Abstract
The development of feminism marks its influence on women’s and likewise men’s life, which is captured and presented by filmic works. The Hollywood film The Full Monty directed by Peter Cattaneo some 20-odd years ago, still reminds the world audience that we’ve already stepped out of the era when female body was the sole object to be gazed and now male body can also be on show. Superficially, the film seems to suggest that man is obliged to turn in their dignity, gazing power and above all, their authority to women partially because of the development of feminism. As the director Cattaneo says, this film is “a reaction to feminism”. However, below the surface the film is not only reaction “to” but “against” feminism by reason that the glorification of masculinity can be detected in many parts of the film with the help of film languages like montage, camera movements and angles. Therefore, this paper starts to explore for what purpose the public has changed its understanding and definition of masculinity, then questions whether the man-stripping phenomenon is a progress or setback for either the society or the development of feminism. Seeking recourse to Judith Butler’s “performative” statements and Michael Foucault’s theory on power, it intends to answer the question whether this film is a reaction against feminism, and to prove the hypothesis that this film demonstrates masculinity in an alternative “language” and thus glorifies it while man was disguised as victim of the feminism development.
Highlights
As bell hooks has said, “sexual liberation was on the feminist agenda” [1]
When the Oscar-winning film The Full Monty, directed by the British director Peter Cattaneo was released in 1997, the world audience was reminded that the era has gone with the wind that female bodies were the sole object to be gazed, since male bodies were available on screen nowadays
In The Full Monty, masculinity is made a site of spectacle, for both the audience in and outside the frame
Summary
As bell hooks has said, “sexual liberation was on the feminist agenda” [1]. When the Oscar-winning film The Full Monty, directed by the British director Peter Cattaneo was released in 1997, the world audience was reminded that the era has gone with the wind that female bodies were the sole object to be gazed, since male bodies were available on screen nowadays. “the link between the loss of employment, redundant bodies, and the bleak and decaying space of postindustrial Britain is foregrounded from the first scene in the film as Gaz and Dave's comic ineptitude as thieves leaves them stranded in the middle of a Sheffield canal, wobbling on a sinking car in a symbolic re-enactment of their predicament” [7]. Their predicament can be read as the anxiety of being a modern man. Masculinity “has always been in crisis” [8]
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