Masculinity, Class and the Dying Town of Sheffield in the Movie the Full Monty - Essay Example

?Masculinity, and the DyingTown of Sheffield in the Movie The Full Monty Introduction In the movie The Full Monty, which is set in Sheffield, England, the town is really a metaphor for the men and the men’s lives. The beginning of the film shows Sheffield the way that it was, before globalization caused the factory jobs to leave town, as more companies shipped their jobs overseas. In the 1960s, which is when the montage at the beginning of the film was set, Sheffield was apparently a bustling town, and its future looked bright. Images of happy people dancing in discos was alternated with shots of men making cars and other products with steel. Because the lives of the men in the town are entertwined with the town itself, in that if the town is bustling and healthy, then the men in town are engaged, working and supporting their families, and when the jobs were shipped overseas, the men in the town suffered. The fates were one and same – as the town died, so did men have more problems finding a job, and these men were less masculine and less well-off then they would have been had the steel factories stayed in business. The men in this film, therefore, all live pretty hopeless lives. They are only trained, for the most part, for the steel mills. The exception to this is Gerald, who is the only white collar man in the group. Nonetheless, Gerald’s fate is also tied in with the fate of the town and of the steel industry, in that Gerald was a plant manager. Masculinity, Class and the Town of Sheffield The masculinity of the men in this movie is threatened, simply because they do not have a way of making a living for their families. The lead character, Gaz, is threatened because he has a young son, and he cannot afford to pay child support, therefore his ex refuses visitation between himself and his son. Dave, who is Gaz’ best friend, is threatened because he, too, has problems supporting himself and his wife, because he is out of a job as well. Lomper is threatened because he apparently cannot afford to leave home, and he apparently had no mates before he met Dave and Gaz. Because of this, he attempts suicide, but Dave saves him. Gerald perhaps has the most to lose, outside of Gaz, because he lives an upper class life in a tony suburb, complete with gnomes. His house is so luxurious that he has his own tanning bed, and his lifestyle is such that his wife talks about the two of them going skiing. However, because he has been out of work for the past six months, while lying to his wife (he told his wife that he was going to work everyday, when, in actuality, he was going to job club everyday, looking for work). This impacts the men’s masculinity, because they cannot support themselves and their family. According to Djundjung and Irawan (2003), the fact that the men are not working impacts their masculinity and their identity, simply because so much of a man’s masculinity and identity is centered around what they do for a living. In essence, society does not have a role for these men. Thus, the men have issues with their own sense of self-worth. Dave feels that it is inevitable that his wife would cheat on him, as he has nothing to offer her, in his view. Gerald actually does lose his wife, not because he is out of work and everything they own is repossessed, but because he was so ashamed of his situation that he could not come clean with her. Gaz, despite having an outwardly cheerful, even cocky, persona, really is insecure and afraid that he is a failure as a dad. While these men are stripped of their masculinity, because they are stripped of their jobs and their roles in society, the film also portrays a relationship that is more literal with the stripping of masculinity. This relationship is between Guy, the handsome, well-endowed man who auditions for the troupe, and Lomper. They have an attraction, and, the film intimates, a relationship with one another. The irony of this is that neither of these characters are explicitly shown to have their masculinity threatened. Not much is known about Guy, as his character is not developed, and, as for Lomper, he does not have a family to worry about. He doesn’t have a wife or children, and, as noted above, lives with his mother. While the fact that he lives with his mother might, in and of itself, mean that he is less masculine than men who do not live at home, his character still is not shown as one who is having masculinity issues. In a way, the town itself is representative of the dilemma of the men. The outside shots of the town show it to be desolate and deserted. The sky is always grey when the men are outside, and the outdoor shots focus upon the tenements of the city, along with abandoned warehouses and mills, including the warehouse that the men inhabit as they are trying to get their routine together. Just like the town, the men also feel desolate and deserted. They feel that society has deserted them and tossed them aside, just like the industry in the town. Inwardly, the men, especially Dave and Lomper, feel despair. Lomper shows his despair by attempting to commit suicide. Dave shows his despair by outwardly showing his insecurities about his body, his wife and his lack of direction. Moreover, the town is shown to be dominated by the females. The women are the ones with the disposable income, as they are the ones who are paying money to see male strippers. The women are also the ones who are shown working. For instance, Gaz’ ex girlfriend has a job in a sewing factory. She sarcastically offers a job to Gaz working with her there. Dave’s wife is apparently also working at a local department store. Therefore, the women are shown to be more upwardly mobile in the men in this town, and this, too, is interrelated to how the men feel about themselves. The women dominate the town, and they further emasculate the men. Just as the town itself is emasculating, so are the women in the town, and this is another way that the town itself is representative of the plight in which these men find themselves. If the town is shown as emasculating, and provides a backdrop for the domination of the women in the town, the women also show other ways that they, themselves, have taken over for the men. For instance, as Hicks (2000) notes, the men in the film bemoan the fact that they are soon going to be obsolete. This is a sentiment enunciated by Gaz, who stated that they, as men, are of no consequences to the world. Women can even have a child on their own, without a man being on the scene, and this is just one of the things that these men are afraid of. A woman is literally shown peeing in a urinal early on in the film. This is another way that the gender roles are subverted. Literally, according to Gaz, the fact that women can pee standing up means that they are turning into men. Whereas before, when the town was thriving with steel jobs, the men ran the city and the men were the ones who brought home the paycheck, now women are the ones running the city and they are the ones bringing home money. The women are also more like the men, in that they are the ones who desire the sexual arousal – Dave’s wife intimates that she wants have sex, but Dave is not interested; and the women are the ones going to see naked men, and mostly naked men in the Chippendales. This is different than what a traditional woman is, according to Hyde and Peterson (2011), as women traditionally are more sexually submissive and approach erotica differently then men for this reason. That the women are the sexually dominant ones in this movie further shows how the gender roles are subverted. The fact that the women are the ones attending a strip club is also another sign that the women are dominant in this town, and the men are relegated to the dustbin of being a has-been. Strip clubs are traditionally male-centred – women strip for men in male-dominated societies, not the other way around. As Frank (2003) notes, strip clubs traditionally play a role in male masculinity, in that the men go to these clubs to lose their dominant persona. The women in strip clubs are the ones who wield the power, in that they can either dance for a man or not dance for a man, it is her choice. Moreover, she is the one who is getting paid. Therefore, since the women are the ones going to strip clubs, then this is another sign that the men in this town are emasculated. They no longer are able to go to a strip club, or do not have a need to, because they do not have dominance in their real lives. The women, on the other hand, no doubt have different motivations for going to strip clubs, but, for the sake of argument, perhaps the women are going to the strip clubs for the same reason the men go to strip clubs – they have a need to dispose of their dominance in their lives, in surrender to the men on the stage. This is another sign that the women rule the roost in this town, and that the men are submissive and obsolete. And this is because the town itself, having dispensed of traditional male jobs, such as steelwork, are being run by the women. There is also a subtle issue of class, although this is not as much of a theme as masculinity in the film. The class structure and conflict initially is between Gerald, who appears to be more upper class than Gaz or Dave, and Gaz and Dave. Gerald initially is condescending to the Gaz and Dave, as he puts them down and implies that they are immature losers. He also belittles their idea about becoming strippers – because Gaz is too skinny, and Dave is too fat. There is something of a stratification between these three men, because Gerald would traditionally be above these two men in the hierarchy of society. However, this class stratification is dissolved towards the middle of the film, as Gerald agrees to join the men’s stripper troupe, and Gerald himself is literally stripped of his life as he knows it – he loses his possessions and his wife. He gets a white collar job by the end of the film, but, at this point, he is mates with the blue collar men, and is committed to stripping on stage, even though he presumably no longer needs the money from stripping. In essence, Gerald is laid low, as low as the blue collar men who would be his traditional inferiors in the workplace. This, too, is emblematic of the town. In a town that is hit hard by unemployment, everybody loses their jobs – blue collar, white collar and everybody in between. It is not a mistake that the film shows that the only jobs in that town are those related to the service sector - Dave gets a job as a security guard for the department store where his wife works. Gerald does get a white collar job, as noted above, but still feels equal to the other men. This is probably the way it is in the town itself - since the white collar men are just as apt to lose their jobs as the blue collar men, then the class differences are blurred between these stratas of men. They literally are in the same boat, whereas, if the town were healthy, and there was more employment, there would be natural class differences that would be more pronounced. Thus, the film shows that Gerald has a different relationship with the men at the beginning of the film then towards the end of the film. The beginning of the film is where Gerald was still basically in denial of his situation – his wife thought that he was working every day, and, as of that time, none of his property was repossessed. This is where he acts superior. Then, when Gerald loses everything, he starts treating Dave and Gaz as his equal. So it is in society – when a man has a white collar job, then he is superior to the blue collar men. When that man loses his job, and loses all the vestiges of wealth which are associated with this job, then that man is no longer superior, but is more on an equal footing. This is shown by the evolution of the relationship between Gerald and Dave and Gaz. Conclusion The town of Sheffield was shown to be a depressed town, and also an emasculated town. The women are shown to rule the town, because the industry that traditionally employ men are shown as being dead. Just as the town is emasculated, so are the men – Dave, Gaz and Gerald chiefly. The other characters are not developed enough for the audience to really know how they were affected by the economic downturn. Moreover, the class structure of the town is shown, symbolically, by the relationship between Dave, Gaz and Gerald. Gerald is white collar, the other men are blue collar, however, just like in the town itself, the class differences between these men are blurred so that they are all, essentially, equal. In this way, the town, and the themes of masculinity and class, are interlinked – the men are symbolic for the town itself, while the town itself is symbolic of the men’s lives. Bibliography Djundjung, J. & Irawan,S. (2003) Masculinity in question in time of unemployment in The Full Monty. K@ta, 5.1: 12-28. Frank, K. (2003) “Just trying to relax”: Masculinity, masculinizing practices, and strip club regulars. The Journal of Sex Research, 40.1: 61-75. Hicks, H. (2000) Post-industrial striptease: The Full Monty and the feminization of work. Colby Quarterly, 36.1: 48-59. Hyde, J. & Petersen, J. (2011) Gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors: a review of meta-analytic results and large datasets. The Journal of Sex Research, 48.2-3: 149-165. Read More