television Programmes………………………………………………………………385 Books, Articles and Miscellaneous……………………………………….…………………….399 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the help, support and inspiration of many people. However, most thanks must go to my supervisor, Dr. Ruth Parkin-Gounelas, whose encouragement, warmth, generosity and sense of humour have sustained me throughout the past four years. Her questioning mind, intellectual and theoretical rigour, and perceptive readings of the chapters that follow have helped me to produce work to the best of my abilities. I will be eternally grateful for her enthusiasm for this project, for her unfailing faith in me, and for making the writing of this thesis such an enjoyable as well as academically rewarding experience. She has taught me the true meaning of being a scholar and a teacher. I would also like to thank my co-advisor, Dr. Elsi Sakellaridou, for her careful reading of my work and her insightful comments, which often caused me to question assumptions that I had taken for granted. I am also grateful to my other co-advisor, Dr. Michalis Kokkonis, for his ongoing support throughout both the writing of this thesis and my teaching work at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In addition, I would like to thank the other members of my examining committee, Dr. Karin-Boklund Lagopoulou, Dr. Nikos Kontos, Dr. Effie Yiannopoulou and Dr. Alexandros Lagopoulos, for their constructive comments and criticisms. I am also hugely indebted to my close friend Sara Hannam for her perceptive comments on drafts of this thesis, for keeping me politically attuned, and, most importantly, for offering invaluable emotional support throughout the past four years. I am also grateful to Cleopatra Kondoulis for her meticulous reading of my work, and for being a good friend in a time of need. I would also like to thank Aneta Karagiannidou for the many fascinating and thought- provoking discussions we have had about popular cinema, as well as for her friendship and interest in my work during the past few years. Conversations with colleague and friend Sean iv Homer have also proved enlightening, and I am grateful to him for sharing his vast theoretical knowledge with me, as well as for his constructive advice throughout the writing of this thesis. There are also numerous people who have helped me throughout my academic career. In particular, I am deeply indebted to Steve Watts and Steve Xerri for believing in me at a crucial time and for kindling my interest in gender theory. They may not realise it, but I would never be where I am now without them. Mandy Merck has also influenced my work in immeasurable ways, particularly in arousing my interest in the complexities of popular cinema, gender, and sexuality. I look back on her stimulating and inspiring MA courses at Sussex University (1994- 95) with great fondness. I also need to thank my students at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and City College of Thessaloniki (Affiliated Institution of Sheffield University) for their love of popular cinema, their lively and enthusiastic discussions, and their taxing questions, which have kept me on my toes and have helped shape my own research interests. These acknowledgments would not be complete without thanking friends and family who have encouraged me (and put up with me!) throughout this project. I am grateful to my sister, Clare, for keeping me grounded and for always being able to make me laugh. I am also indebted more than I could ever say to my parents for their ongoing emotional and financial support, for instilling in me the confidence to realise my ambitions, and for always letting me know that I am loved. Lastly, words cannot express my gratitude to my own white heterosexual male, Yiannis, for persuading me to embark on this thesis, for helping me in whatever ways he could, for demonstrating unlimited reserves of patience when I shut myself in my study for hours at a time, and for always having faith in me. This thesis is dedicated to him, with love. v ABSTRACT This thesis explores popular cinematic representations of white heterosexual masculinity, primarily in contemporary Hollywood texts. Through a detailed textual analysis of films, which are firmly placed in the specific historical, social, cultural and political context in which they were produced and consumed, it explores how white heterosexual masculinity in popular American cinema is often represented as an “all and nothing” subjectivity,