Men in Mourning

Abstract

This study evaluates the portrayal of sixteen recently widowed male characters in US mainstream film (2002–2011) through ethnographic content analysis. The depicted expectations for bereaved men in film largely fall in line with hegemonic norms. Characteristics of age, race, gender, and profession suggest a sustained preference for young, middle-class, and white depictions of characters. Young men were generally depicted as reserved with emotions and assertive. Films depicted older men as isolated, begrudgingly allowing family and acquaintances into their lives. Grief spurs men at any age into action-based plots of thrill and adventure though in reality widowers retain much of the same commonplace existence they had prior to a partner’s death. Understanding the gendered representation of grief can help to recognize the social construction of death and loss. These portrayals contribute to hegemonic norms of masculinity within mainstream media and to cultural understandings and expectations of grief, limiting the experience of bereavement to dichotomous genders.