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Cinematic Symptoms of Masculinity in Transition: Memory, History

and Mythology in Contemporary Film

Article  in  Psychoanalysis Culture & Society · December 2005

DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.pcs.2100054

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Article

CINEMATIC S YMPTOMS O F
MASCULINITY I N TRANSITION:
M EMORY, HISTO RY A N D
MYTHOLOGY IN CONTEMP ORARY
FILM

C a r o l i n e B a i n b r i d ge 1 a n d Ca n d i d a Yat e s 2
1
Roehampton University, London, UK
2
University of East London, London, UK
Correspondence: Dr Caroline Bainbridge, School of Arts, Digby Stuart College, Roehampton University,
Roehampton Lane, London SW15 5PH, UK
E-mail: c.bainbridge@roehampton.ac.uk
Candida Yates, School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East London,
Docklands Campus, 4-6 University Way, London E16 2RD, UK
E-mail: c.yates@uel.ac.uk

A b s t ra c t

This paper uses psychoanalytic and cultural theories to explore contemporary shifts
in hegemonic masculinities through a discussion of their representation in mainstream
cinema. By interrogating the uses made in cinema of ideas around history, trauma and
mythology, we suggest that masculinity has been undergoing a stage of cultural transition
towards new modes of masculinity that challenge the rigidities of images in previous
decades. The political potential of such images may also, however, be ultimately reined in
by the insistence of the hegemonic set of discourses around representation. However, by
drawing on psychoanalytic explanations of trauma, gender and cultural fantasy, we
show that these cinematic representations of masculinity are often highly complex,
ambiguous and transitional, and, as such, may lie somewhere in between overly defensive
narcissistic modes of masculinity and those which are more fluid and open to change. In
the end, we settle on the importance of seeing representations of masculinities as forming
a continuum between these positions. While foregrounding that ambiguity, we explore
both the potentially positive and negative implications for the kind of identifications and
affective responses that are opened up for the spectator, and the readings that are created
as a result.

c 2005 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1088-0763/05 $30.00

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 2005, 10, (299–318)
www.palgrave-journals.com/pcs
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Ke y wo rd s
cinema; fantasy; history; masculinities; trauma

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (2005) 10, 299–318. doi:10.1057/palgra-

ve.pcs.2100054

I nt r o d u ct i o n

I
t is often argued that contemporary European and American societies are
witnessing a crisis of masculinity. Whether this alleged ‘‘crisis’’ represents a
positive shift towards more reflexive, emotional masculinities has been the
subject of much debate in psychoanalytic cultural studies, and this debate
provides the context for this paper (Kirkham and Thumim, 1993, 1995; Frosh,
1997; Minsky, 1998; Butler, 2000). Its focus will centre on the popular cultural
trope of masculinity in crisis as represented in contemporary cinema, where
representations of male trauma have been a recurring theme since the 1990s. In
the context of film history, such representations have as their antecedent film
noir, a body of films in which anxieties about the effects of the socio-cultural
climate on gendered subjectivities were a major theme.1 The cultural and
psychoanalytic analysis of trauma and its related themes can be put to work to
construct new insights into this perception of masculinity as being somehow ‘‘in
crisis’’ in the contemporary cultural climate. To this end, this paper uses
psychoanalytic approaches to trauma, gender and cultural fantasy to think
through the possibilities of masculine subjectivities in the context of mainstream
cinema’s articulations of history, trauma and mythology.
There are competing views about the representation of masculinities in
popular cinema. On the one hand, some argue negatively that the changes and
uncertainties of late modernity have elicited a defensive, cultural ‘‘backlash’’ in
the media (Faludi, 1991, 1999), which shores up old hegemonic positions in
relation to patriarchal masculinity (see Samuels, 1993; Connell, 1995). Such
arguments contend that while images of emotional men proliferate, the images
have a narcissistic, rigid quality, and can be seen as an attempt to colonize the
cultural spaces formerly occupied by women (Rowe, 1995; Butler, 2000). Other
commentators suggest that contemporary culture has opened up new counter-
hegemonic spaces that are able to facilitate more fluid, less defensive
masculinities (Segal, 1990; Minsky, 1998). Our analysis aims to move beyond
this binaristic model of theorising masculinity in crisis as either necessarily
positive or negative. Despite the difficulties of articulating the ambiguities of
contemporary masculinities, we argue that there is value in the exploration of
these very uncertainties, and that cinema, with all its associations with fantasy,
affect and unconscious pleasure, provides a useful arena in which to examine
this. To this end, we argue for the need to seek out a kind of transitional space

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that may nevertheless be constrained by the insistence of a hegemonic set of

discourses around representation in both the film text and in the sphere of
cinematic consumption. Of course, such a space is riven with ambiguity but
nevertheless constitutes a counter-hegemonic position in its own right. As Hall
et al suggest, hegemony is always already unstable and is perpetually open to
contestation. In effect, it is an inherently contradictory cultural process, and it is
possible for many different counter-hegemonic positions to jostle simulta-
neously against the dominant ideological, intellectual and institutional forces
that give rise to cultural positions of power. As Hall et al assert, it is precisely in
the process of bargaining that political change occurs and is rendered possible
(Hall et al, 1978; Hall and Jacques, 1989). Politically, then, the kind of
transitional space we are seeking to articulate here provides a challenge to
dominant ideological paradigms of patriarchal masculinity that have previously
existed, as characterized in examples of rudimentary macho and narcissistic
formations of cinematic masculinity (see Mulvey, 1975; Neale, 1983; Modleski,
1991; Silverman, 1992). As we go on to discuss, these ambiguous modes of
representation have implications for the kind of identifications and affective
responses that are opened up for the spectator and for the readings that are
created as a result.

Tra u m a t i c ma s c u l i ni t i e s

The precariousness of masculinity has been discussed at length by those in

cultural and psychoanalytic studies, who argue that masculinity is ‘‘fragile’’ and
‘‘provisional’’, and is constructed as ‘‘an impossible ideal’’ (Kirkham and
Thumim, 1995, p 11). A structural tension lies at the heart of masculinity
between ‘‘the symbolic’’ and the ‘‘real’’, between the psychic fantasies of power
and phallic plenitude and the actualities of limited power and the problematic
realities of dependence and relations of difference (Kirkham and Thumim,
1995, p 13). This contradiction has been pushed and tested in postmodernity by
the loss of values and meanings associated with the old patriarchal order, which
has resulted in heightened levels of anxiety for men today (Segal, 1999). This
‘‘crisis in masculinity’’ has been well documented in both social and cultural
theory, where shifts in masculinity and its associated anxieties are often linked
to an alleged feminization of society and the feminization of men’s values and
behaviour (Coward, 1999; Gill et al., 2000). How this feminization is defined
and whether or not it is viewed as a good thing depends on the political
perspective of the writer. Broadly speaking, the argument refers to an increased
blurring of boundaries between masculinity and femininity, in which the values,
practices and traits associated with the signifier ‘‘femininity’’ are extended to
men and are increasingly dominant throughout contemporary society. Second-
wave feminism and its critique of masculinity and patriarchal social relations

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have been key to the emergence of ‘‘new masculinities’’ in postmodern

representations (Gill et al., 2000, p 210).
Theories of postmodernism point to the relationship between the feminiza-
tion of culture and a scepticism toward the old patriarchal stories and grand
narratives (Owens, 1985; Hill, 1999). This scepticism has contributed to the
undermining of masculine authority and has found widespread representation in
popular culture more generally. The anxieties implicit in these representations
can be linked to the threat of feminism as a political and cultural force. The old
hegemonic fictions of masculinity become increasingly untenable in the
postmodern climate, prompting ever greater insecurities and emptying out the
sureties of hegemonic masculinity. The lived experience of this postmodern
moment amounts to a form of psychic and cultural trauma, and psychoanalysis
lends itself well to its analysis. The quality of this postmodern moment is neatly
encapsulated in the context of film history, where intertextuality and
referentiality have become key watchwords, highlighting the complex cultural
processes by which postmodern concerns around consumption, scepticism and
flux are played out in contemporary cinema (see Butler, 2000). Key examples
include Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), with its playful
reworking of both the James Bond cycle of films and of televisual tropes of ‘‘60s-
ness’’ seen in series such as The Avengers (ITV, 1961–1969), The Persuaders
(ITV, 1971–1972) and Mission Impossible (CBS, 1966–1973).2 Illustrating the
postmodern conundrum of experiencing pleasure, the films of Quentin
Tarantino set such playfulness alongside scenes of graphic violence, throwing
notions of entertainment into flux and leaving the spectator-subject to reflect on
the emptiness of the representations. Many contemporary film texts, such as
those we examine below, make explicit and unconscious reference to their
historical antecedents, demonstrating the continuing instability of masculinities
and the recurrent motif of anxiety that surrounds their representation. Popular
cinema, then, continues to play an important role in the articulation of psychic
and cultural anxieties around masculinity and its perceived crisis.
The psychoanalytic theory of trauma is useful for thinking through issues of
masculinity in crisis, as it touches on and addresses the tensions that underpin
the masquerade of masculinity and the fragility of its construction and its
potentially precarious status. In addition, trauma theory in the Freudian schema
has made in-roads into the discipline of screen studies (Radstone, 2001;
Hammond et al., 2003; Bainbridge et al., 2004a, b), suggesting its pertinence to
the contemporary visual cultural climate. From a Freudian psychoanalytic
perspective, the concept of trauma involves two moments: the first refers to the
moment of trauma itself (repressed memories of the primal scene); the second
involves the memory, or rather the perception, of that event. As Laplanche and
Pontalis (1988, p 467) suggest, in trauma, the memory of the first scene
occasions an influx of stimuli that overwhelms the ego’s defences. The second
moment of trauma can be defined as the moment in which the randomness of an

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event triggers memories of an earlier one, which might never have come to
consciousness had the later event not occurred (Lukacher, 1986, p 35). The
traumatic nature of the first moment of trauma can only be ascribed to it after
the fact. This is the principle of Nachträglichkeit or deferred action.
How the subject perceives a past event and then responds to that perception
in that second moment of trauma provides a useful paradigm to think through
issues of the perceived crisis of masculinity. Masculinity is, and always has been,
unstable. To speak of a crisis is to imply that it was somehow ‘‘alright’’ before.
As in the postwar era, the visibility of this instability shifts in relation to
different historical periods, showing that perceptions of crisis are historically
contingent upon changing social conditions and upon changing gender relations
(see the discussion below). As indicated above, the impact of second wave
feminism has played a key role in challenging perceptions of masculinity in what
we have defined as postmodern culture. The fantasy of a concrete, definable,
finite fantasy of masculinity underpinning patriarchy, then, has fallen away,
suggesting that there is no longer a fixed point of reference by which traditional
modes of heterosexual masculinity can maintain their privileged hegemonic
position.
In postmodernism, a new awareness of the losses bound up with these old
fictions of masculinity gives rise to a sense of trauma. As Freudian approaches to
trauma suggest, memory is always shaped retrospectively through fantasy
(Mitchell, 2000). The fantasy underpinning the hegemonic formation of
masculinity, then, seems to be lost within postmodernism, and it is this loss
that provides the first moment of trauma. As we have already seen, the second
moment of trauma is essential for the identification of the first moment of its
origin – the symptom is fundamental to the revelation of the root of the
traumatic experience. In the postmodern context, the extensive parody of
hegemonic masculinity and the lack of obvious routes out of the paradoxical
spaces it opens up, force a kind of retrospective nostalgia for a fiction of
masculinity that becomes overvalued as a result, and it is this that traumatizes
the postmodern masculine subject. This suggests that the current cultural
‘‘undoing’’ of hegemonic masculinity and the perception of crisis may be
precipitating the kind of repetitive psychic fantasies and defence mechanisms
analogous to those experienced by the traumatized subject, who is unable to live
with the perception of a past event. The unbearability of what lies beneath the
masquerade of masculinity sets off a desire to deflect and cover up the losses,
and in doing so, the subject becomes endlessly and hysterically trapped in that
first moment of trauma.
The proliferation of discourses about male suffering and its representation in
film is analogous to a hysterical defence against the losses of masculinity. This is
nothing new in the history of popular film, as we discuss below. On the one
hand, the cultural scenario of the traumatized subject taps into the scepticism of
those who critique the cultural crisis of masculinity in negative terms by

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suggesting that postmodernity engenders empty fetishistic spaces for identifica-

tion rather than transitional ones which imply movement and creativity
(Kirkham and Thumim, 1995; Butler, 2000).3 However, one can argue that the
slippage from trauma to hysteria also has a usefully disturbing effect, as it
provides the spectator with a glimpse of something else and the unspeakable
losses of masculinity that lie beneath the excesses of the text. As discussed
below, the kind of emotional work this engenders for the spectator has
potentially progressive implications for masculine subjectivities and for psycho-
cultural change. As Mitchell (2000) reminds us, the experience of trauma is not
a static one, as the subject may move between the first and second moments.
This slippage between the two traumatic registers may provide new insights,
enabling the creation of new spaces from which to imagine ontological change
and the radical possibilities of masculinities in transition.
The dilemmas of the traumatized male subject are a recurring theme of
contemporary cinema. In contrast to the more rigid narratives and voyeuristic
looks that hitherto characterized much of dominant Hollywood cinema, these
new flawed representations of men often suggest new modes of masculinity that
are more nuanced and complex and evoke a contradictory set of identifications
from the viewer. Throughout the 1990s, such images included Clint Eastwood’s
aging cowboy in Unforgiven (1992), Bruce Willis’ tender yet violent character in
Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Ray Winstone’s portrayal of the violent and
emotionally damaged husband in Nil By Mouth (1997) and, more recently, Jim
Carrey’s role as Kate Winslet’s lovesick boyfriend, who tries to remove the pain
of lost love by erasing his memory in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(2004). A key aspect of such a hegemonic shift implies a capacity to live with
difference without resorting to the old defensive subject positions that deny the
complexity of the other. The ‘‘other’’ in this context does not only refer to the
feminine. The perception of otherness also refers to the differences between men
and the difficulties of maintaining and living with those differences, as opposed
to slipping into destructive and rivalrous subject positions. It is interesting that
such representations, despite their apparent political promise, remain ambig-
uous as they maintain elements of the more traditional patriarchal formation of
masculinity discussed above. It is often the case that these new images of
masculinity are also at the cost of representations of women. The presence of
women in the texts is often marginalized in relation to the portrayal of the
‘‘new’’ man, who enviously colonizes the cultural space of sexual difference
formerly occupied by women. For example, as in the image of the exaggerated
suffering of the traumatized man, the hysterical defence against the perceived
trauma of loss and difference paradoxically finds its form by mimicking the
emotional traits associated with femininity. Examples here range from the
depiction of Woody Allen’s neurotic bouts of suffering on- and off-screen to the
various roles played by Michael Douglas in films such as Basic Instinct (1992)
and Disclosure (1994), where he depicted emotional male characters who suffer

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at the hands of women. As we discuss below, in relation to films such as The

End of the Affair (1999), it is often the case that in order for the man to express
his emotions, the female protagonist has to die. To explore the issues of
masculinities, trauma and sexual difference, we now turn to questions of
representation, masculinity and popular culture.

Popular tropes of the t ra umatized hero in Hollywood cinema

The ubiquity of films that depict images of male suffering (e.g., Shine (1996),
The Game (1997), American Psycho (2000), Mystic River (2003), The Passion
of the Christ (2004)) is telling, particularly within the current cultural context
where the old fictions of masculinity are unravelling. The shifts in the meanings
of Western masculinity are reportedly linked to the ‘‘feminization’’ and
emotionalization of Western culture, as we have seen (Lasch, 1979; Lupton,
1998; Segal, 1999; Gill et al., 2000). Such changes have been linked to the
greater propensity of men to express their emotions (Lupton, 1998; Segal, 1999;
Yates, 2001). Subordinate and marginalized masculinities that challenge more
traditional forms are finding representation in popular culture, where,
increasingly, discourses and representations of new ‘‘feeling-ful’’ masculinities
are being articulated (Cohan and Hark, 1993; Lupton, 1998; Lehman, 1993).
Over the past decade, and in contrast to the more macho images of the 1980s as
in the Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Rambo cycles of film, more diverse
examples of emotional masculinities can be found in Hollywood cinema than
previously, where the interior lives of the characters are more fully explored.
These include diverse images of fatherhood (Three Men and a Baby (1987), Nil
By Mouth (1999), The Full Monty (1997)), of sons (Billy Elliott (2000), About
A Boy (2002)), men suffering mid-life crises (High Fidelity (2000), As Good As
It Gets (1997)), issues of retirement and the problems of aging (The Pledge
(2001), Unforgiven), sexuality (Philadelphia (1993), The Crying Game (1992)),
and issues of jealousy and loss (The Piano (1993), Howard’s End (1992), The
English Patient (1996)). As Jeffords argues in relation to the 1990s Hollywood
representations of the male body:

More film time is devoted to explorations of their ethical dilemmas,

emotional traumas and psychological goals, and less to their skill with
weapons, their athletic abilities, or their gutsy showdowns with opponents.
(1993, p 245)

It is important to emphasize that the representation of emotional masculinities

in popular cinema (and in popular culture more generally) is nothing new. The
1950s male melodramas provide an example of this, where the intensely
emotional roles played by actors such as James Dean exemplify the image of
tortured masculinity (Hammond, 1993). Such representations are historically

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specific, and provide clues about the shaping of male subjectivities in that
historical, psycho-cultural setting. As suggested above, the cinematic images of
the ‘‘crisis of masculinity’’ are often also associated with film noir, which
emerged in the 1940s and 1950s when men were experiencing emotional
difficulties following the upheavals of the Second World War. The disaffected,
flawed male hero struggling to assert justice in some shape or form in a muddled
and confusing world that seemed to thwart all his effort resonates with
the images of troubled masculinity today. Indeed, the 1990s resurgence of
interest in film noir (seen in ‘‘neo-noir’’ films such as The Last Seduction (1993)
and LA Confidential (1997)), arguably foregrounded a return to an overriding
sense of increased confusion that characterized the psycho-cultural position of
masculinity in that decade. During that period, the cultural emergence of
the image of the ‘‘new lad’’ was symptomatic of that confusion and has
been linked to a neoconservative climate in which a paranoid backlash against
the perceived persecutory gaze of feminism helped to promote this ‘‘blast
of anachronistic masculinity’’ (Faludi, 1999, p 528). Films such as The Full
Monty represented the different cultural forces at that moment, combining a
‘‘laddish’’, wry, self-deprecating, humorous look at the failings of masculinity
with a cynicism about the power of the female gaze and its castrating
connotations.
In the contemporary context, there has been a proliferation of images in
films such as American Beauty (1999), Fight Club (1999), Memento (2000), or
more recently, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where the male
protagonists convey the dilemmas of the traumatized subject, appearing to be
overwhelmed by forces beyond their control. While such representations may
appear to depict a sense of hopelessness for contemporary masculinities, the
popularity of such films should not go unnoticed, as it implies a more active and
politically potent set of identifications on the part of spectators. Alongside
the emotional conundrum of contemporary postmodern masculinities, the
cultural loss of moral certainty is also evoked through the narratives, visual
codes and conventions of such films. Gone are the traditional, linear Oedipal
narratives that characterized Hollywood films of a previous era. Instead,
viewers are often confronted by stories where the boundaries between the
‘‘good’’ and the ‘‘bad’’ guy are no longer so clear-cut, and where, as in films
such as Memento, the memory of the film’s narrator turns out to be totally
unreliable. It is also the case that the female characters often merely function
as narrative foils for the male melodramas to unfold. What is interesting
about these examples, then, as we go on to discuss in more detail below,
is the potential offered by such images for spectators to engage with the
problematic contradictions of the ambiguous modes of masculinity
made available in these films. While the representations themselves do
not completely refuse familiar tropes of dominant masculinity, they nevertheless
open up spaces in which alternative modes of masculinity can be

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imagined through the affectively-nuanced processes of spectatorship that they

demand.

C i ne m a t i c ma s c ul i n i t i e s an d th e tra u m a ti z e d b o d y

A recurring motif of such films is the focus on the male body as a site of anxiety.
In Fight Club, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) exemplifies this, with the image of his
scarred and bruised body both parodying and evoking questions about the limits
of masculine endurance. Yet, all the while, Durden’s machismo is undermined
by his ‘‘friend,’’ Jack (Edward Norton), who ultimately turns out to be his more
vulnerable alter ego. The complexity of the contemporary psychological
experience of masculinity is wrought throughout the film (in terms of both
characterization and plotting) in ways that point to the increasing sense of
fracture, fragmentation and splitting at its heart. With a narrative that
ultimately seems to be rooted in a kind of manic pessimism, Fight Club serves
to highlight the discursive psychological structures at play in contemporary
formations of masculinity, pointing to the place of trauma in forging an
understanding of them. The film’s ending (and the revelation of its twist) points
to the cultural psychosis that seems to have been forged within the particular
context of the culture of high consumption and late capitalism that characterizes
contemporary Western urban lifestyles. The hegemonic structures that underpin
this cultural context are signalled as the root cause of the film’s representation of
what we are supposed to understand as masculinity. It is as though the history of
Western hegemony, with its idealization of phallic power, is to be understood as
the source of the symptom and that the experiences of men trapped within its
workings are increasingly verging on the pathological as a result. However, the
film also articulates the tensions between psychic fantasies of phallic power
grounded in the symbolic domain of masculinity, and it thereby confronts the
actualities of men’s rising anxieties and fears of inadequacy. This, combined
with the film’s revelation, at the end, of the fact that Tyler and Jack are in fact
the same person, alerts the spectator to the schizoid status of contemporary
masculinity, thereby forcing the spectator to imagine the originary moment of
trauma and thus to contemplate more radical alternatives. Thus, while the film
itself may not seem to offer a progressive representation of masculinity, its
themes and narrative strategies work to produce a mode of spectatorship that
challenges the status quo.
In the film Memento, the pathologization of masculine subjectivity is central
to both the narrative and the filmic structure. The film evokes the themes of
masculinity in crisis and the traumatized body as discussed so far. It has become
a cult film among cinema audiences who remain fascinated by its complex and
enigmatic story line. The protagonist, Leonard (Guy Pearce), is a man who is
trapped in an endless present, a man who, we are told, has no capacity for new
memories. The last thing he remembers is his wife dying. He has no means of

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gauging the time that has elapsed since this traumatic event because of his
condition. Leonard’s present life is a constant round of recognizing clues and
deciphering puzzles in order to avenge the murder of his wife and sustain a sense
of justice in a world of turmoil and confusion. At one level, this character seems
generic, fulfilling a role familiar to us from film noir. Yet, the film’s form and
structure complicate our relationship to the protagonist and Leonard is
eventually revealed as a much more complex rendition of masculinity than
we have hitherto assumed.
In Memento, the male body functions as a prop, as a key for spectators
struggling to make sense of what they are seeing. This is particularly evident in
the tattoos written on Leonard’s body, which stipulate that ‘‘Notes can be lost’’,
‘‘Memory is treachery’’ and ‘‘Don’t trust your weakness’’. The tattoos act as a
reminder of the castratedness of the position occupied by Leonard in the film,
seeming to spell out the failure of the hegemonic relationship between mastery
and masculinity. They might be seen as simplistic metaphors for contemporary
masculinity, and the film’s play with them reminds us of the slippages in what is
understood as masculinity in contemporary culture. The tattoos serve an
important function in the film as they alert the spectator to the playful rendition
of masculinity in this film, opening up new avenues for its deconstruction.
Masculinity in Memento is also defined in the context of trauma. In the
colour strand of narrative in the film, Leonard functions as though he is
endlessly trapped on the brink of the so-called second moment of trauma that is
so crucial to the recognition of the prior moment of trauma to which it refers.
The problem for Leonard is that he is constantly at the point of recognition that
his wife’s murder accounts for his condition, but, because of his inability to
make new memories, the fact or truth of the experience can never fully be
grasped. However, the film’s apparently traumatic representation of masculinity
is arguably fraudulent. The narrative is riven with holes that leave the spectator
with little space for cinematic pleasure. Indeed, when we realize toward the end
of the film that Leonard is a highly unreliable narrator,4 our identification with
him is undone and we are forced to take on the second moment of trauma for
ourselves in order to make sense of what we are seeing. As spectators, we are left
in a subjective relation to the film that at the very least parallels the psychic
experience of trauma. In order to get the narrative joke and perceive where the
place of trauma lies, we need to have sat through it and got to the end. As with
the moment in Fight Club when we discover that the two male characters are
the same person, the revelation of Memento’s joke, and the fact that it is on us,
prompts us to re-examine the events in question in order to have a sense of
mastery over the narrative truth. This raises interesting questions about the
therapeutic potential of cinema in working through the dilemmas of
contemporary masculinity; yet it also unravels culturally-defined notions of
the male anti-hero as seen in these films. While this unravelling is not countered
by the provision of any fixed alternative, it performs an important function as it

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forces the spectator to engage imaginatively with the conundrum of

contemporary masculine subjectivities.

H i s t o r y, m a s c u l i n i t y a n d t h e u n r e l i a b l e me m o r y o f t h e
t ra u m a t i ze d s u b j ec t

Memento is a film that foregrounds formations of masculinity in relation to

questions of memory, mastery and psychopathology. The pathologization of
masculinity and its relation to memory challenges more traditional hegemonic
discourses of masculinity, and Memento becomes a meditation on the broader
cultural difficulties that ensue. Interestingly, as with Fight Club, Memento
deploys a narrative structured around trauma and pathology as a way of
conceptualizing the importance of history and memory for a sense of what
masculinity has meant, and, more importantly, for what it might come to mean.
In a sense, then, these films work critically to problematize the hegemonic
discourse of masculinity and can be read as a response to the slippage of
masculinity from its positions of certainty within the contemporary Western
cultural climate. Such films show History, in its hegemonic form and as evoked
through the unreliable narrators in these films, to be the source of neurosis and
as the source of the psychopathology of contemporary masculinities more
generally. At the same time, however, they also shake up preconceived ideas and
psychic defences, which have hitherto closed down the possibilities of
progressive ways of seeing. In the absence of a reliable narrator, the spectator
is compelled to construct an alternative position from which to make sense (and
pleasure) of the text and its stories. Other films of this period, such as Neil
Jordan’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1951 novel The End of the Affair, also
challenge the reliability of masculinity, history and the male narrator, but in a
form which overtly foregrounds the treatment of history as its object.
The End of the Affair (1999) is a drama about a passionate adulterous love
affair in London during World War II. The jealousy of the leading male
protagonist, Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes), occupies a central role in the
narrative and the depiction of jealousy provides a good example of a more
nuanced, postmodern portrayal of masculinity, albeit one inscribed in jealousy.
Although the story belongs to Bendrix, his narrative is constantly de-centred
and undermined by other voices and by the events that take place. Throughout
the film, Bendrix struggles to know everything, and to possess all the facts, but
he cannot do so. Bendrix’s preoccupation with his own jealousy is a major
theme throughout the film and provides a central narrative focus for his account
of jealous loss and desire. Bendrix’s jealousy resonates with the perceived crisis
in masculinity at a number of levels, as it themes itself in relation to the search
for the lost object, a quest for knowledge and truth and the lacking jealous
subject who projects everything onto the idealized other. His angry insecurity
and quarrelsome manner may make him an ‘‘unlikely hero’’ (Case, 2000, p 22),

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but he nevertheless offers the audience an example of reflexive, ‘‘feeling-ful’’

masculinity as, throughout the film, he constantly articulates his jealousy in
the mode of a Freudian confessional, and shares with us even his most nasty
feelings of jealous possession. In this way, he is at once all surface and depth,
and this helps to produce more varied and critical spaces for audience
identifications.
The End of The Affair contains, but in a critical, reworked form, stylistic
features associated with heritage films.5 The ‘‘authentic’’ visual period details of
the mise-en-scène play a central role in the appeal of such films, and contribute
to fantasies of historical ‘‘truth’’ and authenticity in relation to what is being
represented on screen.6 The desire for visual authenticity is connected to the
search for the ‘‘real’’ and may be related to the loss of faith in the narratives that
once defined and codified the myths and patriarchal certainties in the West. In
The End of the Affair, this loss of faith is echoed and problematized in the
narrative in a number of ways. One can cite the theme of Sarah’s (Julianne
Moore) Christian faith and Bendrix’s lack of it, of his jealousy and his refusal to
believe in her fidelity.7
The critical portrayal of the past in terms of 1940s England also extends to
the depiction of Bendrix’s critical relationship with his own past and an
understanding of the events and fantasies that sparked his jealousy. As with
Memento and Fight Club, the film reveals the constructed nature of male
subjectivities, which helps to create a less self-deluding relationship with the
past. The film has a non-linear structure that disrupts Bendrix’s point of view
and his memory of events, again suggesting the unreliability of the narrator and
problematizing the reliability of History.
The film’s ending, in which the male rivals, Bendrix and Henry (Stephen Rea),
are reconciled, finding companionship together after the death of Sarah, would
suggest a shift from what Leslie Fiedler has described as the ‘‘violent repression
of homoeroticism in the history of Hollywood films’’ (1970, p 348). As a
number of feminist scholars have since documented, the repression of
homoeroticism and its projection onto female characters in the form of the
masterful gaze, has been a recurring theme in the history of patriarchal cinema
(Modleski, 1991; Silverman, 1992). However, the authoritarian denial of
homosexuality has also been associated with violence between male characters,
where, for example, ‘‘male buddy movies’’ in particular, blur the boundary
‘‘between pejoration and titillation’’ (Radstone, 1995, p 163). Representations
of destructive male rivalry in films can also be seen in this light and can be
viewed as ‘‘an authoritarian defence’’ against homosexuality and the differences
associated with femininity.
However, in The End of the Affair, the ending is more ambiguous and
promises a different settlement between the parties concerned, which in turn
arguably opens up a transitional space for the ways in which masculinity is
proposed and imagined. Such a space lessens the projections between the two

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men, implying an acceptance of sameness, yet it also emphasises their difference,

and it is this which points to a space for transition. Interestingly, the transitional
masculinities depicted in this film are framed through a notion of ‘‘Englishness’’
grounded in historical conceptualizations of the ‘‘gentleman’’. In this way, the
film deploys History as a space of possible contestation over what masculinity
might mean. By delimiting aspects of masculinity with reference to the
historicized trope of the gentleman, the film arguably extends the potential
repertoire of such spaces.
One can argue that a cult of authenticity exists in Heritage films and that this
works to legitimate and reproduce a particular idealized and reactionary view of
nation and of that nation’s historical past (Hill, 1999). The desire for
authenticity and a fidelity to ‘‘the real’’ may be related to the loss of faith in
the narratives that underpin Western patriarchal myths. However, in The End of
the Affair this loss of faith, together with its disorienting emotional
connotations, is both evoked and problematized in a number of ways. The
resonances here with the observations we have been making about the psycho-
cultural restructuring of masculinity are apparent. In the turn to history as an
object, cinema appears to offer a way of renegotiating the places of masculinity
in relation to ideas of history. Many films of the 1990s worked in this way, for
example, The Remains of the Day (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Quiz Show
(1994), and The English Patient.
Interestingly, more recently, cinema has refined its treatment of masculinity in
the context of history, and there has been a palpable shift toward narratives that
deal in mythologies. Films such as Troy (2004), King Arthur (2004) and
Alexander (2004) articulate their formations of masculinity through reworkings
of the mythological roots of what it means to be a man. By turning to
foundational moments in the Western history of civilization, such films ground
the new masculine sensibilities in the archaic bedrock of symbolic systems. The
newly wrought structure of such films, with their emphasis on male-to-male
relationships, displaces anxiety about the feminine onto an attempt to colonize
spaces of difference in order to negotiate a space of transition for what
masculinities might mean. Arguably, however, anxiety about the feminine has
hitherto thwarted efforts to renegotiate the meaning of masculinity. In the turn
to mythology, these films appear to reconfigure the potential of homosocial and
homoerotic notions of masculinity in a way that evokes defensive strategies and
marks a retreat from the progressive potential of the transitional spaces we have
been discussing, pointing to the regressive, fetishistic qualities of these films and
their uses of history. Interestingly, Troy deploys the fetishistic strategies of
cinema to elaborate effect with its use of lighting, costume, stars, framing and
narrative to reinforce the objectification of the male body and the narcissistic
pleasures of the male gaze.8 The film focuses on the quest for freedom and its
heroic narrative is structured through a triangular dynamic in which the search
for the object is pivotal.

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Similarly, the recent film King Arthur (2004) is a reworking of the Camelot
myth. The film’s use of myth is a departure from the traditional one and
disinvests it of the masculine losses associated with it. In this version, the
chivalrous dynamics are not directly played out in relation to the woman in the
domestic setting of Camelot, but rather, the object of desire is symbolized in
terms of the quest for ‘‘freedom’’ and identity through male homosocial bonding
against the enemy in battle. The film contains the hegemonic ambiguities of
contemporary masculinities in its refusal to work with the traditional cultural
tropes of male chivalry and romance. Yet, both King Arthur and Troy ultimately
work in a concrete fashion to reinforce these tropes, and they do so by setting
out to depict history, not as ‘‘myth’’, but rather as ‘‘the real thing’’. King Arthur
and Troy, then, are grandiose in their aim of depicting the ‘‘truth’’ of
masculinity, and this has the effect of temporarily masking the cracks and
uncertainties of the old hegemonic order. However, these recent films have
enjoyed neither critical nor commercial success. By contrast, the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, where myth is subordinate to fantasy, and where truth claims are
secondary to the pleasures that fantasy has to offer, deploys the quest narrative
in a way that appears to offer safer spaces of exploration for contemporary
cinema audiences. Nevertheless, films such as those in the Lord of the Rings
cycle also reinforce old binaristic models of sameness and difference, and,
paradoxically, seem to close down the radical potential of fantasy for
imaginative engagement with transitional cultural spaces that might challenge
the old linear models of history. This has implications for the cultural reworking
of masculinity and the binary structures that underpin it. While the quest for
freedom is still central to these films, they seek to foreclose the dilemmas of
masculinity in transition by deploying fantasy as an escape from the lived
experience of it. Hence, this cycle of films seems not to offer solutions in the
manner of Troy and King Arthur, but rather offers a holding space for the
anxieties associated with the lived experience of masculinity in transition.

Conclusion

The notion of masculinity in transition is deployed throughout this article at

two levels that are closely imbricated. First, in the context of cinematic
representations of masculinity, it is argued that contemporary films revisit and
re-work themes familiar to us from earlier cinematic eras (most particularly in
the context of film noir), and that, in so doing, they draw attention to the
historically shifting fragile underpinnings of masculinity and its cultural
articulations. In the postmodern climate, such representations are particularly
pertinent as the repetitive, citational quality of popular culture evokes deeper
cultural anxieties that can be explored through discourses of trauma, showing
how assumptions of safety around the cultural position of masculinity are no
longer valid. The paradox of this position is that it creates a void that is at once

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glaring and unbearable, and which the spectator-subject feels compelled to fill,
despite the fact that there is no ready mechanism by which to do so. The second
tension stems from the creative desire on the part of the spectator to repair the
sense of loss that ensues, and the corresponding despair it evokes, which is
rooted in the recognition of those losses and the cracks of wounded masculinity.
In setting out to articulate the complexity of masculinities in transition, our
aim has been to convey the ambiguous and slippery terrain of masculinity in
postmodernity. As we have highlighted, contemporary masculinities are in
constant flux and are no longer comprehensible solely in terms of old fictions of
fixity and hegemonic truth. Instead, masculinity is increasingly subject to
renegotiation and popular cinema provides one space in which such renegotia-
tions take place.
Contemporary cinematic representations of masculinity shift along a
continuum, the poles of which we have defined as fetishism on the one hand
and transitional space on the other. At the fetishistic end of the spectrum, the
viewer is confronted with rigid, petrified and static articulations of masculinity,
which appear to perpetuate old narcissistic modes of viewing and experience.
Such representations work in a circular motion, endlessly repeating familiar
patterns and tropes that trap the viewing subject into a hysterical mode of
spectatorship. By contrast, representations of masculinity in transition by
definition foreground the possibility of change and of more creative, fluid and
dynamic identifications. They therefore appear to be less defensive, although the
character of these spaces of exploration is such that the possibility of slippage
into more ambivalent states of fantasy is always on the horizon. The analyses set
out here navigate between these poles, highlighting the difficulty of scrutinizing
postmodern texts in which the potential for both fetishistic and transitional
readings may exist.
Of the texts examined here, there is an interesting historical compartmenta-
lization that can be made. The most clearly ambiguous texts identified in this
paper emerged during the 1990s, suggesting that this period was particularly
inflected with the possibility of a shift in gender politics. Interestingly, the later
films examined here seek to recuperate an older story of masculinity rooted in
mythology and a highly fetishized account of history.
Over recent years in mainstream cinema, then, there is a clear historical
trajectory that has opened up what might be regarded as a new space of
working through. One can point to the potential therapeutic value inherent in
the emotional work demanded by such spaces as they do not furnish us with
ready-made solutions to the dilemmas of contemporary masculinity, but rather
provide a setting in which a cultural working through is able to unfold. This is
important at the level of individual viewing subjects, but also has implications
for society more broadly and for the fantasies that circulate within culture. As
we have discussed, popular films of the 1990 s (such as Memento, Fight Club,
The End of the Affair) dealt with the cultural manifestation of masculinity in

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crisis through the depiction of men in trauma and extreme states of

emotionality. We suggest that these films, with their joint emphases on the
traumatic schisms of male subjectivity and on the need for an active mode of
spectatorship to repair creatively the gaps inherent in such representations, offer
precisely such a place for working through, albeit one that is in perpetual
tension with the possibility of imminent collapse.
While such images are still evident in more recent cinema, we have also
identified a new trend in representation that moves away from the focus on the
symptom and its dangerous complexities to a more concrete articulation of
masculinity through the depiction of mythology. In films such as Troy, King
Arthur and Alexander, the mechanism of working through is curtailed and
potentially closed down. This can be understood in relation to a broader
cultural shift in the historical context of recent world events, in which more
defensive modes of relating have arguably come to the fore and in which more
familiar renditions of heroic masculinity have seemingly become more pertinent.
To an extent, it is inevitable that the working of hegemonic forces is such that
anything that works to counter dominant ideological formations is always
already able to be recuperated. However, the postmodern climate with its
central focus on flux arguably works to undermine this, allowing political
spaces to emerge and be held open despite this seemingly inevitable closure. One
of the ways in which this works is through contingencies inherent to the cultural
sphere of consumption. For example, films such as Memento and Fight Club
have attracted a huge fan base, where the consumption of the film extends well
beyond its historical moment through ownership of DVD versions and through
internet culture and discussion sites. This demonstrates the extent to which
postmodern conditions of globalization enable the potential space of a film to
insist despite the tendency of hegemonic processes toward strategies of
recuperation, and it also shows the way in which this depends on the
engagement of the cinematic spectator with processes of consumption. The
notion of masculinity in transition at the heart of this paper, then, depends on
the close imbrication of processes of representation and resistant spectatorship,
and it is this inter-relation that holds open the possibility of progressive spaces
for new formations of masculinity.

A b o u t th e a ut h o r s

Dr Caroline Bainbridge is Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Roehampton

University. She is the author of a number of articles on gender, trauma,
spectatorship and cinema and of Making Waves: The Cinema of Lars von Trier
(London & New York: Wallflower Press, forthcoming). She is also jointly
editing Culture and the Unconscious (London & New York: Palgrave,
forthcoming).

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Dr Candida Yates is Senior Lecturer in Psychosocial Studies at the University of

East London. Her research interests include masculinity, affect, cinema and
cultural change. She is currently writing Jealous Masculinities and Cinema
(London and New York: Palgrave, forthcoming). She is also jointly editing
Culture and the Unconscious (London and New York: Palgrave, forthcoming).

Notes
1 It is generally accepted that the film noir movement runs from the 1940s (although it has its roots in
1930s films made in both the Hollywood and European contexts) to 1960 or so. For a full analysis of
film noir, see Silver and Ursini (1999).
2 Incidentally, there have been a number of cinematic adaptations of such TV series in recent years,
highlighting the way in which postmodernism has given rise to a playful concern with ideas about
‘‘retro’’ culture as exemplified through the more recent playful representations of such formerly
patriarchal figures. See, for example, The Avengers (1998) and Johnny English (2003).
3 The concept of ‘‘transitional space’’ is borrowed from Winnicott (1971), who uses it to describe the
intermediate ‘‘me-not me’’ space that emerges between the mother and the infant for play. This space
is the precursor for creativity, and he argues for the psychic significance of this space, in which
subjectivity is continually made and re-made. See Yates and Day Sclater (2000) for a discussion of the
relationship between transitional space, subjectivity and culture.
4 Leonard’s tattooed body gives the lie to his reliability as a narrator in two flash shots. In the first of
these scenes, there is a fleeting shot of Leonard, who has replaced Sammy Jankis (Stephen
Tobolowsky), seated in a chair in the TV room at the mental hospital. In the second, toward the end
of the film, we see Leonard lying in bed with his wife who is alive, and Leonard’s chest bears a tattoo
that we have not seen before and that says ‘‘I killed John G’’.
5 Heritage films are, by definition, set in the past and contain a range of different generic elements that
tend to draw on dominant notions of ‘‘England’s rich historical and cultural heritage’’ (Hill, 1999, p
77).
6 For an overview of the debate around the ideological and cultural function of heritage films, see
Hammond (1993) and Hill (1999).
7 These ontological uncertainties are also expressed aesthetically, through the ambiguities of the film’s
mise-en-scène. The authentic period details are undermined by the flashbacks, the dark, shadowy
lighting, the circular postmodern music of Michael Nyman and the jealous gaze of the camera, which
looks for what can’t be seen or found. Jordan subverts the conceits of English heritage films that
idealize history, and instead he evokes the atmosphere of the 1940s in such a way as to unsettle the
audience and its response to the dramas of male jealousy enacted on the screen.
8 For further discussion of these ideas, see Neale (1983).

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Fil mo g ra phy

About A Boy, dir. Chris and Paul Weitz, 2002. UK/USA/France/Germany.

Alexander, dir. Oliver Stone, 2004. USA/UK/Germany/Netherlands.
American Beauty, dir. Sam Mendes, 1999. USA.
American Psycho, dir. Mary Harron, 2000. USA/Can.
As Good As It Gets, dir. James L Brooks, 1997. USA.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, dir. Jay Roach, 1997. USA and Germany.
Basic Instinct, dir. Paul Verhoeven, 1992. USA.
Billy Elliott, dir. Stephen Daldry, 2000. UK/France.
Disclosure, dir. Barry Levinson, 1994. USA.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, dir. Michael Gondry, 2004. USA.
Fight Club, dir. David Fincher, 1999. USA.
Forrest Gump, dir. Robert Zemeckis, 1994. USA.
High Fidelity, dir. Steven Frears, 2000. USA/UK.
Howard’s End, dir. James Ivory, 1992. UK/Japan.
Johnny English, dir. Peter Howitt, 2003. UK.
King Arthur, dir. Antoine Fuqua, USA.
LA Confidential, dir. Curtis Hanson, 1997. USA.
Memento, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2000. USA.
Mission Impossible, dir. Brian de Palma, 1996. USA.
Mystic River, dir. Clint Eastwood, 2003. USA.
Nil By Mouth, dir. Gary Oldman, 1997. UK.
Philadelphia, dir. Jonathan Demme, 1993. USA.
Pulp Fiction, dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1994. USA.
Quiz Show, dir. Robert Redford, 1994. USA.
Shine, dir. Scott Hicks, 1996. Australia/UK.

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The Avengers, dir. Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1998. USA.

The Crying Game, dir. Neil Jordan, 1992. GB.
The End of the Affair, dir. Neil Jordan, 1999. US/Germany.
The English Patient, dir. Anthony Minghella, 1996. USA.
The Full Monty, dir. Peter Cattaneo, 1997. USA/GB.
The Game, dir. David Fincher, 1997. USA.
The Last Seduction, dir. John Dahl, 1993. USA.
The Passion of the Christ, dir. Mel Gibson, 2004. USA.
The Pledge, dir. Sean Penn, 2001. USA.
The Piano, dir. Jane Campion, 1993. New Zealand.
The Remains of the Day, dir. James Ivory, 1993. UK/USA.
Three Men And A Baby, dir. Leonard Nimoy, 1987. USA.
Troy, dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 2004. USA.
Unforgiven, dir. Clint Eastwood, 1992. USA.

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