Expressions of Masculinity - Essay Example

Expressions of Masculinity While scientists and theorists have formulated hypotheses into the nature of masculinity since Freud, it’s generally agreed that the concept cannot be reduced to a simple definition. Rather masculinity resides at the confluence of a number of disparate theories and expressions of identity and self-hood. Post-structurally, it shifts in response to feminist and broader social reactions and reasserts itself in a number of ways. Indeed, many formulations of the post-modern carry consider the fractured identity of the self an underlining trait of the contemporary human condition. With reference to Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (1991) and Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998), this essay explores the multitude of expressions of masculinity within and between cultures. Contemporary theorists of masculinity have increasingly noted the idea of a post-feminist male identity (Burr 1995). There is a perceived backlash towards advances in feminism over the last quarter century that posits male identity in direct opposition to feminism. In books such as Backlash and Stiffed, Susan Faludi has identified a crisis in masculinity and a resultant wave of males attempting to reassert traditional identity constructions. She discusses ways in which men have lost significance in modern society. Writers such as Benjamin Brabon have discussed the appearance of such expressions of masculinity in cultural artifacts such as the film Falling Down, arguing that the white-male main character is acting out in the film because his previously dominate social position western society has been dislocated in the new millennium (Brabon 57). Other writers identify the normative standards that underline many expressions of male masculinity and explore the resultant backlash (Barker 2008). These interpretations of ‘post-feminist man’ has incorporated the violent outbursts of males in contemporary society and films as extensions of phallus emasculation experienced as a result of these feminist advances. In fact, statistical research has shown that over the last twenty-year period woman are more than twice as likely to report being attacked by a significant other (Hatty 5). In terms of patriarchy, Thomas Byer argues that: Perhaps the major – function and driving force of patriarchal narrative is the attempt to re-member a masculine body whose member has been “dissed” Thus sadism and violence directed against women are not in themselves synonymous with narrative; rather they are among the most common, and most virulently misogynist, strategies by which patriarchal narratives try to reconstruct an imaginary wholeness for the masculine subject – by which they try to disavow or repress that subject’s castration (Byer 422). In terms of Brett Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho, the psychological disturbance that protagonist Patrick Bateman experiences that leads him to murder predominantly women can be interpreted as a post-feminist expression of masculinity. Post-modern categorizations of this post-feminist man have identified a splintered identity that lashes out in an attempt to reestablish itself within the structure of modern society. Upon analysis of American Psycho, it’s evident that Patrick Bateman is expressing his masculinity and search for identity through the violence exhibited throughout the narrative. While the over-the-top narrative violence is clearly hyperbolic, it demonstrates expressions of male masculinity taken to the limit of post-modern absurdity. When discussing Bateman’s post-feminine identity crisis in structuralist terms Elizabeth Young writes: Patrick is a cipher; a sign in language and it is in language that he disintegrates, slips out of our grasp…He is a textual impossibility, written out, elided until there is no "Patrick" other than the sign or signifier that sets in motion the process that must destroy him and thus at the end of the book must go back to its beginnings and start again…Patrick becomes, in effect, feminized, excluded from "existing" in language (Young 79). Young is arguing that throughout the novel Bateman can be understood in structuralist terms wherein his expression of masculinity is only an outward illusion that is in constant flux and dilemma. Indeed the novel contains a number of thematic references to outward expressions of identity. In one scene, Patrick and his colleagues are seated at a restaurant and watching a newscast of Ronald Reagan discussing the Iran-Contra scandal. One colleague remarks that Reagan is presenting himself as a harmless old-man when on the inside he is evil. Bateman replies that the outside is all that matters. This is a representation of contemporary masculinity as superficial and in constant flux. While he predominantly strikes out against women, the novel also illustrates incidents of violence against homosexuals, blacks, and other minorities. This is Bateman’s way of establishing his masculinity against sections of society that have encroached upon the traditional concepts of identity that he has been conditioned to embrace. In discussing this concept of the hegemonic male, Zygmunt Bauman indicates that the conservative reaction against such destructuralization of society is a common reaction. He writes: In the modern world, notoriously unstable and constant solely in its hostility to everything constant, the temptation…to bring the perpetual change to a halt, to install an order secure against all further challenges, becomes overwhelming and very difficult to resist. (Bauman 11) Bateman’s masculinity is in this state of post-modern “perpetual change” and the increasing violence and murders he partakes in are his hyperbolic attempt to resists this change from the previously marginalized sections of society. While Patrick Bateman’s violent outbursts can viewed as a post-feminist reaction to shifting gender roles, such expressions of masculinity have been identified as far back as the 1930s in the work of psychoanalyst Karen Horney. In The Dread of Woman (1932), Horney discusses the concept of castration anxiety as it relates to expressions of masculinity: Among them are the tendency to choose socially inferior women as love objects, and the habit of actively undermining women’s self-respect in order to support ‘ the ever precarious self-respect of the “average man (pg. 3)” Horney’s characterization of masculine expression is exemplified in Bateman’s interaction with prostitutes. During one interaction he picks up a prostitute named Christie and rendezvous with a second prostitute at an apartment. Bateman is engaged and seemingly has no trouble meeting women, so his desire in picking up the “socially inferior” prostitutes can be interpreted as an extreme expression of masculinity. Indeed, Bateman debases the women, asking one to “eat the asshole” of another, and goes on to inflict physical abuse on them. Horney would interpret such acts as the embodiment of male castration anxiety. Bateman goes on to film the two women engaging in these sexual acts. Perhaps more relevant to the film adaptation of the book, the scene invokes Laura Mulvey’s essay Visual Please and Narrative Cinema (1975). Mulvey says that "the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence (Mulvey 145)  ." Throughout the film Bateman is feminized through shots that highlight his physique and sexuality, the patriarchal gaze of classic Hollywood has been subverted onto the male. When Bateman films the prostitutes he has re-appropriated the male gaze as an expression of his masculinity, or for “the ever precarious self-respect of the ‘average man.’” While the violent outbursts Bateman exhibits represent an extreme form of this masculine expression, the novel explores more traditional constructions of male identity. Bateman’s character is at times taken to such extremes that it seems to parody 1980s characterizations of masculine identity. It seems that he lives a life that has become so completely dominated by expressions of wealth and power that it borders on parody. Bateman is concerned with women only as they relate to the statued trophy ideal. He refers to them as “hardbodies” and laughs at a colleague who interjects that perhaps they should be appreciated for their personality. For Bateman, women are not to be valued for companionship but only as a narcissistic extension of power and masculinity. The only other thing that Bateman attaches value is his position within the company. There is a thematic recurrence where Bateman and his colleagues show each other their business cards. The men fetishize the cards to such extremes that it’s evident Ellis is making a statement about how intimately their identity has become intertwined with their position within the corporate structure. For these men, their business cards, just like the women they discuss, represent their claim to power and masculinity. The question of whether one can even speak of a singular expression of masculinity has been debated since the concept’s earliest theoretical formulations. Freud, one of the earliest theoreticians of masculinity, argued that at their core all humans were bisexual and exhibited both masculine and feminine characteristics (Freud 1962). The implications for this are that the concept of masculine expression cannot be reduced to essential categorizations of ‘manliness’. In fact, Freud believed that every characterization of masculinity must within it contain the feminine. Even as Patrick Bateman is largely a hyperbolic expression of traditional male concepts of masculinity – power, money, and women – Ellis is careful to develop elements of Bateman’s personality that are in direct contradiction to these ideals. Throughout the novel there are frequent references to the fastidious ways in which Bateman grooms himself and attends to his personal hygiene, the moisturizer he uses, and the great care in which he gets his hair cut. While this characterization may represent a proto-representation of the metro-sexual male, the psychoanalytic interpretation casts these representations as necessary hybrid expressions of self. In Jackie Kay’s Trumpet, we see the question of hybrid identity taken to extremes. The novel centers on the life of famous trumpet player Joss Moody who fooled the world, including her own adopted son Colman into believing she was a man. When discussing different formulations of masculine identity theorists have identified a number of competing strands of categorization. Connell distinguishes between essentialist definitions that, “usually pick a feature that defines the core of the masculine (68)” with the positivist account “whose ethos emphasizes finding the facts (69).” It seems that throughout the novel there is a distinct tension between essentialist and positivist account of masculinity. Throughout Trumpet, Kay plays with the he/she pronoun relation by having different characters refer to Joss (or Josephine) by alternating genders. While Moody’s wife, Millicent, and son continue to refer to him as husband and father, the reporter ghost-writing a book on the jazz artist’s life, continues to refer to Moody as ‘her’. It seems that the essentialist argument, held by Moody’s wife, and ultimately exemplified by Colman’s rejection of the book’s publication, is that despite the genetic categorization of female, Moody’s actions in life are the true expression of his masculinity. Another interesting formulation of this dichotomy occurs in a dream Millicent has wherein she is wearing a suit and he is wearing a green dress. In the dream Joss is upset by the situation and Millicent responds, “I put my arm Joss’s shoulder to comfort her (Kay 96).” It is perhaps the only time in the novel when Millicent refers to Joss as ‘she’. The equation of the switched clothing with the switched gender pronoun is a powerful literary device that draws the reader’s attention to the socially constructed expression of masculinity found in clothing. Indeed, much of the novel plays on traditional expressions of masculinity, forcing the reader to question their own interpretation of the concept. Towards the beginning of her relationship with Joss, Millicent remarks how she has been “stabbed by his good looks; his thick dark hair, his intense eyes (Kay 16).” Considering the phallic implications in the word stabbed, it’s an interesting categorization of the masculine. It also equates masculinity with a particular look, as the references to dark hair and intense eyes seem to heighten the reader’s awareness of Moody’s dominating maleness in Millicent’s eyes. A critical juncture occurs in the novel when Millicent decides she wants to have a child. It seems that Kay is exploring a positivist account of masculine identity here, by firmly establishing Moody’s role as a male figure and then stretching the characterization to its extremes. In an internal monologue Millicent says, “Why can’t he give me a child? He can do everything else. Walk like a man, talk like a man, dress like a man, blow his horn like a man. Why can’t he get me pregnant (Kay 37).” It’s almost as if Millicent is in disbelief at the inability of Joss to overcome the genetic boundaries pregnancy, as Joss has been able to transcend a series of socially constructed boundaries of gender identity. A semiotic interpretation of these events indicates that Millicent is privileging these socially constructed gender roles – the way Moody walks, talks and dresses – over genetic specific formulations in determining masculine identity. The two have a discussion about the child which erupts into an argument. Joss storms out of the house and Millicent remarks, “I have hurt his pride. I think I have hurt his manhood (Kay 39).” It’s a poignant scene and a pivotal one for the novel as it pushes Joss’s masculinity to the extreme and asks at what point does it break? Ultimately, it seems that the genetic limitations are just one means of expression in a myriad of forms that constitute masculine identity. In another crucial scene, the novel explores the concept of masculinity as it relates to the death certificate. After Joss dies, Doctor Krishnamurty must certify the death certificate. In her investigation of the corpse she uncovers the breasts Joss has hidden and discovers that the sex needs to be changed on the certificate. Kay writes: She got her red pen out from her doctor’s bag…She crossed ‘male’ out and wrote ‘female’ in her rather bad doctor’s handwriting. She looked at the word ‘female’ and thought it wasn’t quite clear enough. She crossed that out, tutting to herself, and printed ‘female’ in large childish letters (Kay 44). While it seems like a simple formulation, the scene is actually an intense meditation on death and asks what the ultimate expression of masculinity entails. While the later formulations of Joss’s life demonstrate the masculine ideal he was able to signify, as the novel progresses the reader is gradually brought closer to earlier formulations that shed light on Josephine Moore. Joss’ ultimate identity then is in direct conflict between two competing expressions of self. The doctor’s red pen is an allusion to the correcting marker of a teacher, and the comparison sheds light on the absurdity of attempting to formulate an answer to the dilemma of self by merely crossing out male and writing female. In death, society has ‘officially’ repudiated Joss’s claims to masculinity, but the novel creates a aura of ambiguity. As the doctor looks at her writing there is some subconscious or tacit acknowledgement of this fact and she crosses the confident and certain inscription and replaces it with the naïve one in “childish letters”. In conclusion, there is no single definition of masculinity but a series of competing theories and expressions of selfhood. While post-modern theorists identify a fractured identity as characteristic of contemporary society it’s clear that scientific inquiries into selfhood and what constitutes gender have been around at least as long as psychoanalytic theory. Although gender has historically been a contested issue, post-feminist interpretations identify a contemporary crisis of masculinity that underpins motivations of many males in modern society. Novels such as American Psycho explore this backlash towards post-feminism by extending it to hyperbolic extremes. Other novels, such as Trumpet, function to disrupt traditional formulations of gender and masculine expression and challenge the reader to question their previously held assumptions of what it means to be male or female. Ultimately, both novels illustrate the myriad forms of masculine expression and the impossibility of reducing gender identity to a simple categorization of male or female. References Barker, Chris. (2008) Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. Sage Publications. Brabon, Benjamin A. “The Spectral Phallus: Re-Membering the Postfeminist Man.” Postfeminist Gothic: Critical Interventions in Contemporary Culture. Ed. Benjamin A. Brabon and Stéphanie Genz. 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H. Kelman. New York: W. W. Norton. Kay, Jackie. (1998) Trumpet. London: Random House. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism : Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Young, Elizabeth. "The Beast in the Jungle, the Figure in the Carpet." Caveney and Young. Read More