From Fatherhood to Bachelorhood : An Analysis of Masculinities in the 1950s U.S. through Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

This thesis investigates discourses on masculinity in the 1950s’ U.S. against Elaine Tyler May’s postulation that in the postwar years a policy of domestic containment ensured that white, middle-class Americans focused much of their energy towards the establishment and maintenance of the nuclear family. This thesis argues that while the policy of domestic containment was a forceful ideological message, other discourses on the changing role of men in the U.S. served to undermine the era’s intense focus on heterosexual domesticity. By using three popular culture texts, Forbidden Planet (1956) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Playboy (first published in 1953), this thesis looks at three discourses on white, middle-class, heterosexual men in terms of domesticity, work and consumption. Based on the three popular culture texts and their associated popular cultural, political and scientific discourses this thesis posits and explores an “individualism” discourse, a “maturity” discourse and a “bachelor” discourse on masculinity in the ‘50s. This thesis also argues that the formulation of a radical bachelor masculinity rested on socially sanctioned conceptions of masculinity derived from the maturity and the individuality discourse. This thesis will show how each of the three discourses legitimized their version of masculinity and show that domestic containment might have been a dominant message in the ‘50s, but that the public discourse on men’s social roles did not univocally espouse men as involved fathers or loving husbands