Masculinity and Film Performance: Male Angst in Contemporary American Cinema PDF
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Masculinity and Film Performance This page intentionally left blank Masculinity and Film Performance Male Angst in Contemporary American Cinema Donna Peberdy © Donna Peberdy 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-28378-7 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-32908-3 ISBN 978-0-230-30870-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230308701 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Peberdy, Donna, 1981– Masculinity and film performance : male angst in contemporary American cinema / Donna Peberdy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Includes filmography. 1. Masculinity in motion pictures. 2. Men in motion pictures. 3. Motion pictures—Psychological aspects. 4. Motion pictures—United States—History and criticism. I. Title. PN1995.9.M34P48 2011 791.43'6538—dc22 2011012470 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Contents List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction: Being a Man 1 Part I Performance and Performers 1 Performance and Masculinity 19 What is performance? 20 Performance and gender 27 Performance and film 33 2 Performing Angst 44 Performing the zeitgeist: Michael Douglas 46 About face: Bill Murray’s midlife crisis 60 Tongue-tied: Mamet and Macy’s verbal and vocal angst 77 Conclusions 88 Part II Roles and Representations 3 From Wimps to Wild Men: Bipolar Masculinity and the Paradoxical Performances of Tom Cruise 95 Hard and soft: Wild men and wimps in popular culture 98 From Magnolia to Oprah: Performing instability 108 4 Performing Paternity: Clinton, Nostalgia and the Racial Politics of Fatherhood 121 Managing contradictions: Clinton, family values and valuing families 123 Imaging traditional fatherhood in Far from Heaven and Pleasantville 129 Responsible fatherhood in John Q. and The Pursuit of Happyness 139 5 Aging Men: Viagra, Retiring Boomers and Jack Nicholson 146 Ripening, rotting and revitalising 149 Ageless performer, performing aging 156 Conclusion: Returns, Renewals, Departures 169 v vi Contents Notes 174 Filmography 198 Bibliography 202 Index 215 List of Figures 1.1 Male angst performed via hand gestures in Glengarry Glen Ross (New Line, 1992) 2 2.1 Grady Tripp/Michael Douglas ‘doing nothing’ in Wonder Boys (Paramount, 2000) 54 2.2 D-Fens/Bill Foster reads his performance of fatherhood in Falling Down (Warner Bros, 1993) 56 2.3 Advertising ‘masculinity in crisis’ 50 years apart (North by Northwest (MGM/The Kobal Collection, 1959) and Lost in Translation (Focus Features/The Kobal Collection, 2003)) 62–63 2.4 Cinematography calling attention to facial expression in Broken Flowers (Focus Features, 2005) 76 3.1 Embodying the Wild Man (Esquire/The National Magazine Company/Matthew Rolston, 1991) 96 3.2 Tom Cruise as Frank T. J. Mackey in Magnolia (New Line, 2000) 110 3.3 Expressive incoherence on The Oprah Winfrey Show (Harpo Productions, 2005) 116 3.4 Performance-of-a-performance on The Tonight Show (NBC, 2005) 117 4.1 ‘The American Family’, US Society and Values (IIP eJournals 2001) 122 4.2 Performing normalcy in Far from Heaven (Focus Features, 2002) and Pleasantville (New Line, 1998) 133 4.3 Two faces of fatherhood in Far from Heaven (Focus Features, 2002) 137 4.4 Authenticity in The Pursuit of Happyness (Columbia, 2006) 143 5.1 Imaging old age as ‘rotting and ‘ripening’ in About Schmidt (New Line/Avery Pix/The Kobal Collection, 2002) and Something’s Gotta Give (Columbia/TriStar/ The Kobal Collection, 2003) 158–159 vii Acknowledgements This book started out as a PhD project undertaken at the University of Nottingham and I am indebted to the Institute of Film and Television and School of American and Canadian Studies who made this project both possible and pleasurable. I am eternally grateful to my supervi- sors, Paul Grainge and Sharon Monteith, for their immensely valua- ble and unwavering encouragement, guidance and friendship, which show no signs of abating even after leaving Nottingham four years ago. I could not have asked for better supervisors. I am extremely grateful to Jake Smith for priceless feedback on my work while at Nottingham and since. My thanks also go to Jude Davies, Mark Gallagher, Roberta Pearson, Gianluca Sergi, Julian Stringer and Peter Urquhart for their advice and comments and to Jim Burton, Fran Eames, Fran Fuentes, SooJeong Ahn, Nandana Bose, Serena Formica, Kerry Gough, Anthony McKenna, Jack Newsinger, Iain Robert Smith and the rest of the wonderful postgraduate community at Nottingham who proved that doing a PhD need not be an isolating experience. At Palgrave Macmillan, my thanks go to Catherine Mitchell, Felicity Plester and Cristabel Scaife for their support and enthusiasm for the project. I am also grateful to the Film and Television Studies team at Southampton Solent University where I have been lucky enough to teach for the last four years. The opportunity to take my research into the classroom proved invaluable in making the final revisions to the book. In particular I would like to thank my friends and col- leagues Darren Kerr, Mark Aldridge and Claire Hines, who probably now know more about Bill Murray’s face than they ever expected or hoped. I would also like to thank Martin for his support and friend- ship during the last six years. Finally, this book would not have been possible without the unconditional love and support of my parents. I dedicate this book to them. Portions of this book have been previously published in some form. A version of Chapter 3 appeared as ‘From Wimps to Wild Men: Bipolar Masculinity and the Paradoxical Performances of Tom Cruise’ in Men & Masculinities 13 (2), January 2011: 231–254. ‘Tongue- tied: Mamet and Macy’s verbal and vocal angst’ was published as viii Acknowledgements ix ‘Tongue-tied: Film and Theatre Voices in David Mamet’s Oleanna,’ Screening the Past, special issue: Cinema/Theatre/Adaptation, Spring/ Summer, 2007. An extended version of ‘Performing the Zeitgeist: Michael Douglas’ appears as “Michael Douglas: Contemporary Masculinity,” in Anna Everett (ed) Star Decades: Movie Stars of the 1990s (Rutgers University Press).
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