He Was Some Kind of a Man

Roderick Mcgillis

Description

He Was Some Kind of a Man: Masculinities in the B Western explores the construction and representation of masculinity in low-budget western movies made from the 1930s to the early 1950s. These films contained some of the mid-twentieth-century’s most familiar names, especially for youngsters: cowboys such as Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and Red Ryder. The first serious study of a body of films that was central to the youth of two generations, He Was Some Kind of a Man combines the author’s childhood fascination with this genre with an interdisciplinary scholarly exploration of the films influence on modern views of masculinity.

McGillis argues that the masculinity offered by these films is less one-dimensional than it is plural, perhaps contrary to expectations. Their deeply conservative values are edged with transgressive desire, and they construct a male figure who does not fit into binary categories, such as insider/outsider or masculine/feminine. Particularly relevant is the author’s discussion of George W. Bush as a cowboy and how his aspirations to cowboy ideals continue to shape American policy.

This engagingly written book will appeal to the general reader interested in film, westerns, and contemporary culture as well as to scholars in film studies, gender studies, children’s literature, and auto/biography.

Sujets

• Cultural Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 19 mai 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554582891
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

He Was Some Kind of a Man

Film and Media Studies Series

Film studies is the critical exploration of cinematic texts as art and entertainment, as well as the industries that produce them and the audiences that consume them. Although a medium barely one hundred years old, film is already transformed through the emer gence of new media forms. Media studies is an interdisciplinary field that considers the nature and effects of mass media upon individuals and society and analyzes media content and representations. Despite changing modes of consumption—especially the prolifera tion of individuated viewing technologies—film has retained its cultural dominance into the 21st century, and it is this transformative moment that the WLU Press Film and Media Stud ies series addresses. Our Film and Media Studies series includes topics such as identity, gender, sexuality, class, race, visuality, space, music, new media, aesthetics, genre, youth culture, popular cul ture, consumer culture, regional/national cinemas, film policy, film theory, and film his tory. Wilfrid Laurier University Press invites submissions. For further information, please contact the Series editors, all of whom are in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University:

Dr. Philippa Gates Email: [e-mail]

Dr. Russell Kilbourn Email: [e-mail]

Dr. Ute Lischke Email: [e-mail]

Department of English and Film Studies Wilfrid Laurier University 75 University Avenue West Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada Phone: 5198840710 Fax: 5198848307

He Was Some Kind of a Man Masculinities in the B Western

RODERICK MCGILLIS

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

McGillis, Roderick He was some kind of a man : masculinities in the B western / Roderick McGillis.

(Film and media studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9781554580590

1. Masculinity in motion pictures. 2. Western films—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Title: Masculinities in the B western. III. Series: Film and media studies series

PN1995.9.M46M345 2009

791.43'6278

© 2009 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada www.wlupress.wlu.ca

C20089077423

Cover image: Monte Hale, from the front cover of theMonte Halecomic book, October 1951. Reproduced with the permission of Monte Hale. Cover design by Blakeley Words+Pictures. Text design by Catharine BonasTaylor.

This book is printed on Ancient Forest Friendly paper (100% postconsumer recycled).

Printed in Canada

Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copy right licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 18008935777.

For Frances, as always

The western does not age. —André Bazin

Men with guns. Guns as physical objects, and the postures associated with their use, form the visual and emotional center [of the western]. —Robert Warshow

Preface ix

Contents

11Introduction: Ride the High Country, or “They Went Thataway”

225Cowboy Codes: Straight and Pure and All Boy

3When We Were Young: Nostalgia and the Cowboy Hero 45

4Arms and the Man: The Friendly Gun 61

583Give Me My Boots and Saddles: Camp Cowboy

6105Tall in the Saddle: Romance on the Range

7121White Hats and White Heroes: Who Is That Other Guy?

8Virgin Land: Landscape, Nature, and Masculinity 143

9163Corporate Cowboys and the Shaping of a Nation

Postscript:The Frontiersman(1938) 177

List of Films Mentioned 181

References 191

Index 199

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Preface

n the Warner Brothers filmCasablanca(1941), when the innocent young I woman from Bulgaria asks cynical American saloon owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) what the prefect of police, Captain Renault (Claude Raines), is like and whether he will keep his word, Rick replies: “He’s just like any other man, only more so.” And at the end of Orson Welles’sTouch of Evil(1958), as the prostitute Tanya (Marlene Dietrich) gazes on the bloated body of justdeceased Hank Quinlan (played by Welles), she remarks, “He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?” Both Hank Quinlan and Louis Renault are men of exorbitant appetite; such men either learn to control that appetite and become selfdenying and stateserving men (as Renault does at the end ofCasablanca) or they die (as Quinlan does). As we see them in the movies, they are aberra tions, foiled by the greater heroism, moral commitment, and selfdenial of another man—Rick inCasablancaand Vargas (Charlton Heston) in Touch of Evil. What interests us about these “other” men is that both are models of masculinity devoutly to be imitated by the male viewer, and yet both are clearly outside conventional social structures: when Colonel Strasse (Conrad Veidt) asks Rick what nationality he is, Rick replies that he is a drunkard; Vargas is a Mexican. In other words, both men hail from places the films encourage viewers to associate with darkness and dis solution, places mysterious and strange, places beyond the familiar Amer ican towns and cities, liminal places that seem to offer no room for con ventional family backgrounds but plenty of room for behaviour rich in libidinous, or at least transgressive, possibility.

ix