A Reconstructive Analysis of the Masculinities Represented in Steven Spielberg's Jaws
This article explores the representation of masculinities in Steven Spielberg’s film text ‘Jaws’ (1975). Drawing from the fields of cultural studies, film-text analysis and psychoanalysis, this essay attempts to give way to an approach which could be termed as ‘reconstructive’, since it takes ‘recon...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2003 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de La Rioja (UR) |
| Repositorio: | RIUR. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de La Rioja |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:riur________::093a5bb4a474deeec238a02502b4ec13 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://investigacion.unirioja.es/documentos/5bbc6b63b750603269e83bcf |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Masculinities Film Studies Textual Analysis Steven Spielberg Jaws Gender Studies |
| Sumario: | This article explores the representation of masculinities in Steven Spielberg’s film text ‘Jaws’ (1975). Drawing from the fields of cultural studies, film-text analysis and psychoanalysis, this essay attempts to give way to an approach which could be termed as ‘reconstructive’, since it takes ‘reconstruction’ as the departing point for the analysis of masculinities in film. The textual analyses carried out are grouped around four so-called ‘sites’, as referred to by Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim (1993): the body, action, the external world and the internal world. The masculinities of the male characters analysed is conditioned by their relation with the mother —mainly symbolised by the sea and the shark’s mouth— and with the father, with Quint as the main father figure. Brody is offered as the man we can more easily identify with: his main anxiety comes from his relation with water, associated from the opening of the film text with a prenatal place. The film focuses on body fragments, on “dismemberment,” as stated by Stephen Heath (1985: 513), until the final shot, where Brody’s and Hooper’s bodies arrive at the beach. In relation to the action site, in the most violent scene of the film, Quint is visually joined to the great white’s mouth by a buoy rope which resembles the umbilical cord of a reverse birth, simulating a return to the maternal womb: this statement can be verified if the scene is watched in reverse motion. Regarding the external world, Hooper shows some interest in Mrs Brody, contributing to confirm his son-father relation with the policeman. The father-son relation is more clearly present between Quint and Brody: the sailor separates Brody from his wife when he is embraced by her in a maternal way, and impedes their relationship by breaking the Orca’s radio. The internal world is eventually revealed whenBrody shoots the bottle inside the shark’s mouth with Quint’s rifle, using, in this way, the Name of the Father. The shark merges with the sea and Brody witnesses the encounter between the other-All-Object and the Symbolic Father. The policeman, soaked by the explosion, is born again: now he can say no to the object of both his fear and his desire, leaving the Lacanian Imaginary Order to enter into the Symbolic Order, at the end of the Mirror Stage. Nevertheless when Hooper comes back he questions Brody’s capability to occupy the position of the Father, since the young ictiologist takes the last decisions more firmly. Brody’s masculinity remains unclear at the end of the film, not only because of Hooper’s questioning of his authority, but also due to fact that the father figure he can follow is that of Quint’s, whose relation with the other-All-Object has involved his going back to that former place illustrated by the visual representation of a reverse birth. The question that remains unanswered is whether Brody’s step has been a definite one or, like Quint, the policeman will require the eventual unity with the mother. |
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