Sarah Godfrey, masculinity in British cinema, 1990–2010

Spicer, Andrew

Abstract

Although much comment is passed about male characters and identities in discussions of British cinema, systematic studies of masculinity are extremely rare. To my knowledge, Sarah Godfrey’s is the first to appear since my own Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema (2001). Taking my study as a ‘point of departure’ (13), Godfrey offers a substantial and detailed investigation of the 1990–2010 period, an era of profound social and cultural change in which the phrase ‘crisis of masculinity’ was frequently invoked. Godfrey contends that these twenty years were the product of the intersection of neoliberalism, post-feminism and post-industrialisation in which a thematic focus on male disempowerment was the ‘most defining characteristic of representations of masculinity in British films’ (8). Although the intersection of those three forces was global rather than specifically national, one of the great strengths of this study is Godfrey’s insistence that representations of masculinity derive from their particular social, cultural and historical context. She succeeds admirably in showing how the forms of masculinity that they produced – ‘inherently multiple and malleable’ (3) – were resonantly British. It was also very welcome to see a focus on the class- and ethnically-based nature of masculine identities in which middle-class white males benefit from fluid and mobile social positioning whereas those less privileged remain ‘tied to more traditional social practices and the homosocial, heteronormative hierarchies that they uphold’ (44).

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 1, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Apr 14, 2023
• Publication Date: Apr 14, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 26, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 27, 2023
• Journal: Journal of British Cinema and Television
• Print ISSN: 1743-4521
• Electronic ISSN: 1755-1714
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 20
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 262-264
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2023.0671
• Keywords: Visual Arts and Performing Arts, British cinema, Sarah Godfrey
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10625940
• Publisher URL: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/jbctv.2023.0671