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Chapter 3: Disavowing Threats
- Rutgers University Press
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53 In the previous chapters I focused on love between men and argued against using strict dichotomies (heterosexual or homosexual) to categorize complex relationships. My interest in the next three chapters is in how various war films and related cultural artifacts present men in ways that expose the vulnerability of their masculinity and sexuality. This chapter explores various signifying practices that function as a kind of inoculation, showing men at risk in a manner that works, finally, to demonstrate their resistance to any threats. Again and again, narratives present situations that seem to undermine masculinity and sexuality in order to disavow the negative implications of the representations. This occurs in a number of ways. Sometimes humor is used as a defensive strategy. At other times, showing men’s capacity for acting maternally demonstrates the strength, stability, and expansiveness of their masculinity. Sometimes narratives deflect possible threats such as homosexuality by addressing them directly. Representations of the male body that display men’s sexuality can be seen to preempt negative interpretations by denying their erotic appeal. Comedy Some scenes in which male heterosexuality is affirmed and inoculated occur in war films that refer humorously to the possibility of homosexuality. The logic is that if one can joke about it, it must not really be an issue. For example, even though Bombardier (Richard Wallace, 1943) is basically a serious war film in which two of the principal characters die, a comic interlude occurs in which three characters involved in a romantic triangle attend a magic show. During the act, Tom Hughes (Eddie Albert) sits next to his sister, Bert (Anne Shirley). On her left is Jim Carter (Walter Reed), who loves Bert. Tom strokes what he believes to be Bert’s hand; concurrently, Jim thinks Bert is stroking his hand. But when Jim discovers Disavowing Threats c h a p t e r t h r e e his hand is being stroked by Tom, he pushes him away. The comic gag is replayed in a different register as the two men go on stage to participate in the magician’s act. They and a beautiful woman, La Belle Circe, are shut in a cabinet. Then the structure is opened, the girl has disappeared, and each man, thinking he is holding her hand, discovers himself holding the other man’s hand—again for laughs.1 In Gung Ho! (Ray Enright, 1943), one of the soldiers on a troop ship asks Transport (Sam Levene):“Got any pictures of pin-ups?”After Transport comments that he doesn’t have any, he says,“I got a picture of me in a bathing suit. Want me to autograph it?”A voice (unidentified) asks:“Where is it?” and produces a comic double take from Transport. In Wing and a Prayer (Henry Hathaway, 1944), one husky character lying on his bunk is swatted on the behind by another walking through the cabin and says: “Do it again! I love it.” That the line is strictly for laughs is confirmed when all the men are seen shortly afterward watching Tin Pan Alley (Walter Lang, 1940), starring Betty Grable and Alice Faye. They hoot appreciatively at the display of the stars’ and dancers’ bodies, and become irate when the film breaks.2 In See Here, Private Hargrove (Wesley Ruggles, 1944), an extended nightclub scene shows the singer Bob Crosby, in uniform and playing himself, singing “In My Arms” to an audience of servicemen and their dates. The sequence begins with the song serving as the diegetic dance music. The camera then closes in on a table at which a number of soldiers sit with Bob Crosby as he sings the song. The lyrics concern the imminent departure of a soldier, who laments: “You can keep your shaving cream and lotion./If I’m going to cross the ocean,/Give me a girl in my arms.”At this point, Crosby makes a move to embrace the soldier on his left, who pushes him away with a grin. As the song ends, Crosby again extends his arm to show affection for another man, this one on his right.Again, for laughs, this soldier pushes Crosby away with sufficient force that he is almost knocked off his chair. In Objective, Burma! (Raoul Walsh, 1945), we see Gabby (George Tobias) washing out his socks in a pond. Ordered to get moving, he responds in a purposely inflected feminine tone:“I’m washing out my last pair of nylons...