Masculine stereotypes in cinema and television have always intrigued me. Mainly because even though they're almost always out there, not a lot of people shine light on them. Male stereotypes have two sides on them: on one side there is the uber jacked, emotionally repressive action star and on the other side is the dimwitted husband who aside from beer, sports and sex, is completely incompetent. Shaft explores the first of these male stereotypes particularly from the African-American perspective. Throughout the film, it portrays, challenges and ever celebrates these stereotypes.
Shaft shows very little emotion to his female counterparts. When his girlfriend says, "I love you", he merely states akin to Han Solo in the Star Wars saga, "I know". His womanizing persona reminded me a lot of James Bond, how he jumped between women without any real signs of emotional connection. Such a trait always perplexed me, especially as a child, when I watched a Bond movie and wondered what happened to the woman he was with in the previous film and who is the new one she's romanticizing in the current movie.
That being said, Shaft challenges these stereotypes at times, by accepting homosexuality. When a gay man hit on him, he passed it off like it was nothing. Furthermore, he calles men "baby". When you look deeper into his character, you realize that Shaft cares far more about being stylish and cool than being tough and physically aggressive. While he solves his problems with violences, he doesn't necessarily appear buff or overtly masculine as seen in other action films.
Which begs the question, is the idea of a "manly man" in action films really all that relevant anymore? I mean look at modern day blockbusters like Spider-Man or Transformers. The protagonist in each of these films is an average looking, slightly nerdy character who winds up saving the day using mainly his wit and winds up getting the very attractive girl of his dreams. Maybe that's what America wants to see now: an everyman save the world rather than this massively muscular and obnoxiously over-the-top action star. Ultimately, Shaft can be seen as the middle ground between these two character archetypes.
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I like the direction you took this in - towards what America wants in an action hero. I will first say, however, that Shia Labeouf is not the man I want to see in that role. He peaked as Even Steven.
ReplyDeleteSpider-Man is a good example of a slightly nerdy character winning our modern hearts as the hero. He defies the likes of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent - the latter may seem klutzy but we all know that's part of the disguise. There is definitely something about an underdog beating the bad guy and winning the girl that the majority of America can get behind. The Spidey reference also brings to mind the latest hero to hit the big screen, Kick-Ass. In Kick-Ass, the squeaky-voiced teen advocates for a super hero without super human abilities before becoming one - an actual message of the film is that you don't have to be a good super hero to inspire millions; you just need to be crazy enough to get a viral YouTube fan base.
I also just got done watching Glee, where everyone's a hero no matter how big, small, handicapped, or sexually oriented. Glee's not an action flick, however, and obviously does not belong in a comment on a blog post about Shaft. Shame on me.
This is interesting and thoughtful (though 'begs the question' actually means 'assumes that it still has yet to prove,' not 'raises the question). Good point also about nerdly heroes like Spiderman (though as Ned says, they've been around for awhile). I'd have liked to see a bit more engagement with what the reading has to say about the difference between the 70s and now, and also a bit of thought about what race has to do with these images and stereotypes. For example, can you think of any black action heroes equivalent to Spiderman?
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109288/
But it's not quite the same thing.