Masculinity in American Cinema

Men have always been objectified in American cinema. Just like women, men have been limited in the roles they get to play and have always been reduced to either the ‘supportive loving family man’ or ‘the hero’ both steeped in patriarchy. There are very few cases in American cinema whereby the male protagonist doesn’t fall into these conservative stereotypes of what a man should be. The WASP values of the 40s and 50s are still as present in modern cinema perhaps more than ever before. As we progress into the 21^st century cinema and art is being compromised by staunch conservatism, censorship and political correctness that true individual characters are almost impossible to find. The complexity of what it is to be a man is never explored, it always black or white, good or bad. This type of archetypal characterisation was very prevalent in the cinema of the 40s and 50s whether you were John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart or Humphrey Bogart; you represented the ideals of America, and more importantly the ideals of White-Middleclass-Christian America.

All of this changed in the 60s along with everything else. The civil rights movement and the radical changes in social perception and legislation allowed black people, women, gay people etc. not only to have more rights, but also to be depicted more fairly and authentically in cinema. The revolutions that occurred throughout the 60s echoed throughout its cinema and some of the greatest films of all time were made within the decade. The days of such strict conservatism were behind us and the haze code was no longer in place. Actors like James Dean, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen had radicalized the art form and allowed a whole new breed of male star to flourish and define the American man in cinema. The actors and films of the 60s were some of the most revolutionary, after the influence of the ‘New Wave’ this allowed American film making the freedom to tackle subject matter that otherwise would have been too controversial.

Throughout the 60s and 70s American film became more counter-cultural, post Vietnam films like ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’ were free to express the true nature of masculinity. Travis Bickle and Randall McMurphy depicted the true face of not only America but the inner struggle of manhood. The rage that swells within all of us, how life is just the attempt to suppress that rage and anger to meet societies demands of what is healthy and proper. Both Bickle and McMurphy are the product of America. The product of post war, post 60s, post Vietnam America. Malignant and removed like an appendix, these types of men are the everyman on every street corner, that are the building blocks and foundations of America, but as they do not fit into the ideals of WASP values America, they are ignored. ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest’ is truly one of the greatest films of all time, the novel by Ken Kesey just like the film, ingeniously depicts how the true madness of a man can only come from institutionalization, emasculation via the institution. The institution being America, the giant steel dildo that is butt-fucking us all.

The avant-garde film making depicted in ‘Taxi Driver and ‘Cuckoos Nest’ couldn’t last. The radicalism and freedom that the 60s brought with it always had to end and crash at some point down the line. The dream was over. The 60s and 70s gave us the best American cinema of all time. The golden age of Hollywood directors emerged in the 70s, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas et al. The filmmakers that defined a generation are still to this day irreplaceable.

The reaction to such liberalism came in the late 70s and certainly as we progressed into the 1980s. Right wing, middle class, conservative America was back at the heart of American film and has ever since. In the modern day, in the 21^st century, post 9/11, in the age of the internet, social networking and political correctness insanity, the creative freedom of commercial studio system led American film has never been more saturated with such garbage that great cinema now stands out even more. Truly great cinematic art is at its finest in the 21^st century, it has just become harder to get great films made in the face of such belligerent, corporate led studio systems.

Films such as ‘There Will Be Blood, ‘Shame’ and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ continue to push the boundaries and explore the themes of masculinity that has always been ignored in Hollywood. ‘There Will Be Blood’ is one of the greatest cinematic works of all time, its unflinching depiction of what torment and struggle it is to carry the burden of being a man. To live a life repressed, full of rage and hate and confusion and never knowing why. It is a character study of masculinity, shaped by environment and cultural identity. This type of subject matter is far more common today, films are to a large extent, free to tackle whatever subject matter they feel like, but it still remains that the far right conservatism and evangelical principles that built Hollywood are still just as rife if not more than ever before in the studio system.