How is Masculinity Represented In Popular Contemporary Fantasy?
The that the way in which the media represents gender is changing. A popular example of this being the representation of women and versions of femininity. We are seeing more and more female characters in cinema and on television. In 2011 HBO’s Game of Thrones aired which had a diverse cast with differing versions of femininity; Daenerys Targaryen and her journey from slave to queen; Catelyn Stark and her unique (in terms of the show) point of view as a mother as all she holds dear is slowly torn away from her. Brienne of Tarth and her role as an almost Amazonian warrior which provides its own commentary on the perception of women in a patriarchal society. We see this in popular cinema with the Star Wars franchise which pushes new stronger female protagonists such as Rey in the sequel trilogy and Jyn Erso in Rogue One. In superhero films, traditionally a very male-centric world starting with Superman (1978), for example and going all the way up to Spider-man: Far From Home and Shazam! (2019), encompassing Batman, X-men, two more iterations of Spider-man and the Avengers (a team made-up of mostly male superheroes.) But since 2017’s Wonder Woman we have the debut of new female-led sci-fi/fantasy/superhero pictures such as Captain Marvel (2019). And Marvel’s upcoming slate offers more in Black Widow, Thor: Love and Thunder[1]and (a first for Marvel studios) television shows WandaVision[2], What if…?[3], Ms. Marvel[4], Hawkeye[5]and She Hulk (Disney Investor Day 2020 - The Walt Disney Company, 2020). We see tremendous progress being made to diversify and push forward female representation in science fiction and fantasy.
Game of Thrones, The HBO adaptation of George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, “challenges and changes how we think of women and gender, not only in fantasy but in western culture in general.” says Anne Gjelsvik, Rikke Schubert in their Women of Ice and Fire; “Female characters are, we think key to the originality and, thus the appeal and popularity of the GoT universe.” (Gjelsvik and Schubart, 2016) I would like to suggest that female representation is only part of what makes the series so popular, For example, in the first book, there are four male viewpoint characters (not including the prologue) and four female viewpoint characters. Each with their own unique feelings, point of views and opinions which the author lets us embody through the text. But I’d like to ask, how does one of the most popular television shows (Watson, 2019) portray masculinity and its manifestations? I suggest that, while the show moves forward in its female representation, it might actually move backwards in its representation of masculinity and its manifestations. Argument being; the way that masculinity is represented in popular contemporary fantasy is unrealistic, out-dated and potentially damaging to its target audience. I think the artist Grayson Perry puts it well when talking about observations he has made in his The Decent of Man; “…Tears run down his face. ‘Dad, Dad!’ he yells, sobbing. He is crying for help, but he is also in a boiling rage. I offer to help him, but he is so angry, so ashamed, that he doesn’t acknowledge me… [The father] is standing silently next to his mountain bike, arms folded across his chest, starring at his son two hundred metres down the hill. I have seen that face on a thousand football touchlines, outside a thousand school gates. It’s a face that says, ‘Toughen up, don’t whine, be a man!’ It’s the face of someone who hands down the rage and pain of what it is to be a man. I feel incensed on the boy’s behalf. I can’t help myself: I say to the father, ‘I hope your son can afford a good psychotherapist when he grows up.’ The father does not respond.” (Perry, 2016) He speaks of that emotionally distant version of masculinity that is passed on from father to son that I think is also present in the media. For example, I think the character of Jon Snow in Game of Thrones is a good example of that emotionally distant, hyper-masculine man. Whose face we see on “a thousand football touchlines” and “outside a thousand school gates”. Evident with Kit Harrington’s very stoic, unemotional performance where he sheds no tears and rarely smiles. This mirrors his father’s[6] characterisation in Eddard Stark, played by Sean Bean. This, it could be argued, is one of the contributing factors that make us perform this masculine role and is largely rejected and revered for all its so prevalent.
What I mean by it being so rejected and revered (especially in recent years) is when talking about mental health and depression in men. Being seen as feminine or homosexual is a longstanding fear between men and boys as it leads to rejection and bullying from peers. Peter Branney and Alan White say in their Big Boys Don’t Cry: Depression and Men, “In particular, femininity and homosexuality seemed to be associated with displays of emotions and the schools reported that if boys displayed such emotions, they were subject to, and would subject others to, insidious bullying. Although usually associated with younger children, the cliché ‘big boys don’t cry’ is an example of how a young boy may be denied a masculine identity because he has displayed emotion.” (Branney and White, 2008) Linking this back to Perry’s observations; “Males have the potential to be just as soft and soppy, tender and sweet, as females, it's just that males build up this brittle crust that masks and contains those feelings they are encouraged to build up this crust from birth…. Snips and snails, and puppy dogs’ tails; that’s what little boys are made of.” (Perry 2016) This develops into inadequate expression of emotion in later life just because expressing emotion at a young age is seen as a weakness – an opportunity to be bullied – so we learn to be emotionally distant, inexpressive to express our masculinity. This is evidence of a learned behaviour, in other words, performative masculinity.
The idea that we are not born masculine or feminine comes into question when examining how a piece of media effects its consumers. Judith Butler, in her Gender Trouble, puts forward the idea that gender is not innate; we do not, from the day we are born, act “masculine”. That gender is instead “performative”. We act masculine. And, through repeated acts that are used to express masculinity we become masculine. She writes; “Such acts, gestures enchantments, generally construed, as performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise observe purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive. Means that the gendered body is performative suggested that it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality” (Butler, 1999) Grayson Perry puts it figuratively and quite simply; “Somewhere in every man's head there is a governor, an unconscious inner voice sending instructions through the intercom. This governor is the boss of every man’s personal branch of the Department of Masculinity. This Department wants to maintain standards. Every man's personal governor has picked up instructions from a variety of sources – parents, teachers, friends, films, TV, books - on what it is to be masculine it takes ideas and images from these sources and assembles them into a model of a perfect man. the governor then sits there constantly checking that his man is living up to his ideal. If the man fails, he is made to feel unworthy he may hate himself, he may take it out on others.” (Perry, 2016) We are influenced by the world around us, in a way we are the world around us because we absorb so much from a young age and still absorb influences as we grow older. We can come to the conclusion that emotionally distant characters like Jon Snow influence how we see and would like to see ourselves. But he’s also influenced by us, by that I mean the writers have a certain version of masculinity in their mind that they want to create that comes out in the script and performance of the actor and eventually in our own behaviour, in a sort of self- fulfilling cycle.
There is one male character in particular, who I think is a great example of a deconstruction and criticism of a certain form of masculinity – exploring what a man becomes when he is stripped of what makes him a man. That character is Theon Greyjoy. We delve deep into his psyche, we feel the emotional distress he is under, the crushing weight of what it means to be a man longing for his father’s recognition. Through the first two seasons of the show we get to know Theon; he is the last surviving son of Balon Greyjoy[7] and now is and has been the ward of Eddard Stark[8] from a young age. He is, in a way a victim of war, the one who suffers “when the high lords play their Game of Thrones” (Martin, 1996) which happens to be a long-running theme of the series. Theon is desperate to win his father’s acceptance when he is denied it, left to be neither a member of House Greyjoy nor House Stark. Benjamin Bartu puts it in his essay A Few Broken Men: The Eunuchs and Their Names; “In capturing the homestead of the very family who removed him from his own while still a child, Theon attempts to assert his autonomy the only way he knows how… Why shouldn’t he be a usurper as well? But is reign is short lived… This quick defeat, reflective of Balon's own, leads to Theon’s castration. His ablation acts as an almost fated parallel to his father's retroactive castration following his military loss” (Bartu, 2018) This harkens back to Grayson Perry’s observations about the son whose father disapproves of him because he cannot get the hang of riding his bike. I think it speaks to a version of masculinity that is self-fulfilling, that is passed on from father to son, through emotional unavailability and refusal to accept failure. This is, I believe, a realistic deconstruction of masculinity and its failures because the show does not glorify it, in this character at least, he suffers for it through emotional distress and eventually, physical torture leading to his castration.
Theon is obsessed with sex; we see him on multiple occasions engage with prostitutes and use sex to establish power. However, unlike the character of Cercei Lannister who uses her sexuality to control and bend men to her will; “Tears aren't a woman's only weapon. The best one's between your legs.” (Game of Thrones, 2012) Theon’s interplay between sex and power is less subtle and more brutish; in season one of the shows there is an exchange between Greyjoy and prisoner Osha the Windling. After trying to establish dominance over her by trying to say that he is simply better than her “My father is lord of the Iron Islands.” It does not work; Osha is from somewhere were titles and kinship do not mean you have power. “What’s that got to do with you? If your fathers lord, how can you be lord too?” After being denied that power, Theon tries to establish it with sex; “Do you want to lose that chain?” (Game of Thrones, 2011) He crouches down beside her and grabs her chin gently to lean in to kiss her. But he’s interrupted by maester[9] Luwin, again denying him that expression of power. William Proctor in his I Spit on Your Throne: The Rape Revenge of Sansa Stark, explains the catharsis in the re-taking of power when Sansa Stark murders her rapist husband Ramsay Bolton; “that many rape survivors find comfort and catharsis in representation should no longer be disavowed in favour of knee-jerk moralising, as The Telegraph’s Eleanor Muffitt’s (cathected) argument emphasises (‘Game of Thrones has finally given us survivors the rape scenes we so desperately needed to see’)” (Proctor, 2017) That representations of rape, being something that viewers responded more emotionally to[10], should not be censored as it is often seen as “cathartic”, “therapeutic” even, as the powerless (in Sansa Stark) takes from the powerful (in Ramsay Bolton), which happens to be another theme of the series. Theon escapes his torture and is about to be raped himself, again denying him that masculine power and, instead, being the subject of it, being oppressed by, what might be considered, a dominant masculine act. Theon’s later castration, I think, supplants this further. By taking away his penis he is now physically unable to express that masculine power through sex. Linking this back to masculinity and its representation in the media I think this opposes the argument that masculinity is poorly represented. It acts as a deconstruction of masculinity in that we see what happens to a man when he has an emotionally unavailable father, how he tries to express his power through his status and sex but fails and is left broken and scared both physically and emotionally.
Ramsay Bolton and his expression of power is, I think, key to understanding not just the series’ strong emphasis on strong female characters but also to Theon’s exploration of what it means to be a man. Ramsay is, along with Theon’s need for fatherly approval, a strong factor in his part of the narrative, being his torturer and the man who castrates him, taking away Theon’s ability to express his masculinity through sex. Ramsay is, in a way the “alpha” to Theon’s “beta”. “’Alpha’ males are those at the top of the social status hierarchy. They have greater access to power, money, and mates, which they gain through physical prowess, intimidation, and domination. Alphas are typically described as the ‘real men.’ In contrast are the ‘Beta’ males: the weak, submissive, subordinate guys who are low status, and only get access to mates once women decide to settle down and go searching for a ‘nice guy.’”(Kaufman, 2015) Ramsay takes that power from Theon through physical and mental torture, further cemented and symbolised by his castration, until he is no longer Theon anymore, he adopts the degrading name of Reek[11]. This strips him of not just his masculine identity but of any identity he had left, another theme and through line of the series; with Arya Stark becoming “no one” to become one of the Face-less assassins; Bran Stark becoming the new Three-Eyed Raven; and (in the books) Sansa Stark hiding in the Vale[12] as Alaine Stone, bastard daughter of Petyr Baelish.
At its highest point Game of Thrones was at the forefront of popular culture and a large part of mainstream media that it can be assumed that it had an impact on its audiences but we are at a point now where the show has ended. This enormous property is starting to leave the cultural zeitgeist[13], though there is a spin-off prequel series in House of the Dragon coming up, so we are at a place we can look at it all and examine it for any it’s worth and value. I believe that Game of Thrones does push the boundaries in way of representation of gender, especially feminism but to a lesser extent masculinity. We have characters like Theon Greyjoy who are not only allowed emotional stress, but their emotional journey is actively embraced by the story. However, the misrepresentations of masculinity in the show could be put down as something which is lost in adaptation. Characters such as Jon Snow in the books are allowed time to feel emotional distress and powerlessness, but in the show, he is denied that time. Leaving him to be this hypermasculine, emotionally distant, action focused masculine archetype which individuals like Grayson Perry is so critical of. It could be argued that Game of Thrones has started a ripple effect, in that now we are seeing new fantasy adaptations for television with the upcoming Wheel of Time and Lord of The Rings and the release of The Witcher and Good Omens. Good Omens in particular I find interesting to examine through the lens of masculinity; featuring characters who are “gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide”. If I were to take this study further, I’d examine that as a representation of masculinity that is perhaps at the new forefront of fantasy media.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Game of Thrones, 2011. [TV programme] HBO: HBO.
The Walt Disney Company. 2020. Disney Investor Day 2020 - The Walt Disney Company. [online] Available at: <https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-investor-day-2020/> [Accessed 17 December 2020].
Gjelsvik, A. and Schubart, R., 2016. Women Of Ice And Fire. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic,
Martin, G., 1996. A Game Of Thrones. London: HarperVoyager.
Watson, A., 2019. Topic: Game Of Thrones. [online] Statista. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/topics/4187/game-of-thrones/> [Accessed 17 December 2020].
Perry, G., 2016. The Descent Of Man. 1st ed. London: Penguin Random House.
Branney, P. and White, A., 2008. Big boys don't cry: depression and men. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, [online] 14(4), pp.256-262. Available at: <https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/D29C58F5EB6348BBE8807FA51167D1FA/S1355514600004879a.pdf/big_boys_dont_cry_depression_and_men.pdf> [Accessed 17 December 2020].
Butler, J., 1999. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, p.163.
Mantoan, L. and Brady, S., 2018. Vying For The Iron Throne. Jefferson, California: McFarland and Company Publishers, pp.69-73.
Game of Thrones: 2x9: Battle of the Blackwater, 2012. [TV programme] HBO: HBO.
Game of Thrones: 1x7: You Win or You Die, 2011. [TV programme] HBO: HBO.
Proctor, W., 2017. I SPIT ON YOUR THRONE: THE RAPE-REVENGE OF SANSA STARK. CST Online, [online] Available at: <https://cstonline.net/i-spit-on-your-throne-the-rape-revenge-of-sansa-stark-by-william-proctor/> [Accessed 17 December 2020].
Kaufman, S., 2015. The Myth of the Alpha Male. Greater Good Magazine, [online] Available at: <https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_myth_of_the_alpha_male> [Accessed 17 December 2020].
Good Omens, 2019. [TV programme] Amazon.
The Witcher, 2019. [TV programme] Netflix.
[1] Speculation suggests that this will see the return of Jane Foster, evidenced by Natalie Portman’s reprisal of the role, who was once a love interest and will turn superhero herself, if Marvel will be following the source material. [2] Seeing the return of Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, playing a heavy role. [3] The trailer for which shows a female Captain America in Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter. [4] There is also the point to be made that new steps are being made for racial and religious representation, as with many of these titles. [5] Traditionally a male superhero but Kevin Fiege, chief creative officer at Marvel Studios, has made mention of Kate Bishop, famously Hawkeye’s female replacement. [6]Actually, his uncle. Aegon Targaryen VI is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, raised as the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark under the name of Jon Snow, in hiding of the usurper King Robert Baratheon who ended the Targaryen Dynasty. [7] Who led a rebellion before the beginning of the story and whose sons all either died in the rebellion or were stripped away as hostages, such as Theon. [8] Lord of Winterfell, Warden of The North and oppressor of the Greyjoy rebellion. [9] A maester in the world of Game of thrones acts as an advisor to a lord, teacher to lords-to-be, doctor or surgeon, etc. [10] As opposed to murder. See: “…although nobody seemed to be particularly bothered about his enjoyment of violence per se (‘I liked the cleavers through the skulls’)” (Proctor, 2017) [11] In the series of novels, we hear of other “Reeks”, past “playthings” of Ramsay’s. Bolton even appears in the story first under the guise of “Reek” to get close to and befriend Theon before turning on him. This functions to establish Ramsay’s clear sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. [12] A region of Westeros [13] Interestingly rather quickly, which may speak to the poorly performing finale
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