Running scared: masculinity and the representation of the male body

Abstract

Running Scared responds to the absence of critical attention to sexuality in film by bringing representations of phallic masculinity into the spotlight. his analysis of films, novels, paintings, photographs, popular music, jokes, and videos, Peter Lehman investigates the patriarchal culture that keeps the body - and especially genitals - out of sight. Lehman documents the pervasive anxiety underlying images of the body, arguing that attempts to keep sexuality hidden in the pursuit of good taste and an avoidance of perversion maintains the male mystique and preserves the power of the phallus. Lehman examines representations of the body and sexuality in a variety of settings and through many different lenses. Among the films, he analyzes are Howard Hawks' Bravo and Rio Lobo; Scarlet Street; feral child films The Wild Child, Kaspar House, and Greystroke; and Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. these works, Lehman explores the symbolic enculturation of males, assumptions about power and the body, and the ways that men's and women's bodies are marked differently with regard to scarring, wounding, and aging. addition to film, Lehman also considers such varied material as Jim Thompson's noir novel The Nothing Man, sexology and medical representations of sexuality, the video Dick Talk, penis jokes in Hollywood films of the 1970s and 1980s, and popular music by Roy Orbison. This edition of Running Scared also includes a new chapter on nudity in the films of the 1990s, adding fresh analysis to this classic text. An updated preface situates the book within the current critical climate. Scholars of film studies, cultural studies, and gender studies and general readers interested in representations of gender and sexuality will appreciate this valuable text.