In this essay
I will be taking the comment “gender, ‘race’, class and sexuality are all
social constructions, emerging from specific historical situations” into
account when talking about the 1988 film Die
Hard (John McTiernan). However, I will disregard talking about ‘race’, class
and sexuality for my main focus is concentrating on gender in the light of the
comment. I hope to shed light on the term ‘social construction’, as it is vital
to the question in hand. When talking about gender I will be focusing on the
portrayal of the male role in Die Hard
in terms of masculinity and the female gender from a feminine perspective,
introducing the feminist film theory. As the film is mainly considered to be
male-dominant, one would presume the focus of gender to be centered towards the
role of the male protagonist John McClane (Bruce Willis), but I will evenly try
to discuss about the representation of Holly Gennaro (Bonnie Bedelia) even
though her role is far more limited. I will be giving several examples as shown
in various scenes of the movie about these representations throughout this
essay. My goal is to explore the equality between men and women especially
about films made in the 1980s, or whether there was any. The reason for me
choosing this topic is due to my appreciation for McTiernan’s work as well as
my interest in the portrayals of both men and women on screen. I will be
examining the reasons behind Die Hard’s
success in terms of audience and whether the film’s portrayal of the
masculinity has reached the liking of both genders. My work will show evidence
from various academics that have started the study of gender in the past three
decades. Die Hard may portray gender
very stereotypically, but it is history that has created this social construction,
which is shown as an inconvenient truth on screen.
The 1980s is a
decade extremely suitable when it comes to talking about the male image on the
screen. As America under the Reagan era saw the rise of the big-budget
Hollywood blockbuster combined with The United States in the midst of The Cold
War, it made way for filmmakers to have the perfect excuse to portray
patriotism – especially in the action genre – with macho heroines fighting in
limited clothing. Social constructions in history have certainly influenced
male-dominance and this is why I see it relevant to look at the representations
of the male on screen before going deeper into women’s roles. When I say
‘social constructions’ I mean that as history has deemed the heterosexual white
male to have ruled the world for the majority of its history, all others that
do not encompass these features have been repressed; women, homosexuals and all
other ‘races’. This has little and none to do with biology when talking about
gender, for it is through societal ideologies that have seen women stereotyped
as Glen Creeber puts it: the ‘second sex’. (2007: 51-52) I wish to discuss
Steve Neale’s chapter in Screening the
Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema (Cohan & Hark, 1993:
11) when he talks about a patriarchal society and that films tend to assume
that this division is still withstanding. “Every film thus tends to specify
identification in accordance with the socially defined and constructed
categories of male and female.” (ibid) While it plays on the reality that males
are in control due to a male-dominant society, women are left out while the men
are glamorized.
Die
Hard plays on the
very stereotypes which have ruled Hollywood for the greater part of its age: a
white middle-class heterosexual male is the hero, the women –or in this case a
woman – being rescued and the foreigners are the villains. McClane is the
masculine ‘spectacle’ whose muscularity only adds to the delight of watching
him save the day. This portrayal of masculinity within 80’s films such as Die Hard can be seen through the star of
the picture for “it is they… who have the most power at the box-office, who
create – or reinforce – shifts in the idea of what constitutes a ‘desirable’
male body.” (Powrie, Davies & Babington, 2004: 177) McClane is merely an object
of the viewer’s voyeuristic desire. As he has arrived at the yet unfinished
Nakatomi Plaza, his need to wash up gives the narrative the perfect set-up to demonstrate
his male figure just as the ‘terrorists’ seize control of the building, thus no
longer giving him time to get dressed. The action proceeds with him escaping
from the ‘terrorists’ with nothing but a pair of pants and a white tank-top –
even his shoes seem to be misplaced. While earlier 1980s films saw other action
stars from the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone portray
their more muscular and ‘pretty’ bodies on screen, it was in the latter part of
the decade that saw heroes such as McClane’s “disregard for personal grooming…
so attractive to young male audiences.” (ibid: 180) As the action that follows
demonstrates impressive action sequences, McClane’s humorous character is the
centre of attention. His representation as a tough masculine character is not
only seen visually through his outer form, but it can also be seen through his
actions. Being separated in marriage, whereas Holly has not only taken the
children but even now has she changed her name back to Gennero. McClane wastes
little time holding back his feelings for his manhood is in jeopardy. This is
reflected through Holly’s strong female character and he as a strong masculine
figure finds it hard to accept because “the film adds the threat of feminism”
(Overpeck, 199), which seems to be unacceptable.
In connection with the last statement about the
argument of males being more dominant in 80’s cinema – and in this case, Die Hard –
the female image seen on film can certainly be connected to women’s
inferior positions throughout history. As women’s roles have been repressed due
to a male-dominant society, film – Hollywood in particular – exploits this reality.
Looking at the female representation is a fairly more complicated subject and this
has seen much feminist criticism arise over the past three decades. I will
focus on two influential female writers: Laura Mulvey and Mary Ann Doane. Although
women have seem to enjoy films of similar genre just as much as the male
audience, Laura Mulvey’s influential essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative
Cinema” (1975) critiques these images that “women could only enjoy mainstream
cinema by becoming masochists” (Gabbard & Luhr, 18: 2008) due to everything
being projected from a male perspective. Coming from a feminist point of view,
she argued that there were three ‘looks’ or ‘gazes’ in Hollywood cinema and are
the ones from a male’s perspective meaning that women have no position in film
at all. These ‘looks’ consist of the spectator being portrayed as a
heterosexual male and women watching must embody this male form in order to
identify with the characters. “Cinema was set-up so that men could identify
with the idealized male hero within the symbolic order imaged in the narrative,
while women were left to identify with figures related to inferior status and
silenced.” (Gabbard & Luhr, 2008: 18) In her chapter, E. Ann Kaplan talks
about Mulvey’s essay about women’s position in cinema which has changed the
perceptions of many film scholars. While this influential essay brought a brand
new perspective to understanding women in film, it was not meant only to illustrate
women’s inferior positions, but also to influence the ways filmmakers chose to
make films in the future. Mary Ann Doane in particular in her essays “Women’s
Stake: Filming the Female Body” (1981) and “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing
the Female Spectator” (1982) argued that “women… need to develop a theory of spectatorship
that will dislocate what male culture has constructed for them”. Her arguments
is that women should not see themselves as a repressed gender, but instead
develop their own ways of seeing film; separate from that of the male’s. Her
further exploration of the female image as a ‘masquerade’ no longer saw women
spectators as ‘cross-dressers’ but as feminists who “put on a mask of
femininity that functions as compensation for their masculine position”
(Smelik, 1999) creating a distance from the image that is being represented on
screen.
Taking a step back to the film in question, the
masculine male form is highly represented as a ‘spectacle’ and the role of the
female character is extremely limited. In fact, the only central female
character in the film is the male lead’s wife, Holly. Because Holly is an
independent and intelligent woman, high-in-rank in the Nakatomi Corporation,
another argument may be that the film moves with the perception that her only
cause is to serve as the one being rescued with little she can do herself. While
Holly doesn’t present sexual appeal, but quite the opposite, her intelligence
is the dynamic being distributed. I may even go on to say that she is the only
sensible character in the entire film. While all male characters – McClane,
Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson (Paul
Gleason) – battle it out with each other with violence and a great deal of
weaponry, she has the strength to go and consult Gruber with extreme composure
to aid a pregnant woman in need of a couch. Her appeal nonetheless is
remarkable being the only central female character but according to Doane’s theories
her mask of femininity overshadows and ‘compensates’ the fact that she is a
woman in the midst of masculine figures putting her in an authority position.
Her lack of sexual appeal and power can see the female spectator become an
object of one’s own desire.
To conclude, in this essay I have sought to find an
understanding between the two genders and establishing the fact that biology
has nothing to do with social constructions in society and film. Being a film
made in the 1980s when the United States’ foreign relations were unsettled; it
was no surprise why so many similar action movies were made at the time. Die Hard – a critically acclaimed film
as it may be – is a very good example of the typical representation of
characters and genders on screen two decades ago. While these representations
have been under debate as I have shown, I do not see much change to have
happened in film after twenty years of its release. While the feminist film
theory has brought criticism having put women in an inferior position on screen,
it is not necessarily the filmmakers who are to blame, but simply the fact that
film has always played on these very stereotypes from the very beginning such
as society has. While the character of John McClane is the ‘spectacle’ and
masculine heroin, Holly Gennaro is the intellectual. Neither of the two is any
greater than the other, but they both serve an important purpose. McClane is
the protagonist and his striking appeal is needed in order to create what made
successful Hollywood films in the 80’s. While this represents the popular
formula for films from the action genre two decades ago, Die Hard is far from being one of the most male-glamorized
macho-action films due to its feminist appeal.
Bibliography
Book Sources
Cohan, S &
Hark, I. (ed.) (1993) Screening the Male:
Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge.
Creeber, G.
(ed.) (2006) Tele-visions: An Introduction
to Studying Television. London: BFI.
Gabbard, K.
& Luhr, W. (2008) (ed.) Screening
Genders. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press.
Lehman, P. (ed.)
(2001) Masculinity: Bodies, Movies,
Culture. New York; London: Routledge.
Powrie, P.,
Davies, A. & Babington, B. (ed.) (2004) The
Trouble with Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema. London:
Wallflower.
Online Source
Smelik, A.
(1999) Feminist Film Theory [Online]
Available from: http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies/anneke/filmtheory.html
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