Essay 3rd Draft

This essay will explore the representation of masculinity in the American crime films; The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Drive (2011), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) A representation is the portrayal of someone or something in a particular way. Representations are important in the media as they can influence the way in which the audience views the subject. The media can shape people's opinions on certain things, for example newspapers are free press therefore can have an influence on which political party somebody supports. Michael X was quoted saying, ‘The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses’ which conveys the power the media has.

Stereotypes are held all over the world about different groups of people. A stereotype is a widely held belief held towards a certain group based off an oversimplified image of a particular group and can be either positive or negative. Masculinity has both positive and negative stereotypes and these are displayed within the three films that have been explored. John Price states that 'Masculinity tries to stay invisible by passing itself off as normal and universal.' (2003, p115). George Fields states that 'The association of male value with aggression, dominance, and power is one of the most destructive forces in the world'. These two quotes show the dominance that masculinity can have in society. Laurie Penny states "Labour MP Diane Abbott is not the first person to kick up a fuss about the 'crisis of masculinity' (The Guardian 16th May 2013). "The concept of 'The new man' set to challenge the preconceived notion about masculinity by aiming new ideals to young middle-class males: Emotional vulnerability, Be more in touch with their feminine side, Treat women as equals, Take pride in their appearance" (A2 sociology mass media representations). These two quotes show the change in masculinity over the years and how different it has become from what it used to be and how it is perceived now. Society has several different stereotypes regarding masculinity including; asserting power (fighting and being aggressive), manipulative, serious, strong, successful, dominant, humorous, work on cars, drug users, rich, serial killers. However, the modern representation of masculinity has displayed a different side to masculinity as many men now are viewed as metrosexual as they look after themselves a lot more.

The three films which were explored in this essay are; The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Drive (2011) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

In the film The Wolf of Wall Street the stereotypes that are reinforced are; power, control, rich, manipulative, successful and drug use. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) is based on a true story about Jordan Belfort, who was a wealthy stockbroker who lived the high life showing the story of his  successful and slides into a lifestyle of drugs and prostitution. The Wolf of Wall Street conveys masculinity in several different ways throughout the film. Firstly, it displays power as Jordan's ability to teach people things, shown in the scene where Jordan gives scripts to his group of friends when first starting up his business, and to be in control of making the business he has one of the best of the lot shown by the amount of money in which Jordan and Donnie have when they attempt to put the money in an account in Switzerland. He makes himself rich by selling fake stocks to clients and ripping them off shown in the scene in which Jordan makes a sale to someone on the phone and swears to the phone as if to say he has conned him. Jordan ends up in a mansion with his wife and child, which shows that he is rich and successful. Jordan is manipulative as he rips off people off buying stocks on the phone to make money for his company throughout and teaches other people to do it order to make even more money for himself. Jordan is successful for making millions out of nothing, even if it isn't the legal way to do it. Jordan and his friends are also drug abusers as they take a drug called 'ludes' and cocaine all the time as seen throughout the film. This is seen throughout the film however is seen at the best point where Jordan collapses on the floor after taking a large amount of ludes and struggles to stand up. Masculinity is shown in a conventional way throughout the film and doesn’t challenge the common stereotypes of masculinity much throughout. However Jordan shows respect to women at the start of the film when he takes Naomi out on a date and treats her well throughout the date however this then changes as the film progresses as he is very unpleasant and rude towards her.

The film Drive reinforces the stereotypes of masculinity; working on cars, serious, power, serial killer and strong. Drive (2011) is a film about a stuntman and getaway driver who gets in trouble trying to help his neighbour out. The driver shows dominance by defending himself killing people along the way and gives the people an ultimatum, which causes them to go after him in an attempt to kill him meaning that he has the upper hand over the murderers of the neighbours father. He ends up meeting to give money back which leads to him getting attacked and leads to him killing the man and drives off in the distance. The film shows the driver as enjoying working on cars as he is a mechanic by trade with the secret of being a getaway driver, which conveys his interest in cars. Working on cars is seen as a masculine thing to do as it is a manual job and requires getting dirty which isn’t associated with femininity therefore reinforcing the stereotype that people who are masculine are interested in cars. He is serious throughout the film as the driver doesn't speak much and hardly cracks a smile at any point in the film and keeps to himself most of the time. The driver shows power by asserting dominance over the men who are trying to go after him who's debt is on the family he is friends with. The driver is shown as a serial killer as he commits several murders he drowns the main culprit in the sea after crashing into his car to send it off a cliff; he beats someone to death who attempts to attack him in a lift, which he is in with his neighbour. Murder is seen as something that is only done by males mainly and is stereotyped as a masculine thing as women are seen to not have it in them to commit a murder. This film therefore reinforces the stereotype of violence being seen as quite masculine. The driver throughout the film comes across as very masculine as he looks well built and is very violent throughout the film. The modern stereotype of masculinity is reinforced in this film however as he looks like he looks after himself and takes care of his appearance. Also, despite his violence in the film, he shows a soft side to his neighbours and is particularly caring to Irene which reinforces the modern stereotype that men are more respectful to women than they used to be.

The film the Silence of the Lambs (1991) reinforces the stereotypes of masculinity; power, serial killer, manipulative, serious, strong and in control. The Silence of the Lambs is a film about a young F.B.I. agent who must confide in a manipulative killer to receive help on catching anther killer who skins his victims. During the film the F.B.I agent visits Hannibal Lecteur not knowing her mission of getting information of another killer who kills people almost the same way he did. He helps her get information on the killer but is very difficult about it and is transferred to a different prison in which he escapes. The serial killer is eventually caught due to the information given by Hannibal and is named as Buffalo Bill and the F.B.I agent goes to find him on her own to make the arrest, however has to be careful as he is hiding a victim in which he has kidnapped down a well in his house. Two characters, Hannibal Lecteur and Buffalo Bill, show power. Hannibal shows power when he is in prison as he always seems like he is in control of the prison guards and that they fear him. Buffalo Bill shows his power by kidnapping Catherine Martin and keeping her at the bottom of a hole and winding her up. This reinforces the stereotype that men like to be dominant, which is especially shown by Buffalo Bill as he likes to keep his dominance over a woman. The serial killer is both Buffalo Bill who decapitates his victims and Hannibal who eats the body parts of the people he kills. There is an enigma code that Hannibal is manipulative, as he seems to have control over prison guards and over many people. Clarice and Hannibal are both serious characters. Clarice is serious throughout her investigation of Hannibal and Hannibal is serious at all times especially when talking to Clarice although he seemingly seems to relax more around her than anyone else. Clarice goes against the stereotypical masculine trait as she seems quite powerless at the beginning however by the end she shows a lot of masculine traits by taking control by herself in hunting down Buffalo Bill. Hannibal and Buffalo Bill both like to be in control, which is seen when Hannibal escapes from the prison by tying up the officer with the handcuffs he has escaped from and eats his face before escaping through a lift. Buffalo Bill shows control by having Catherine Martin at the bottom of the well and continues to mock her throughout the film from the top of the well. However within this film, unlike Drive and The Wolf of Wall Street, this film challenges the stereotypes of masculinity. This is shown in the scene where Buffalo Bill dresses up as a woman, which is not something that as an audience member is expected of a butch serial killer in this film. This goes against the usual stereotype that Buffalo Bill has for a large majority of this film as he is seen as someone who has very masculine features and is stereotypically very masculine and this film shows Buffalo Bill deviating against the norm of masculinity rather than everyone being the same. This makes you think that Buffalo Bill is mentally ill and gives you the feeling that much of his serial killing could have been avoided if this would have been apparent. Hannibal also shows a more modern stereotype of masculinity as he is the opposite of Buffalo Bill in his treatment of women as he is respectful to Clarice for much of the film.

There are a lot of similarities within Drive and The Silence of the Lambs. The characters Hannibal and the driver are similar as they both show the masculine stereotypes of dominance and power. Hannibal shows dominance by winding up prison guards and you can see the fear and power in which he has over them, The Driver shows dominance over the people who are after him as he gives them ultimatums and seems to make them fear him. All three films seem to show more modern representations of masculinity. For example, all three films show the characters that are most masculine to have a soft spot for women and be fairly respectful to them. There are however differences in the way masculinity is presented as shown in Silence of the Lambs with the character of Buffalo Bill as he is not who you would stereotype as the typical masculine character.

Overall, my research has conveyed how masculinity is shown in different media texts and the different ways in which masculinity can be shown within these three texts. The research has shown very similar results in how the media shows masculinity and that many of the stereotypes surrounding masculinity are reinforced. However the example of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs shows the 'crisis of masculinity' mentioned by Laurie Penny and that sometimes stereotypes are seriously challenged. Also the males sensitivity when it comes to women and caring side is another trait which isn't stereotypically seen as masculine as men are supposed to be the dominant sex. However the media can sometimes be biased but the amount that people get from the media is a lot more than they used to get and people can be tricked into believing something which is all over the media which may not well be the case.