UNIVERSITÄT HOHENHEIM FACULTY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCES IN AGRICULTURE CHAIR IN GENDER AND NUTRITION PROF. DR. ANNE C. BELLOWS – UNIVERSITÄT HOHENHEIM (SUPERVISOR) FOOD AND MEN IN CINEMA AN EXPLORATION OF GENDER IN BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES Dissertation Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree “Doktor der Agrarwissenschaften” (Dr.sc.agr./PhD. In Agricultural Sciences) to the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences presented by Fabio Parasecoli 25/10/1964 2009 Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 17.12.2009 Dekan der Fakultät Agrarwissenschaften: Prof. Dr. Jungbluth Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Bellows Prof. Dr. Lindenfeld Sher Prof. Dr. Kromka COPYRIGHT 2009 © BY FABIO PARASECOLI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I want to thank Dr. Prof. Anne Bellows for giving me the chance to take the stimulating path of a doctorate, and for accompanying me all the way to its conclusion, with generosity and affection. This work would not have existed without you. Thank you for introducing me to your wonderful family - Bob Torres and the fabulous Mr. Max, and to the Hohenheim crowd: Thomas Fellman, René John, Jana Rueckert-John, Stefanie Lemke, Gabriela Alcaraz, Veronika Sherbaum, and Kathleen Heckert. Also special thanks go to Dr. Ursula Rothfuss, who made navigating the administrative straits of a doctorate much easier. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Prof. Laura Lindenfeld, who over the years has shared with me her passion for movies and who has offered terrific guidance for this work, and to Dr. Prof. Kromka, who kindly agreed to be part of this project as examiner. There are no words to convey my appreciation to those who helped me as “key informants” with their experience and feedback - Alice Julier, Allen Weiss, Dana Polan, Janet Chrzan, and Barbara Katz-Rothman. Alice Julier’s observations guided me to pay particular attention to women and gender relations, to focus on issues of oppression, and to re-examine the data also from that specific point of view, which at first I had overlooked. She pointed out to how my coding categories were inherently relational and how it was necessary to talk about the absence of scenes featuring women only around food. Allen Weiss, whose conversation was engaging and stimulating way beyond the limits of this specific work, helped me define the object of my research. He also warned me against a certain “anxiety of influence” that he detected in my work, prodding me to concentrate on the issues at hand from one approach only instead of trying to disperse my energy in too many directions. Dana Polan reminded me of the relevance of qualitative analysis even when working within quantitative research. His observations urged me to reconsider the way I was using the data collected through the content analysis, in order to focus on my working hypotheses. Janet Chrzan offered her experience to help me get more comfortable about numbers and charts, to make them speak in comprehensible ways, and to keep them to overwhelm me. Barbara Katz-Rothman gave me some great New York style tough love, pushing me to find my voice and a narration to hold the whole research together. Her suggestions about the organization (and restructuring) of the final work have been paramount. It would be almost impossible to list of those whose input has allowed me to conclude this research, from my former coworkers at Gambero Rosso magazine and the faculty at the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health of New York University, to many members of the Association for the Study of Food and Society. My endless appreciation goes to Doran Ricks, who has offered his statistical expertise to help me crunch scary amounts of numbers, and his support during the writing process. Thanks also to Krystina Maola, who also helped me with the intricacies of the English grammar. Thanks also to my family in Italy, who patiently put up with the absences and disappearances due to this work. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................................... i LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................. v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (ENGLISH) ................................................................ vii ZUSAMMENFASSUNG (DEUTSCH) .................................................................. ix CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………… 1 I. The Theoretical Framework…………………………………….. 1 Revealing Food in Movies………………………………… 1 Blockbusters as Texts……………………………………… 2 Representation and Performances of Masculinity………… 7 The Global Circulation of Representations……………..… 10 The Social Life of Pop Culture…………………….……… 13 II. Core Questions and Hypotheses……………………………….. 17 III. The Research……………………………………………….…. 18 IV. Overview of the Results……………………………………….. 19 2. MEN, MANHOOD, AND MASCULINITY…………………………………… 21 I. Defining Men and Masculinity………………………………….. 21 II. Historical Masculinities………………………………………… 24 III. The Origins of the Debate…………………………………….. 28 IV. The Impact of Feminism……………………………………… 31 V. Sex Roles and Evolutionary Sociobiology………………….…. 35 VI. Gender Relations and Hegemonic Masculinities……………… 38 VII. The Post-Structuralist Turn…………………………………… 41 VIII. Male Reactions………………………………………………. 46 3. FOOD, MEN, AND MOVIES: A LITERATURE REVIEW…………………… 55 I. A multidisciplinary Approach…………………………………… 56 II. Food Studies……………………………………………………. 62 III. Food and Masculinity…………………………………………. 65 IV. Film Studies…………………………………………………… 68 V. A Food Film Genre?..................................................................... 81 VI. Food and Movies……………………………………………… 84 4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY……………………………… 93 I. Definition of the Data Sample………………………………….. 94 II. Content Analysis Methodology: Advantages and Limitations… 98 III. Applied Methodology: Data Gathering Procedures…………… 103 IV. Research Log………………………………………………… 115 i V. Analysis and Discussion of Results………………………….… 116 VI. Interaction with Key Informants………………………………. 116 VII. Focus Groups…………………………………………………. 117 VIII. Limitations…………………………………………….……. 118 5. PRESENTATION OF DATA……………………………………………..…… 119 I. Introduction ……………………………………………….……. 119 II. Masculinity Representations in the Movies as a Whole……….. 121 II.1 Gender of Critical Characters ………………………… 121 II.2 Other Demographics of Protagonists ……………….… 125 II.3 Body Images of Critical Characters ………………….. 127 II.4 The Interpretive Types ………………………………... 130 III. Masculinity Representations in Food-Specific Scenes ……….. 134 III.1. Demographics Breakdown of Male Characters in Food-Specific Occurrences …………………………..…… 134 III.2. Diegetic Functions of the Food-Specific Occurrences 137 III. 3. Men and their Actions: The Situational Scripts …… 138 III.4. Gender Relations and Women’s Role ……………… 150 III.5. Making Sense of Men’s Actions: The General Categories …………………………………... 152 IV. Models of Masculinity………………………………… 158 6. DATA EXAMINATION AND DISCUSSION……………………………..…. 167 I. Introduction…………………………………………………….. 167 II. Masculinities in Blockbuster Movies………………………...... 169 II.1 Movies as a Whole…………………............................. 169 II.2 Food-Specific Scenes ..................................................... 175 III. The Invisibility of Food in Blockbuster Movies ......................... 184 IV. Research Directions for the Future ............................................. 190 7. CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………… ................……… 193 The Theoretical Framework………………………………………. 194 The Methodology…………………………………………….......... 195 The Findings………………………………………………….......... 197 Research Directions for the Future……………………………….. 200 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….....…. 202 APPENDICES A. Research Log ................................................................................................ 237 B. Movies’ Commentaries, Synopses, and Food-Related Occurrences ............ 251 C. Content Analysis Spreadsheets ..................................................................... 341 D. Focus Group Survey Sheet ............................................................................ 375 E. Focus Group A and B Data Sheets ............................................................... 377 F. Focus Group A Transcript ............................................................................ 387 ii G. Feast and Famine Seminary Report .............................................................. 395 H. Key Informants ............................................................................................. 399 I. Spreadsheets of Interpretive Types, Gender and Body Image of Critical Characters, Race, Class, Age of Protagonists, Diegetic Functions and Descriptors ……………………………………………………………. 419 J. Interpretive Types, Situational Scripts, and General Categories .................. 425 iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Overview of Data Set ................................................................................. 121 Table 2. Gender of Protagonists in 58 Top International Best-Selling Movies, 1990-2007 ................................................................ 122 Table 3. Gender of Main Buddies in 58 Top International Best-Selling Movies, 1990-2007 ............................................................... 122 Table 4. Gender of Secondary Buddies in 58 Top International Best-Selling Movies, 1990-2007 ............................................................... 123 Table 5.