Marginalized Males? Men, Masculinity and Catherine Breillat

摘要

Catherine Breillat’s films are generally assumed to have as their central concerns women, female subjectivity and female sexuality. Men in Breillat’s films tend to be dismissed as being only of peripheral interest, if that. This article argues, however, that what Breillat’s films are really about is relationships between women and men, and that these cannot be fully or properly considered without devoting some attention to men. Making use of the insights developed in recent writings in the field of men’s studies, as well as of the process of sexuation (how subjects come to adopt a gendered position) as figured in the work of Jacques Lacan, we discover that Breillat’s men are far more complex, and of far more interest, than we might have thought. This is particularly seen to be the case in Romance (1999), where the different male characters take very different approaches to sexuation. However, rather than considering these men as examples of the “crisis” of masculinity, the article proposes that a closer examination of them can suggest not only more flexible, more fulfilling forms of being a man, but also new ways in which relationships between men and women might be possible.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14797580903363116