“Are You a Bad Boy?”: Variations of the American Adam in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet

Sofía Martinicorena

doi:10.2478/genst-2022-0007

Abstract

Abstract This paper mobilises R. W. B. Lewis’ myth of the American Adam, articulated in 1955, to examine David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet’s formulaic use of this masculinity archetype. Lewis’ ideal type of innocent masculinity is replicated by Blue Velvet’s protagonist, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), who must navigate the stereotyped conventions of good and evil against the backdrop of the idealised US suburb. Beyond the generalised assessment of David Lynch as the quintessential eccentric, this article brings to the fore the ways in which his work can be analysed as formulaic, paying special attention to the interaction between masculinity, spatiality, and dominant national mythology.

Highlights

An American Adam in the suburbsThis book has to do with the beginnings and the first tentative outlines of a native American mythology
As I have shown in the previous analysis, Jeffrey’s embodiment of the Adamic archetype indicates that Blue Velvet incorporates aspects of dominant masculinity that have long acted as the bedrock of US national identity
This paper has attempted to show how the analysis of Blue Velvet’s ideological implications, especially regarding its depiction of masculinity, demonstrates that the film utilises⎯and, to a significant extent, reproduces⎯the myth of the American Adam as the ideological template for its protagonist, who, throughout the course of the movie, reveals himself to embody the qualities of this archetype, both in a pre-lapsarian and a post-lapsarian state, represented by the Jeffrey/Frank pairing

Summary

Introduction

This book has to do with the beginnings and the first tentative outlines of a native American mythology. The Adamic archetype emblematises the aspirational masculine qualities that have driven the dominant national selfimage of the United States: innocence, self-reliance, and individualism These qualities have frequently been channelled through masculine figures that have ended up becoming enduring icons in popular culture, like the rugged pioneer, the cowboy, or the soldier, and that have come to represent the aspirational national identity. The national obsession with innocence as an aspirational feature of the post-war communities mobilised the proliferation of narratives engaging with the American Adam archetype and its embodiment as the ideal masculine type. After introducing the myth of the American Adam, an overview of the ideological implications of popular culture representations of the US suburbs is offered in the attempt to spell out how space and masculinity, in the Adamic archetype, are ideologically co-dependent This is followed by an analysis of Blue Velvet’s interaction with these two elements, focusing on the main character’s embodiment of the American Adam myth. This paper concludes by reflecting upon how Lynch’s work may be qualified as elusive rather than straightforwardly subversive due to its engagement with and reproduction of hegemonic masculine archetypes

Blue Velvet’s suburban landscape

The hero of the new adventure: A twofold Adam

Order restored?

Conclusions