Examine how at least two contemporary plays or performances

‘address masculinity and its discontents’ (Edgar in Deeney, 2006: 406)

The main topic of my essay is to analyse ‘masculinity and its discontents’ in Shopping
and Fucking’ by Mark Ravenhill and Dereck Jarman’s film Edward II. As secondary
topics, I found very important to discuss about sexuality, homosexuality and
masculine figures from history, as related to the question.
The play and the film were both written in the ’90 which shows that the time period
was becoming more open to ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ theatre. It is happening whether people
like it or not.

What is masculinity? I presume that we can refer to masculinity in different and

various ways. The term masculinity represents the condition or quality of being
masculine; something considered to be characteristic to the male sex. Ideologies and
discourses of masculinity are associated with men being strong, aggressive, and
protective. Masculinity has particular behaviours, attitudes and self identifications that
are observed not only in the majority of heterosexual men but also in many
homosexual men. Both straight and gay, men can display effeminate characteristics.
Then too some women are perceived as masculine, although some identify as such.
Quite often, women and men are finding issues in discovering or just getting
comfortable with their sexuality.

‘What is sexuality? To this blunt question, the answer would seem clear
enough. Sexuality is surely connected with sex. But if we find ourselves
pressed to define what is meant by sex, then the situation becomes somewhat
more complicated. In the English language, the word sex is certainly
ambiguous. A sign with various connotations, sex refers not only to sexual
activity (to have sex), it also marks the distinction between male and female
anatomy (to have a sex). So it would perhaps be wise to think twice about the
ways in which sexuality might be implicated in these distinct frameworks of
understanding.’(Bristow, 1997: 1)

The distinction between male and female is given mostly by appearance: clothes,
make-up, physical construct or by one’s gestures. Our own individual perception of
one’s sexuality is relative. For example, there are people that do not have a defined
sexuality and by experimenting both male and female aspects they can be perceived
by society in various ways, like being homosexuals, bisexuals or what is considered
‘normal’ nowadays, heterosexual. A very important issue is how masculinity is
constructed during someone’s’ life. Like a child, we as humans, don’t have a defined
sexuality. And we construct our own throughout life. Each individual tends to identify
with their parents and through that creating their concepts about what is right or
wrong. At an early age our parents are delimiting our views about our sexuality by
dressing the girls in pink and the boys in blue, for example, the girls have skirts and
the boys’ trousers, and so on. The point is that at such age children do not have a
defined sexuality.

Spectacularly successful when it opened in London as the first play of the young
playwright, Mark Ravenhill, New York Theatre Workshop has staged Shopping and
Fucking with an American cast co-directed by the prominent British director, Max
Stafford-Clark, who directed the original. For all of its calculated effort to shock, it's a
pretty stale affair. A parade of prostitutes, junkies and sex slaves is not particularly
bold theatre, what would be truly shocking would be a contemporary play that left it
out. The five characters are a desperate bunch, and their lives are unsatisfying. They
don't offer a lot for the audience to embrace. Lulu and Robbie live with, and serve,
Mark. He is possessed of enough chemical and sexual dependency issues to keep
several clinics busy. Although he has supported himself, his retinue and his habits, the
latter are catching up with his wallet. Lulu and Robbie seem to be aware of few
money-making ventures that don't involve sex or drugs. The other two characters
don't offer a great deal of contrast: Brian, a combination philosopher, drug-distributor
and film-maker, and Gary, a prostitute with whom Mark connects, who has a
particularly unpleasant idea of how someone can show their love for him.

The patriarchal model from Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking, comes from the
Disney production The Lion King film. The play emphasise an ideal father/son
relationship in antithesis with Gary’s damaged relationship with his abusive
stepfather. Mark supported Robbie, his lover, and Lulu, Robbie’s former lover, but
when he decides to go in a detoxifying centre because of his drugs problem, Robbie
and Lulu are trying to make a living. Mark is seen as the head of the family, even if
this assembly of three people can’t be seen as a family. He feels the need to protect
them, but when he feels incapable of taking care of himself, he’s searching for help in
other places. After his staying in the clinic he meets this 14 th year old guy, which has
some serious father issues. His stepfather used to molest him and even if he
complained nobody helped him. He is too affected of what happened to him and in
spite of that he says that ‘there’s this bloke. Looking out for me. He’ll come and
collect me. Take me to this big house.’ (Ravenhill, 1997: 39). Even though he had a
lot of suffering he still hopes for a better life, he wants someone to protect him and
have everything from a sexual point of view as well as materialistic. He is just a child
that was sodomized with a knife and screwdriver, a child that can’t live with the pain
and these grotesque memories. Presuming that the stepfather sodomized Gary because
he wanted to manifest his strong, dominating, aggressive characteristic of a masculine
man, the fact that he used a boy, a male figure to express himself sexually, he appears
as a homosexual person as well. The use of the house tools in the sexual act denotes
the father’s mental illness or some sort of mental derangement.

The names of the characters were chosen from the music boy-band ‘Take That’, a
very controversial group of the ’90. Robbie Williams, one of the most famous singers
in the world made his debut with this band. Because of his drug abuse and his
behaviour regarding the group’s success, made the other members confront him and
Robbie decided to leave the band and start a solo career. One year performing without
the main singer of the band, the rest announced their disbanding. Garry and Robbie
had their differences, solved through press.

Freud says: ‘According to the prevailing view, sexual life consists essentially in an
endeavour to bring one’s genitals into contact with those of the opposite sex.’ (Freud,
1964: XXIII/152). The homosexual relationships, as in Shopping and Fucking and
Edward II, are obviously happening between individuals of the same sex/gender. The
gay sexual act it doesn’t consists in a contact between opposite genders and their
sexual organs, but rather anyone’s genitals that make sexual contact with another
person, with no importance of the one’s body parts. As an example to this statement,
Mark says to Gary: ‘I’d really like to lick your arse.’ (Ravenhill, 1996: 23)
 ‘The image of the masculine friend was an image of intimacy between men in
stark contrast to the forbidden intimacy of homosexuality.’ (Bray, 2002: 341).

If we assume that sexuality and desire today encapsulates the only truth then the
future will only hold an even more discourse regulated society. Any sexual deviations
would become immediately illegal and would require jail time if not execution in an
attempt to eradicate the homosexual gene. With the fear of consequences most
homosexuals and lesbians would tend to falsify their identity by exhibiting a
heterosexual behaviour and live their whole life with an unsatisfied desire. Our bodies
thus regulated by discourse will be trapped in a closed loop that only serves as a
repressive institution. Perhaps the institution that was abolished a few hundred years
ago, The Holy Inquisition might just re-emerge under a politically-correct title.
Homosexuality is not one’s discontent of his gender, the contrary it is one’s attraction
and appreciation for one’s own sex. It can go to extremes like absolute love for one’s
own body and sexuality in general, but usually it manifests through sexual contact
with another person of the same sex. The homosexual behaviour is very dissimilar
than the homosexual identity. Homosexual behaviour for men is seen mostly as an
effeminate one; gay people being sensitive and tending to act, look and even talk quite
feminine. Even though these characteristics apply to homosexual men they are also
valid for heterosexuals as well. The homosexual identity is assigned to the people that
identify as such. Homosexuality is still nowadays seen as a disease and is a taboo
subject. There is nothing wrong in being comfortable with your own or some other
individual sexual preferences.

Edward II, a violent film created by Jarman in 1991, captures the forbidden love
between two people of the same sex and the cruelty of the society regarding
homosexuality. By his status, King Edward II was suppose to be a model worth
following for his people and by exposing him and his lover he only managed to create
a riot among the people with what was considered on that time, ‘moral values’. The
king gave enough power to his lover Gaveston, so that the barons and Queen Isabella
plotted against Edward and they killed his lover. His love for Gaveston lasted until the
king’s death, even if his ‘sweet Gaveston’ died a while before. He suffered and
endured people’s cruelty for love. That shows that his masculinity was questionable at
certain points, when he was capable of doing anything for his lover; that is something
that only a woman would have done. Compromising his throne for a love that the
society rejected was a proof of confidence and power that lead to his death. On that
time homosexuality was considered a disease that didn’t had a name.

The scenes were Edward’s son appears with earrings and in another scene has lipstick
as well, are transmitting a complex thought about sexuality in general. Like I
mentioned before, one’s sexuality develops in terms of peer. His parents are the only
example he has and can follow with regard to moulding his sexuality. By having his
mother like a very good example of masculinity in the form of a woman, and the
father with emphatic feminine reactions, the child takes a masculine position with an
effeminate stature. The young Edward III has access to different horrific scenes. He
wonders around in the castle and sees a bunch of naked men in a rugby scrum. He is
not very impressed of what he’s seeing, but interested. He remains silent watching the
show. Another scene is the one where he’s witnessing his uncle’s murder, bitted to
death by the Queen; a monstrous moment, in which the child must attend. He
understands that his uncle had to die, and the earrings that Edward III is wearing
represent the acknowledgement of his mother’s deed. At the end of the film the prince
wares high heels, lipstick and his mother’s earrings again. He is on top of the cage
were Isabella and Mortimer are locked in; he’s dancing on the 'Dance of the Sugar
Plum Fairy', a piece from ‘The Nutcracker’ written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Act
II, Tableau III. Isabella’s masculine position won’t help the child develop as a
masculine individual. Young Edward’s feminine apparel shown at the end of the film
make me thing that he already enhanced a sexuality which is very clear to him but the
public is left in suspense.

If the schizoid reality of post-modern society produces fractured individuals, then

violence becomes a means by which the alienated and fractured individual can
experience feeling and inscribe a history on his body. Inflicting pain on the body
becomes a means of exhibiting endurance through visual signifiers like blood, cuts,
and bruises. Wounding the self is a way to experience the certainty of existence
known only through pain. The use of self-inflicted violence fits nicely within the post-
modern paradigm because its relationship to the body is paradoxical. While it is the
post-modern remedy to a historicity and fragmentation, violence simultaneously
perpetuates this fragmentation because the wounding of the body results in a
disruption of the totality of the coherent bodily narrative. Masculinity and violence
fuse most of the time. Being masculine doesn’t refer immediately in being a man. It
refers mostly in being strong, reaching into the violent. Known male and female
figures from the past that we perceive as masculine, tended to show their violent
instincts. Going back to the Nazi regime The German Fűhrer, Adolf Hitler was known
as the most powerful and cruel leader of that time. There were many comments about
his sexual life and sexual practices of Hitler’s, even though he declared himself as
being a man without a domestic life but a strong political preoccupation. The most
discussed sexual fetish that the leader used to practice was urolagnia; activity defined
as sexual excitement that is associated with the sight or thought of urination. Even the
fact that the close bond with his niece lead to comments of a sexual relationship with
her and the fact that after his death people talked and sustained the case of Hitler’s
homosexuality, the Fűhrer still has a historical figure of being the most violent leader
that ever existed.

The study of masculinity doesn’t need to be referred to men whatsoever, it can report
to women that have masculine characteristics. I’ve chosen to speak in my essay about
how masculinity refers to the male sex. I’m very confident that I’ve achieved to
answer the question of the essay. The two plays that I’ve considered examining are
terrible brutal and controversial. The sexuality of the characters is brilliantly shaped
and gives answers or raises questions about one’s own identification with its
sexuality.
Bibliography:

Bristow, J. (1997) Sexuality, London: Routledge

Ravenhill, M. ( 1996) Shopping And Fucking, London: Methuen

Edwards, T. (2005) Cultures of Masculinity, London: Routledge

Sinfield, A. (1999) Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century,

New Haven: Yale University Press

Adams, R. and Savran, D. (2002) The Masculinity Studies Reader, Oxford: Balckwell

Hodges, B. ed. (2008) Out Plays: landmark gay and lesbian plays of the twentieth

century, New York and London: Alyson

Kahn, J. (2009) An Introduction to Masculinities, Chichester: Wiley- Blackwell

Unger, R.K. (1979) Female and Male, New York: Harper & Row Publishers

Jarman, D. (1992) Queer Edward II, Worchester: The Trinity Press

Godiwala, D. (2006) Queer Mythologies, Bristol: Intellect Ltd.

Eduardo II: 1992 [DVD] Directed by Dereck Jarman. Spain: Cine Independiente