‘How Does it Feel?’: Masculinity, Transformationand Structures of Feeling in British Television in the1970s and 1980sNigel Dyer BA (Hons), MA, MA, PGCEDirector of Studies: Dr. Robert Shail2nd Supervisor: Dr. Susan DrakeThis research was undertaken under the auspices of theUniversity of Wales: Trinity Saint David and was submitted inpartial fulfilment of a Degree of PhD in the School of Film andDigital Media of the University of Wales.January 2015Volume 1 of 2 AbstractThis thesis examines representations of masculinity in British television of the 1970sand 1980s which reveal a structure of feeling around masculine discourses of theperiod. It questions the ease of transformative change in gender identities andgender relations in terms of masculine performance by stressing both limitations andresistance to change against the backdrop of social, cultural and economic shiftswhich took place in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.While the Introduction sets out the key questions and problems which this thesisaddresses together with the historical context, Chapter Two consists of a LiteratureReview of some of the most important extant literature concerned with therepresentations of masculinity on screen. Chapter Three establishes themethodological framework which underpins this investigation which incorporatesboth textual analysis, particularly through the application of Raymond Williams’sconcept of structures of feeling, and gender theory. The thesis then goes on todeconstruct the work of a number of television writers who foregrounded a structureof feeling around male anxieties examining the interrelation between residual,dominant and emergent discourses of gender within their work. In the first of aseries of case studies, Chapter Four examines the work of Peter McDougall arguingthat the social structures which underpin his protagonists’ milieu are so potent andinsidious that they render masculine transformation as highly problematic. ChapterFive places Trevor Preston’s Fox and Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From the Blackstuff asthe obverse of each other as responses to social change. The former shows howpatriarchy and hegemonic masculinity remains in place by absorbing emergent1 discourses into adapted configurations of gender practice, the latter reveals theincreasing marginalisation of traditional masculinities whilst largely ignoring genderinequity. Chapter Six examines Clement and La Frenais’ Auf Wiedersehen, Petwhere more fluid, open, fragile, and multiple masculine identities emerge as aconsequence of a variety of discursive practices and inter-subjectivity. Yet in theface of change the narratives stress the importance of nostalgic homosociality as away of reaffirming residual identities.In conclusion this thesis suggests a model of gender which, whilst undergoing aconsiderable degree of destabilisation which may facilitate certain changes innormative behaviour, may also be so deeply entrenched within the individual andcollective unconscious as to render certain aspects of reflexive transformationproblematic.2 ContentsAbstract 1Contents 31 Introduction1.1 Aims 51.2 The Case for Television 101.3 White, Heterosexual, Working-class Masculinities 201.4 The Historical Context 241.5 Structures of Feeling 341.6 Thesis Structure 461.7 Conclusion 532 Literature Review2.1 Introduction 552.2 Masculinity and Film: American Cinema 582.3 Masculinity and Film: British Cinema 662.4 Masculinity and Television 782.5 Masculinity Studies 853 Methodology3.1 Textual Analysis and Structures of Feeling 943.2 Gender Theory 1063.3 Structure and Agency 1123.4 Conclusion 1174 Dead End: Peter McDougall and John Mackenzie4.1 Introduction 1194.2 Peter McDougall in Context 1224.3 Masculinity, Social Structures and Class 1404.4 Work, Play and Identity in Working-Class Cultures 1464.5 Clydesideism, the Hard Man and Dysfunctionality 1554.6 Masculinity and Violence 1624.7 Violence and the Public Affirmation of Masculinity 1714.8 Identity, Affective Localism and the ‘Narcissism of Minor Differences’ 1754.9 Transformation and Escape 1814.10 Conclusion 1883 5 North and South: Trevor Preston and Alan Bleasdale5.1 Introduction 1915.2 Tales of Two Cities: Fox and Boys from the Black Stuff 1945.3 Fox: Introduction 2005.4 Fox, Patriarchy and Masculinity 2105.5 King Billy the Patriarch 2145.6 Fox and Nostalgia 2205.7 Billy’s Sons 2275.8 Boys from the Black Stuff: Introduction 2405.9 Identity and Work 2475.10 Chrissie and Yosser 2515.11 Boys from the Black Stuff and Nostalgia 2585.12 What about the Women? 2635.13 Change and Entrapment 2765.14 Conclusion 2836 Howay the Lads!: Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais6.1 Introduction 2866.2 Breaking Away: The Emergence of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet 2896.3 Britain in the 1980s 3056.4 Changing Class, Changing Masculinities 3116.5 Fatherhood and Relationships 3246.6 Feelings 3326.7 Homosociality 3366.8 The Heroic Project, Mythologising and Nostalgia 3456.9 Conclusion 3527 Conclusion 355Bibliography 370Teleography and Filmography 4044 1 Introduction1.1 AimsIdentities are not fixed essences locked into eternal differences. Theyare fluid possibilities, the elements of which can be reassembled innew political and cultural conditions.1 As historically specific organisations of language, discourses presentthemselves in the plural, coexisting within temporal frames, andinstituting unpredictable and inadvertent convergences from whichspecific modalities of discursive possibilities are engendered.2 This thesis aims to explore discursive constructions of masculinity in relation to newemergent discourses in the 1970s and 1980s. Through the analysis of fictionaltelevision narratives of the period it will seek to demonstrate the existence ofmasculine anxieties around change and adaptation, and endeavour to establish whytransformation in masculinity and gender relations remained so problematic for manymen. It will go on to analyse how fictional representations of men, as faltering anddirectionless, but entrenched, reveal deficiencies and instabilities withinconstructions of masculinity, examining how the narratives frequently work to re-legitimise or re-formulate dominant discourses of gender.While this thesis seeks to investigate the televisual representations of masculinitythrough a number of theoretical perspectives concerned with the construction andperformance of masculine identities, what underpins this study is a methodologicalapproach based upon Raymond Williams’s concept of structures of feeling, whichwill explore both text with context. The programmes themselves will reveal thefeelings and experiences of fictional representations of men within the broader social1 Jeffrey Weeks, The Lesser Evil and the Greater Good: The Theory and Politics of Social Theory (London:Rivers Oram Press, 1994), p. 12.2 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), p.184.5 and cultural structures of the period. The overall aim of the thesis is to isolate astructure of feeling expressed by a number of significant writers which emphasisesanxieties around white, heterosexual, working-class masculinities. It will reveal howthey attempt to manage emergent discourses while simultaneously engaging withdominant and residual ones. It will go on to investigate the degrees ofembeddedness and resistance to social and cultural changes in order to establishthe reasons for these, informed by a number of significant theoretical studies onidentity and reflexive transformation.If then, as the opening quotations of Weeks and Butler have asserted, identitiesshould be seen as fluid, this thesis will argue that they may also be embedded andconstrained. With the emergence of new positions and new identities, produced inchanging economic and social circumstances, the question arises, to what extent arepeople able to reconstruct themselves and their own identities? How are changeswhich are deemed to affect identity experienced and what effect do they have on theconstruction and crucially the maintenance of identities? If, as I will argue, manymen’s constructed masculine identities were particularly resistant to new culturalconditions this then leads to questions about how identity is formed and maintained,the relationship between construction, limits and constraints and the dialectic ofsocial structures and agency.My aim then, in an attempt to answer these questions around identity, is to examinekey fictional television texts which were broadcast at a particular time in Britain whenthe very notion of working-class masculine identity and the attendant structures andinstitutions which underpinned it, were challenged socially, culturally andeconomically. In his work on masculinity in literature Knights has suggested that6 male identities are ‘reinforced and re-enacted through social forms ofcommunication’ and fictional narratives are an important part of this.3 ‘Storiesoriented to men and to men’s experiences’, argues Knights, ‘not only articulate forthe future what it is to live and be as a man, they also act as a blueprint for futurestories’.4 As Woodman has observed, while fictions may relate to a fictional pastthey also ‘revalidate, reinforce or question the meaning of masculinity’ and particularmasculinities at crucial temporal and spatial junctures in history.5 The study of textsthen, ‘can contribute to a critical cultural politics of gender, fictional representationsbeing one among many other contributing factors’.6 Foucault maintains thatdiscourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised upagainst it any more than silences are. We must make allowances forthe complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both aninstrument and effect of power but also a hindrance, a stumbling blocka point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy.7 Thus, the discourses emanating from the selected televisual texts may serve to offerup their own explanations of these complex and unstable processes, whilstthemselves subscribing to and questioning gender power relationships.While there has been some limited analysis of representations of masculinity ontelevision, for example that of Rebecca Feasey, most academic work has beenconfined to the area of Film Studies.8 As I explain in the subsequent LiteratureReview there is a paucity of work done on the representations of masculinity ontelevision particularly with regard to working-class men. Seventies and eightiespopular television is an area which, with a few notable exceptions such as Leon3 Ben Knights, Writing Masculinities: Male Narratives in Twentieth-Century Fiction (Basingstoke andLondon: MacMillan, 1999), p. 17.4 Ibid.5 Joanne Woodman, ‘Narrating White English Masculinity: Male Authored Fiction of Crisis andReconstruction, 1987-2001’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Birkbeck College, 2005), p. 7.6 Ibid., p. 8.7 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, trans. by Robert Hurley, 3 vols (New York,NY: Vantage, 1990), I, pp.100-101.8 Rebecca Feasey, Masculinity and Popular Television, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2008).7 Hunt, has largely evaded serious academic research especially in addressingrepresentations of masculinity undergoing revision in the period.9 These exceptionshave tended to focus on working-class sitcoms or middle-class adventure serieswhile most popular drama has been overlooked. Conversely, where serious dramahas attracted a number of academics, for example the work in the early eighties onBoys from the Blackstuff, it has tended to sideline masculinity as a given within awider narrative concern, rather than something to be addressed and critiquedexplicitly through feminist analysis. While some writers have undoubtedly opened upa number of interesting and productive avenues of analysis, this thesis seeks tomake a new intervention through its interrogation of an area of television which haslargely gone unexplored.This thesis constitutes the first sustained analysis of the televisual representation ofworking-class masculinity of the period and, as such, this work offers an originalcontribution to the field of study, combining television analysis with the ‘culturalpolitics of gender’.10 By identifying writers who foregrounded a structure of feelingaround male anxieties and change, my own research into television of the periodaddresses both popular and serious drama and focuses specifically on the maleexperience. It does not provide types as examples of change, but examines how themale experience of masculinity is represented; it does not simply assume normativemasculinity as part of a wider discourse of given texts, but critiques that masculinitydirectly. Thus, the programmes I have selected are ripe for examination or re-examination from specific perspectives, which will reveal a considerable amountabout male subjectivity.9 Leon Hunt, British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation (London: Routledge, 1998).10 Woodman, (2005), p. 8.8 Ultimately this thesis argues that the practices, experiences, and feelings of white,heterosexual working-class men reveal a structure of feeling offering up a model ofgender transformation which is at odds with post structural theories. Whileessentialist notions of identity have been widely critiqued and discredited, althoughvariants still persist, Stuart Hall has rather dismissively described certain post-structuralist alternatives as ‘the endlessly performative self, advanced in celebratoryvariants of postmodernism’.11 What he appears to be alluding to are the ostensibleopportunities for the transgression and reconstruction of gender identity (and genderpower) relations whether in the social constructionist and discursive theories ofFoucault or the performative theory of Butler. While fully in accord with the enablingdimension of discourse and performativity, this thesis aims to interrogate the limitsand constraints that inhibit change and progress. As I will demonstrate, the post -structural theoretical perspectives of Foucault, Butler, and Giddens which emphasisethe ‘potential for artifice, flux, and contingency’ provide excellent ways ofapproaching identity construction.12 However, while all articulate the increasingpossibilities for the transformation of social identities as a consequence of social,cultural, and economic changes in contemporary society, this thesis will explorefictional televisual narratives which fall short of this. While these narratives mayaddress discursive disruptions and open up the potential for change, they alsohighlight a structure of feeling which exposes the limits and constraints which mayinhibit any such action.13 11 Stuart Hall, ‘Who Needs Identity’, in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay(London: Sage, 1996), pp. 1-17 (p.1).12 Tim Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), p. 3.13 Butler (1990); Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age(Stanford: Stanford UP, 1991), pp. 18-37; Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, (New York:Pantheon, 1972).9 1.2 The Case for TelevisionThrough its selection of television programmes this thesis operates on theunderstanding that by the 1970s television had become central to British cultural life.In terms of both popularity and subject matter it was undoubtedly more importantthan film as a reflection of British working-class experience.14 Indeed, it had come toreplace film as the prime site for social realism, whether centrally in Play for Today(UK, 1970-84) or within something more generically formulaic such as WhateverHappened to the Likely Lads? (UK, 1973-74).While there was a declining mass audience for the cinema, television wasexperiencing something of a boom.15 As it moved from, what Ellis has described as,a period of scarcity to a period of availability audience figures for many programmeson both BBC and ITV remained extremely robust.16 While the figures for lightentertainment programmes could exceed 20 million, popular series like TheSweeney (UK, 1975-78) in the late1970s and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (UK, 1983 -86)in the early 1980s could attract 14 or 15 million viewers, and ‘serious’ drama such asPlay for Today was seen by up to 8 million.17 Thus, television was identified by a14 See for example Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London: Fontana, 1974);Richard Dyer, Gays and Film (London: BFI, 1977); Andrew Spicer, Typical Men: The Representation ofMasculinity in Popular British Cinema (London: I. B. Taurus, 2001); David Rolinson, ‘The Last StudioSystem: A Case for British Television Films’, in Don’t Look Now: British Television in the 1970s, ed. byPaul Newland (Bristol: Intellect, 2011), pp. 163-176.15 Paul Newland, ‘Introduction: Don’t Look Now’, in Don’t Look Now: British Cinema in the 1970s (seeRolinson above), pp. 9-20 (p. 17).16 John Ellis, Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty (London: I. B. Taurus, 2002), pp. 39-73.17 Lucy Douch, ‘Audience Measurement in the UK’, in Made for Television: Euston Films Limited, ed. byManuel Alvarado and John Stewart (London: BFI, 1985), pp. 190-210 (p. 191); Franc Roddam and DanWaddell, The Auf Wiedersehen, Pet Story: That’s Living Alright (London: BBC Books, 2003), p. 102; IreneShubik, Play for Today: The Evolution of Television Drama, 2nd ed., (Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress, 2000), p. 95.10 number of writers as the key ‘platform to address mass audiences’.18 This enormous popularity of television was largely a result of its institutional stabilityconsisting of a duopoly (until 1982) with a reduced cultural gap, rather than theproliferation of extreme diversity and increasingly smaller scale production withinfilm.19 Nevertheless, rather than producing programmes which reflected a relativelyhomogeneously constructed industry, television was extremely important in thegeneric variety, quantity, and quality of its output. As the breakdown of socialconsensus impacted on this output, television was able to work through anenormous amount of contentious issues and deal with matters brought about bysocial fragmentation presenting a diversity of programmes to a mass audience.20 As the period developed, notions of social and cultural flux, increased opportunity forand visibility of marginalised groups, and a greater variability in society, emerged intowider consciousness. Of all media, television was the most favourably placed todisseminate many of these ideas and issues acting as a key indicator of social andcultural changes. Furthermore, while much of its output may have been reactionaryand conservative, expressing residual discourses, it was just as likely to be radicaland innovative, reflecting emergent ones.Television thus operated as an intermediate mechanism to convey ideas.21 JohnEllis has argued that the specificities of television as a cultural medium furnish it withthe ability to work through and mediate meanings. He sees television as a 'vast18 Rolinson (2011), pp. 163-176 (p. 168).19 Lez Cooke, British Television Drama: A History (London: BFI, 2003), pp. 90-91.20 Ibid., p. 91.21 Matt Briggs, Television, Audiences and Everyday Life, (Maidenhead: OUP/McGraw-Hill, 2010), p. 9.11 mechanism for processing the material world into more narrative, explained forms'.22Television drama and entertainment ‘derive their power from their displaced workingthrough of current and perennial anxieties’.23 As such, ‘television imbues the presentmoment with meanings. It offers multiple stories and frameworks of explanationwhich enable understanding’.24 As Ellis has argued:Narrative provides empathy with attitudes that are seen, throughsuccessive scenes, increasingly from the inside rather from theoutside. Yet television is often at its best in this process when it doesnot confront social problems directly, and does not seek to articulate aparticular position in a problematic way. 25Television then, can ‘take up and incorporate […] issues of social and culturalconcern’ which allows audiences to ‘think through, ponder, believe […] reject […]judge […] get angry (and) impassioned’.26Thus, ‘television provides a forum and a locus for the mobilization of collectiveenergy and enthusiasm’ and this is achieved partially because of its ‘liveness andintimacy’.27 The idea that television has a particularly intimate relationship with itsaudience is one which has been argued by a number of academics. Silverstone hasdescribed it as a social practice which operates within ‘the space of intimatedistance’.28 Similarly Turnock sees the act of watching television as ‘negotiatedintimacy’.29 This intimacy is achieved in a number of ways. Firstly, while Gripsrudhas argued that television may act as a window to the world it can also operate as a22 Ellis, (2002), p. 72.23 Ibid., p. 87.24 Ibid., p. 74.25 Ibid., p. 87.26 Briggs, (2010), p. 8.27 Roger Silverstone, ‘Television, Myth and Culture’, in Media, Myths and Narratives: Television and thePress ed. by James W. Carey, (Beverley Hills, CA: Sage, 1988), pp20-31 (p. 25); Ellis, (2002), p. 1.28 Silverstone, (1988), pp. 20-31 (p. 23).29 Rob Turnock, Television and Consumer Culture: Britain and the Transformation of Modernity (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), p. 184.12 mirror offering up a representation of ordinary contemporary life.30 Secondly, byoccupying domestic space it affects domestic life becoming an ordinary act ofrepetition and routine.31 Thirdly, its small scaleness is particularly suited to smallscale intimate narratives. Fourthly, unlike the cinematic experience it has an‘immediate presence’.32 As Ellis has argued, ‘television is intimate and therein liesits power. It underlies its social status as a mechanism for working through andexhausting society’s preoccupations’.33 While I will argue that television was particularly well placed in working through maleanxieties in the period, which were then worked back to a mass audience in the formof its ‘affect’, how far were the representations of working-class masculine anxietieswhich I have chosen to focus upon specifically televisual? Briggs has argued thattelevision ‘as a communicator of meaning and as a daily activity is ordinary’.34 Thus,the very ordinariness of the dramas I have selected in terms of locations, characters,and narrative events appear to be well suited to the medium of television whereascinema offers up more heroic, goal driven and self consciously dramatic narrativeswhich have a high degree of narrative closure and tends to shy away from everydayordinary experiences.While the representations of characters in a variety of television genres of the period,for example police series, could be seen to derive from filmic conventions, the30 John Gripsrud, ‘Television, Audience, Flow’, in The Television Studies Book ed. by Chistine Geraghty andDavid Lusted (London: Arnold, 1998), pp. 141-157.31 Jeremy Orelbar, The Television Handbook, 4th ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), p. 85: Briggs, (2010), p.14.32 Briggs, (2010), p. 11.33 John Ellis, ‘Television as Working Through’, in Television and Common Knowledge, ed. by John Gripsrud,(London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 55-70 (p. 68).34 Briggs, (2010), p. 1.13 representations I will focus upon tend to fall outside of the remit of mainstreamcinema.35 These are small scale portrayals of ordinary men in ordinary situationsexperiencing anxieties and confusion over their performances of masculinity. Theseare played out in ordinary stories featuring bricklaying, unemployment, drinking,fighting, skipping work, family and marital problems, and are punctuated by clichédbanter as well as dramatic dialogue.While other popular media may have echoed television’s interest in ordinary working-class men this was frequently limited or superficial. Advertising for example, whilelargely aspirational, did occasionally feature, as a riposte to this aspiration, whatHunt has called ‘bitterman’, existing in a working-class ‘rowdy slightly dog eared,male group’.36 Film representations were primarily confined to sitcom spin offs andCarry on films, and while they did address certain masculine anxieties they tended tobe superficial and conservative. Other films, such as Slade in Flame (UK, 1975:Richard Loncraine), The Long Good Friday (UK, 1980: John Mackenzie) and TheSqueeze (UK, 1977: Michael Apted), while considerably more adventurous in theirportrayal of male uncertainty, were narratives primarily driven by goals or genreconventions. In some other culturally related areas reactionary, working-classmasculine performances expressing residual attitudes to changes in gender andclass can also be traced, for example in both the Oi music movement and the booksof Richard Allen, but these were confined exclusively to the young.Television in the seventies and early eighties then was suitably placed as a mediumto explore and mediate cultural issues. Its modest scale, its domestic placement, its35 See for example Geoffrey Hurd, ‘The Television Presentation of the Police’, in Popular Television andFilm, ed. by Tony Bennett and others, (London: BFI, 1981), pp. 53-70 (p. 59).36 Hunt (1998), p. 61.14 intimacy, its mass popularity, its willingness to experiment for a popular audience, itschampioning of social realism, all worked in its favour. Whether the single play withits ‘ventilation of public issues […] (being) one of the most valuable functions thattelevision can perform’ or the sitcom where shifts in society were both ‘marked andresisted’ and ‘residual and emergent world views […] (were) continually at play’, itfunctioned as a key cultural medium.37 As thecentral cultural medium it presents a multiplicity of meanings rather than amonolithic dominant point of view. It often focuses on the most prevalentconcerns, our deepest dilemmas. Our most traditional views, those that arerepressive and reactionary, as well as those that are subversive andemancipatory, are upheld, examined, maintained and transformed.38 While this thesis seeks to establish the ways television texts work to convey feelingsabout masculine identity, anxiety and change it will also consider television’s abilityto mediate these feelings and its affect on its audiences. While lack of substantiveevidence may render this potentially problematic I will go on to provide viewingfigures and specifically written audience responses for each of the programmeswhich make up the case studies within this thesis in an attempt to assess their‘affect’. As Gorton has argued, audiences are guided by what they think but alsohow they feel and their ‘bodily response to feelings’.39 Millington has talked about the ‘phenomenon of interdiscourse’ within television,being the ‘process in which readers either consciously or unconsciously compare37 George Brandt, ‘Introduction’, in British Television Drama, ed. by George Brandt (Cambridge; CambridgeUniversity Press, 1981), pp. 1-35 (p. 32); John Tulloch, Television Drama: Agency, Audience and Myth,2nd edn. (London: Taylor Francis, 2002), p. 265.38 Horace Newcomb and Paul M. Hirsch, ‘Television as Cultural Forum: Implications for Research’,Quarterly Review of Film, 8.3 (Summer 1983), 561-573 (p. 563).39 Kristyn Gorton, Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2009), p. 69.15 their sense of the world with mediations of the world’.40 However, as Gauntlett andHill have argued, it would be naïve to assume that identity would be absorbed frommedia representations.41 As they go on to say ‘it is virtually impossible to producefirm empirical evidence that television cultivates […] prejudices, since they aredeeply rooted in our culture’.42 While television may have limited impact on audience behaviour and identityconstruction it can nevertheless, considerably affect audience responses. As Gortonhas argued, affect in television consists of the affective strategies employed byproducers, the affective qualities transmitted within what is produced and the affectthese have on the viewer: ‘Emotion is fashioned by producers to elicit a responsefrom the audience’.43 Similarly, Smit states that ‘emotion is cultivated by televisionproducers to encourage certain kinds of intensely intimate engagements with themedium’ which mitigate against the ‘possibilities of distraction and ambientviewing’.44 Thus, ‘television uses emotion to sustain the interest of potentiallydistracted viewers’.45 Furthermore, ‘valuation and use of emotion informs the formalstructure of television texts […] (such is) the value placed on emotion by writers’.46 As Bird has argued, television consists of ‘images and messages which wash overus, but leave little trace, unless they resonate, even for a moment, with something in40 Bob Millington and Robin Nelson, Boys From the Blackstuff: The Making of a TV Drama (London:Comedia, 1986), p. 185.41 David Gauntlett and Annette Hill, TV Living: Television, Culture and Everyday Life (London: BFI, 1999),p. 211.42 Ibid.43 Gorton, (2009), p. 100.44 Alexia Smit, ‘Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion’, Screen, 51.1 (Spring 2010), 92-95 (p.93).45 Ibid.46 Gorton, (2009), p. 144.16 our personal or cultural experience’.47 ‘These moments’ suggests Gorton, ‘signal anemotional engagement with television’, and the level of engagement is ‘marked byour emotional response to what we are watching’.48 Furthermore, television textscan both orientate people’s emotions and become repositories of those feelings andemotions.49 Gorton goes on to differentiate between emotion and affect both ofwhich are contested terms and frequently used interchangeably.50 Emotion, shesays, is the sociological expression of feelings, while affect is the physical responseto those feelings.51 Shouse defines affect as ‘the passage of one experiential state to another’ eitherthrough ‘augmentation or diminution’.52 While ‘feeling is a sensation that has beenchecked against previous experiences and labelled [...] (being both) personal andbiographical’ and ‘emotion is the projection’ of that feeling, ‘affect is the non-conscious experience of intensity’.53 Thus, argues Shouse, ‘without affect feelingsdo not ‘feel’ because they have no intensity’.54 Crucially, Shouse stresses ‘the non-conscious resonance with the source of themeaning (as) more important that the message consciously received’.55 He goes onto say that ‘the intensity of the impingement of sensations’ can mean more than47 S. Elizabeth Bird, The Audience in Everyday Life: Living in a Media World, (New York, NY: Routledge,2003), p. 2.48 Gorton, (2009), p. iix; 2.49 Ibid., p. 3; 8.50 Ibid., p. 56.51 Ibid.52 Eric Shouse, ‘Feeling, Emotion, Affect’, M/C Journal 8.6 (December 2005), 1-15 (p. 1) [accessed 2 April 2014]53 Ibid., p. 2; 4; 5.54 Ibid., p. 11.55 Ibid., p. 12.17 meaning itself.56 Thus, affect has less to do with the communication of meaning thanhow we are ‘moved’.57 While meanings do matter the affect of television should notbe collapsed into meanings alone.58 Thus, the power of television ‘lies not so muchin […] (its) ability to create ideological effects, but in […] (its) ability to create affectiveresonances independent of content or meaning’.59 While the ‘power of affect is thatit is […] abstract making it transmittable’, because it is transmittable it is potentially a‘powerful social force’.60 While I shall go on in this introduction to justify my choices of particular televisionprogrammes by explaining the contributions each case study will make to my overallargument it is worth mentioning at this stage what informed my choices. Althoughissues around gender relations and masculine anxieties featured across a number oftelevision genres, my selection has not been driven by generic similarity or diversity.As with Knights, they might not appear to be ‘necessarily the most obvious’ in termsof genre.61 However, they do all occupy in some way the territory of social realismand are not particularly bound by generic conventions. They are also texts whichwork explicitly to convey their characters’ feelings and anxieties about masculineidentities and, as I will go on to argue, have the ability to mediate these feelings andaffect their audiences.I have also chosen to focus my study on television writers on the understanding thatauthor and drama have a singularly intimate relationship, and while increased56 Shouse (2005), p. 13.57 Ibid.58 Ibid.59 Ibid., pp. 14-15.60 Ibid.61 Knights (1999), p. vii.18 location shooting and the use of film stock allowed for greater creative input from thedirector, this was also a period when there was increasing ’artistic freedom affordedto dramatists’,62 However, while my analysis focuses on the output of writers, theactual textual analysis is of the programmes as broadcast, incorporating mise-en-scene as well as non-diegetic elements, and acknowledges the contributions madeby others in the production process.A further criterion for selection has been the desire to follow the writer’s issues andconcerns over an extended duration. Thus, with Peter McDougall I have selectedsingle dramas which are connected by their thematic consistency while with TrevorPreston, Alan Bleasdale, and Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais the texts consist oflengthier drama series which allow the authors to draw out and develop themes andrepresentations over a longer period than many one off dramas or films. While thisthesis focuses on the representations of individual fictitious men, key to ourunderstanding of them and their constructions and performances of masculinity arethe interactions they have with each other, and how these develop within thenarratives. Here I have used the term narrative to describe fictional stories, largelywith cause and effect relations and temporal linearity (although with somedigressions), but also lacking in clear resolution or denouement, thus highlighting adegree of ambivalence by the authors to their subject matter.What the selected programmes present is a chronology of working-class masculineanxieties from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s representing a slow but subtle shift inthose anxieties. All the stories specifically feature groups of men in homosocial yet62 Cooke (2003), p. 91.19 generally non goal oriented interaction, and it is through this interaction that theseanxieties are worked through. While there is no denying the cultural dominance ofmen’s voices in television these particular narratives express feelings which hadpreviously been ‘elusive’ and ‘invisible’.63 1.3 White, Heterosexual, Working-class MasculinitiesWhile this thesis focuses on narratives which deal with working-class, heterosexual,white masculinities and acknowledges that as a broad category it should not beinterpreted as homogeneous, there is obviously a need to qualify the reasons forthese parameters. In her own study of female masculinities Halberstam has arguedthat it is imperative to examine previously ignored marginal masculinities.64 Shesuggests that what she terms ‘dominant masculinity’, that is in particular white andheterosexual male masculinity, has been naturalised and remains at the centre ofacademic study.65 Thus, she continues, if there ‘appears to be a naturalized relationbetween maleness and power, then it makes little sense to examine men for thecontours of that masculinity's social construction’.66 While this may be a perfectlyvalid argument in the first part, Woodman has suggested thatHalberstam's very acknowledgement that our dominant cultural assumption isthat a seemingly 'naturalized relationship between maleness and power'exists and persists, […] is precisely why men's self-representations of'dominant white masculinity', and the crucial role they play in the powerrelations of gender requires continuous re-examination.67 Thus, this thesis seeks to further this examination in an effort to both make themechanisms of masculinity visible, but also to assay the strategems which63 Knights (1999), pp. 1-2.64 Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham and London: Duke University Press,1998).65 Ibid., p. 2.66 Ibid.67 Woodman, (2005), p. 18.20 traditional, hegemonic masculinities have used in an attempt to maintain theirposition.There are additionally a number of more specific reasons why this thesis focuses onwhite, heterosexual, working-class masculinity. Firstly, while the construction andperformance of all subjective identity is always fragile and contingent, those thatwere formulated upon traditional working-class masculine values (and morespecifically those which are both white and heterosexual) and its attendant mythicstatus, appear to have been rendered particularly vulnerable as a consequence ofchanges in the period which exposed and laid bare this instability. Since thosesocio-cultural changes with regard to gender and race impacted particularly on thenormative assumptions of both heterosexuality and whiteness, while economic shiftssignificantly affected the place, function and expectations of working-class menmuch more than those from the middle-class, then this particular construction ofmasculinity would be affected most dramatically. If, as has been argued, therelationship between class and masculinity was particularly intimate within ‘heavyindustries’ and ‘most apparent within the experience of manual labour’, then ‘thebreaking up of the rigid frontiers of the working-class’ whether through increasedupward class mobility or changing work patterns would be profoundly disruptive forworking-class masculine identities.68 Secondly, white, heterosexual, working-class discourse frequently defines itself bywhat it is not. While there is considerable evidence of emergent discourses in the68 David Morgan, ‘Class and Masculinity’, in Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, ed. by MichaelS. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn and Robert W. Connell (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 165-177 (p.172);Andrew Tolson, The Limits of Masculinity (London: Tavistock, 1977), p. 58; Arthur Marwick, BritishSociety since 1945: The Penguin Social History of Britain, 4th edn (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 275; 172.21 period, themselves constituting emergent structures of feeling, for example around,feminism, gay activism, black consciousness, greater permissiveness and so forth, Iwill argue that television witnessed another emergent discourse, but one orientedtowards the past stressing stasis and continuity in the face of change. As socio-cultural and economic changes challenged normative assumptions aboutheterosexual, white, working-class masculinity a new discourse emerged expressinga sense of ‘panic or anxiety’ and marked by reactionary characteristics.69 Thirdly, as a constructed category white, heterosexual, working-class masculinity ofthe period has tended to be relatively invisible. As a category which constituted aparticular form of hegemonic masculinity it was only when its dominant normativeposition began to be challenged that its construction began to become more visible.Butler has pointed out that there is no 'relationship called "sexual difference" that isitself unmarked by race’ and while blackness may be a significant factor in theconstruction of masculinity so too is whiteness.70 However, she argues, the reasonwhy ‘whiteness is not understood […] as a racial category’ is because ‘it is yetanother power that need not speak its name’ allowing it to remain invisible.71 Henceshe argues for academic studies to recognise whiteness as a form of racialdifference.Similarly, heterosexual masculinity, in as much as it has assumed a normativehegemonic position while defining itself ‘in relation to women and subordinatemasculinities’, in particular homosexual masculinities, has nonetheless remained,69 Edwards (2006), p. 6.70 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (London and New York: Routledge,1993), p. I81.71 Ibid., pp. 181-182.22 until recently, relatively invisible as an area of study.72 As Butler has argued,heterosexuality while socially constructed as an ideal is little more than a ‘norm, anda fiction that disguises itself as a developmental law regulating the sexual field that itpurports to describe’.73 Thus, what Butler is suggesting, is that the norm ofheterosexuality is maintained through gender identity acting as a regulatoryconstruct.74 This she has called the ‘heterosexual matrix’ where there emerges thecompulsory practice of heterosexuality.75 Thus, heterosexual masculinity as anormative construction has tended to evade the scrutiny afforded other categories.Fourthly, there is substantive evidence that white, heterosexual, working-classmasculinity has been particularly disposed in its resistance to social and culturalchanges in the period. For example, with regards to ethnicity, there was theenthusiastic response to Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 withbacking coming from London dockers, Smithfield meat porters and Heathrow airportworkers, all demonstrating their support.76 Similarly, with regards to homosexuality,reflecting the residual attitudes and values of a particularly entrenched working-classcommunity, Labour candidate Peter Tatchell failed to win a by-election in thestaunchly Labour constituency of Bermondsey following an aggressively anti-gaytabloid campaign, homophobic insinuations within the Labour Party, and physicaland verbal attacks on Tatchell’s supporters, particularly by local working-classmales.77 72 Robert W. Connell, 'Hegemonic Masculinity', in Gender-A Sociological Reader, ed. by Stevi Jackson andSue Scott, (London and New York: Routledge,2002), p p.60-62.73 nd Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2 edn (New York: Routledge,1999), p. 173.74 Ibid., p. 175.75 Ibid., p. 194.76 Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (London: Pan MacMillan, 2008), p. 304.77 Peter Tatchell, Capital Gay, 26 February 1993 published in a slightly edited form [accessed 14 January 2012]23 There are, then, a number of reasons why this thesis focuses on white,heterosexual, working-class masculine identities. However, what is central to myargument, is that social, cultural and economic changes which were occurring in the1970s and early 1980s presented profound challenges to many of the normativeassumptions on which these particular masculinities were based. As men’s positionand privilege together with the perceived stability of gender were being questioned,and the traditional functions and expectations of working-class men becameundermined, it was white, heterosexual, working-class masculinity which wasrendered particularly vulnerable by these changes. The next section will go on todetail the historical specificities of those changes placing them within the widerhistorical context of the period.1.4 The Historical ContextMuch recent work into gender identity has recognised it to be primarily a construct‘always interpolated by cultural, historical, and geographic location’.78 Whether, forexample, the discourse governed gender constructs theorised by Foucault, theperformative notion of gender put forward by Judith Butler, or the work onmasculinity formulated by Connell, it would appear that gender is a product ofparticular socio-cultural configurations. If then, as Foucault, Butler, Connell et alargue, gender is primarily a social construct, then any understanding of how it comesto be constructed will necessarily entail looking at the social frameworks whichcondition it, a particularly efficacious route being to isolate moments when thetraditional structures and common sense ideas which underpin gender identity andrelations are disrupted. As Stuart Hall has argued ’we need to situate the debates78 John Beynon, Masculinities and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 1.24 about identity within all those historically specific developments and practices whichhave disturbed the relatively settled character of many populations and cultures’.79 It is, he states,precisely because identities are constructed within, not outsidediscourse, (that) we need to understand them as produced in specifichistorical and institutional sites and within specific discursiveformations and practices. Moreover, they emerge within the play ofspecific modalities of power. 80 While the 1970s and 1980s in Britain were certainly not unique as a time ofinstability, since there can be no interval of true stability, it was undeniably a periodof profound change which impacted substantially upon gender relations. Whileperiodisation may be somewhat problematic and potentially misleading, the 1970sthrough to the 1980s were undoubtedly a watershed for British society. However,like any other period, it was characterised by what Raymond Williams has termedthe dominant, the residual and the emergent, where culture is composed of a set ofrelations between all three emphasising the dynamic and uneven quality of any givenmoment.81 Mark Garnett has described the period as ‘The Long Eighties', whichmarked a period of ‘successful militancy, generated especially among the young,who thought that reactionary force stood in the way of progress to greater justice andsocial economic equality’.82 Similarly Rosen recognises that while the 1960s did notherald a revolution, it did yield ‘a climate of opinion particularly hospitable to socialinnovation‘.83 Here then, according to Moore-Gilbert, was a positive development ofa79 Stuart Hall, ‘Who Needs Identity?’, in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay(London: Sage, 1996), pp. 1-17 (p. 4).80 Stuart Hall, ’Who Needs Identity?’, in Identity: A Reader, ed. by Paul du Gay, Jessica Evans and PeterRedman (London: Sage, 2000), pp. 15-30 (p.17).81 Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 121-127.82 Mark Garnett, From Anger to Apathy: The British Experience Since 1975 (London: Random House, 2007),pp. 7-8.83 Andrew Rosen, The Transformation of British Life, 1950-2000: A Social History (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 2003), p. 54.25 distinctively new socio-cultural configurations, (taking place outside oftraditional class and political contours), which were articulated aroundquestions of gender, race, sexuality, region and, more diffusely,ecological issues. Thus the process of fragmentation and division […]provided the momentum for cultural-political realignments which havesince consolidated their identity and influence.84 As Whitehead has argued, black minorities in Britain were beginning to make theirpresence felt; women, disillusioned by the lack of real progress in the sixties, beganto mobilise themselves in a more organised and dynamic way; while other groups,not least gays, began to campaign to heighten awareness about their own positionsor challenged widespread acceptance of relentless industrial progress and itsenvironmental costs.85 In short there was beginning to emerge a greater sense ofplurality.These developments then effected changes in the construction of masculineidentities and while they may have helped to facilitate new emergent constructions ofmasculinity, how they were actually experienced and accommodated by manyworking-class men and why these men remained particularly resistant to them areopen to debate and analysis. As Marr has argued, in a Britain that was ‘becomingmore feminized, sexualized, rebellious and consumption addicted’, some men wereappearing to be increasingly out of step.86 Andy Beckett has suggested that the seventies were not simply the hangover afterthe sixties but were a revolutionary decade in their own right, operating as a theatreof opposition and dissent.87 While the legislation of the 1960s together with84 Bart Moore-Gilbert, The Arts in the 1970s: Cultural Closure? (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 8.85 Philip Whitehead, The Writing on the Wall: Britain in the Seventies (London: M. Joseph in association withChannel Four, 1985), pp. 221-225; p. 25; 310; 240.86 Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (London: Pan MacMillan, 2008), p. 232.87 Andy Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), p. 20126 significant social changes particularly among the young signaled a shift in values andattitudes, it was actually the following decades where a greater plurality was seen towork its way through British society. However, this was frequently a contradictory,fraught, even violent affair since neither a clear disintegration, continuation orreplacement of values can be demonstrated.88 While liberalising legislation regarding homosexuality had considerable impact, itwas only partially reforming, failed to provide equality, and was subject to criticism.89 Nonetheless throughout the 1970s it did provide an opportunity for a far greatervisibility and platform for gay issues. While popular conceptions of homosexuality ontelevision continued to peddle the camp stereotypes of Larry Grayson, John Inmanand Dick Emery, caricatures which were acceptable to a mainstream heterosexualaudience, the reality of a more assertive gay presence could not be ignored. Whilethe Gay Liberation Front, Gay News, and Gay Pride all established themselves in theperiod, a greater presence also emerged in popular music, film, and television.90 However, change, while occurring, is often fought for, resisted, and ultimately slow.Decriminalisation, for example, did not happen in Scotland and Northern Ireland untilthe1980s and varying degrees of prejudice continued to affect a widely sociallyconservative society.88 Marwick (2003), p. 219.89 Ibid., p. 133; Marr (2008), p. 255.90 Examples of this are John Schlesinger’s 1971 BAFTA winning film Sunday, Bloody Sunday (UK; 1971,John Schlesinger) which featured homosexuality as a matter of fact rather than as a social problem; pop starElton John discussing his bisexuality openly in 1976 as did David Bowie, declaring that he was bisexual in1972 and again in 1976. Cliff Jahr, ‘Lonely at the Top’, Rolling Stone, 7 October 1976, pp. 1-3; MichaelWatts, ‘Oh You Pretty Thing’, Melody Maker, 2 January 1972, pp. 1-2; Glad to be Gay by Tom Robinsonachieving considerable chart success in 1978 in spite of being banned by BBC Radio One; the BBCbroadcasting The Naked Civil Servant (UK, 1975); and in 1979 LWT commissioning the first ever series ongay issues Gay Life (UK, 1979).27 As with homosexuality, the move towards racial equality was also difficult andfractured. While Government legislation was intended to simultaneously curbimmigration and improve race relations, much of the populace remained guarded, ifnot antagonistic, in the face of increased visibility of ethnic minorities in both themedia and everyday life.91 Moral panics around black crime, the electoral successesof the National Front and the routinely racist representations of ethnic minorities insitcoms such as Mind Your Language (UK, 1977-79; 1986) and Love Thy Neighbour(UK, 1972-1976) signified continued suspicion and resistance.92 If, as ArthurMarwick has argued, television was the single biggest leisure activity of the majorityof British people during this period, these dominant representations were likely toaffect perceptions and attitudes.93 Here was a greater visibility, but one which was,with a few exceptions, wholly attuned to its white and largely working-class audience.Equal rights and liberalising legislation was rather more complex in regard to theposition of women, being a combination of legislation aimed directly at sexdiscrimination and acts intended to allow for a greater degree of personal and sexualfreedom among both men and women. 94 While these went a considerable way inimproving the position of women in a number of areas, many of the changes,particularly in the 1970s, had to be continually fought for by women themselves.Consequently, taking its lead from America, second wave feminism emerged at thecutting edge of the women’s movement. For example, the period witnessed the91 Marwick (2003), p. 133; Marr (2008) p.300; Sarita Malik, Representing Black Britain: A History of Blackand Asian Images on British Television (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 47-48.92 Malik (2004), p.14; Marr, p.193; 304; John Gabriel, Whitewash: Racialised Politics and the Media(Routledge: London, 1998), pp.157-159; Stuart Hall and others, Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State andLaw and Order (London: Palgrave-MacMillan, 1978).93 Marwick (2003), p. 206.94 Jane Lewis, ‘Women and Social Change 1945-95’, in Britain Since 1945, ed. by Jonathan Hollowell(Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 260-278 (p. 267).28 emergence of the National Women’s Liberation Conference together withpublications like Shrew and Spare Rib, crucial as a means of self-representation,and feminist texts from Kate Millet and Andrea Dworkin.95 While it could be arguedthat for many women second wave feminism hardly touched their lives, at least in aconscious and overt way, some elements did make a deeper impact into publicconsciousness. Events like the disruption of the Miss World competition and thepublication of The Female Eunuch for example, ensured a much wider media profile.What they both marked was a surge towards visibility and away from passivity.96 However, while this was a level of equality being vigorously fought for by women, itwas also being resisted and ridiculed by men. A typical example of this was the sourresponse by Bob Hope to the Miss World protest. As host for the evening, he hadsuggested that the protesters were clearly not pretty, as ‘pretty girls don’t have theseproblems’.97 What was a pioneering and passionate movement was frequentlyderided as ‘Women’s Lib’ in much mainstream popular media including thegrotesque parodies of the movement in Carry on Girls (UK, 1973: Gerald Thomas)and Benny Hill’s Women’s Lib Television (UK, 1980). Even without these moreexplicit attacks, much of the male dominated media carried on as usual, whilebenefiting from a ‘trickle down’ of ‘permissive populism’, where female nudity wouldbe routinely exploited in television programmes such as Budgie (UK, 1971-72) or onpage three of The Sun.98 95 Anon, ‘Shrew’, British Library: Dreamers and Dissenters (British Library, [n.d.]) [accessed 7January 2012]96 Lynne Harne, Women’s Liberation and Radical Feminism 1970s to early 1980s (London Feminist Network,2010) [accessed 17 January 2012]; Christine Wallace, The Untamed Shrew(New York: Faber and Faber Inc., 1998), p. 160.97 Anon, ‘Shrew’, [n.d.]98 Hunt (1998), pp. 20-21.29 While then, through a combination of legislation, activism and changing attitudes, agreater sense of plurality was emerging, this was frequently not welcomed or activelyresisted, particularly by those who felt their positions threatened. While it could beargued that this was a generational phenomenon, likely to change as the youngreplaced the old, it was still something that needed to be worked through withinsociety over a period of time. Here was a considerable and rather traumatic culturaland social shift, the vicissitudes of which had to be negotiated by its participants.While I have no intention of subscribing to what could be termed a crisis discourse,where men are posited as powerless against external forces, I would argue that, forthose lacking appropriate cultural and social capital, profound changes led to certainpredicaments.99 The period may have experienced what Connell has called thethree key sites of crisis tendencies.100 The first of these was in power relations withthe threat to the patriarchal system.101 The second was in production relations withwomen's entrance into the labour market, the beginning of the collapse of gendereddivisions of labour and the ‘patriarchal dividend’.102 The third was in what Connelldescribes as the relations of cathexis, with a disruption of previously taken-for-granted assumptions about the relationships of desire and emotional attachment,such as those between sexual orientation and cultural notions of gender.103 Crisistendencies, he stated, have ‘resulted clearly enough in a major loss of legitimacy for99 Stephen M. Whitehead, Men and Masculinities: Key Themes and New Directions (Cambridge: Polity,2002), p. 57.100 nd R. W. Connell, Masculinities, 2 edn (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), pp. 81-86.101 Ibid., p. 74.102 Ibid.,p. 85; 79.103 Ibid., pp, 74-75.30 patriarchy, and different groups of men are now negotiating this loss in very differentways’.104 While socio-cultural shifts had a significant impact on working-class male identities,more specific socio-economic developments had an equally profound effect onidentity construction. As Britain slid into industrial decline in the 1970s and itsindustrial base was vigorously dismantled in the following decade, the importance ofparticular traditional working-class male skills was undermined and ultimatelydevalued. As Marwick has observed, while class remained so central to the period italso marked the demise of the traditional working-class.105 Thus the skills that hadbeen so valued in the industrial economy were about to become largely redundantand replaced in the ‘virtual economy’.106 Duncan Gallie has argued that the seventies and eighties witnessed the radicalrestructuring of the British labour market and ‘the most pervasive technologicalrevolution since the nineteenth-century’ which altered the nature of the jobs availableand the types and levels of skills required.107 The combination of new forms of workand changing social values brought about a marked increase in women’sparticipation in the labour market, giving ‘a new salience to issues of genderequality’.108 104 Connell (2005), p. 202.105 Marwick (2003), pp. 278-288.106 A History of Modern Britain: Revolution 1979-90, BBC Two, 12 June 2007, 21.00 hrs.107 Duncan Gallie, ‘Employment and the Labour Market, in Britain Since 1945 (see Lewis, above), pp. 404-424 (p. 404).108 Ibid.31 While much of the traditional, established heavy industries were still in place by thebeginning of the decade, the 1970s had already witnessed a steady decline in majorindustry in much of industrialised Britain.109 The spectre of unemployment wasalready pervasive particularly in the North, with the old dockland areas of Liverpool,for example, already dying by the early part of the decade.110 When theConservatives under Edward Heath were elected in 1970 ‘British productivity wasstill pitifully low’.111 With exceptionally heavy levels of unionisation through all keyindustries and a large number of muscular unions, this was a time of considerablepolitical militancy.112 Consequently, throughout Heath’s tenure, he faced continualindustrial action. Ultimately Heath failed in his objectives in the face of powerfultrade union opposition, culminating in the miners’ strike of 1973/4.113 To many olderBritons these were years of out of control change.114 The period which followed under the Labour governments of Wilson and Callaghan,while calmer and less confrontational, also witnessed a decline in living standardswith the long working-class boom coming to an end.115 Under Callaghan thegovernment without a majority was kept going through pacts and deals in an air ofcontinual crisis.116 However, this ‘fragile calm’ came to be disrupted in 1978,following stringent new pay restrictions, by what came to be known as the ‘winter of109 Marwick (2003), p.157.110 This is, for example, illustrated by a routine exchange between two characters in the LWT drama seriesVillains (UK,1972) discussing Tyneside: ’no work up my way, coal, steel, shipbuilding, the towns are dyingand all those traditions are dying’; Dai Smith has observed, even under Wilson in the 1960s the Labourgovernment ‘hastened to run down the coal industry’. Dai Smith, ‘Ms Rhymney Valley 1985’, in RaymondWilliams: Film TV Culture, ed. by David Lusted (BFI: London, 1989), p. 35; Marwick (2003), p. 158.111 Marr (2008), p. 324.112 Ibid.113 Ibid., pp. 340-343.114 Ibid., p. 343.115 Ibid, p. 359.116 Ibid., p. 363.32 discontent’.117 With the electorate now alienated from the government, theconsequences of a newly elected Conservative government would lead to the unionslosing almost half their members, relinquishing any political influence.118Peter Hall, cited in Marwick, has described the dilemma of the inner cities in the1970s and the predicament of its inhabitants:A significant minority of these residents are poorly educated, unskilled,have incomes too low to travel far, and perceptions too low to know thepossibilities. They could perform the heavy simple jobs needing muchstrength but little skill that were once plentiful. But in the new age ofautomated machines and computers there is no place for their modesttalents.119Similarly Humphreys, also cited in Marwick, talks of a new breed of ‘miningtechnocrats’ replacing ‘men skilled in the arts of manual labour’.120 As workingpatterns changed it was frequently older men unable to acquire newer skills whoformed a high percentage of the unemployed.121With the relentless pursuit of deindustrialisation under the ensuing Conservativegovernment of Margaret Thatcher, manufacturing industry diminished alarmingly inScotland, the North, Wales, and West Midlands.122 What followed was perhaps themost decisive moment in the decline of the power of the unions with the defeat of theminers, following the longest strike in British history.123 As defeated miners leaderArthur Scargill observed ‘without jobs our members are nothing’.124 What was117 Marr (2008), p. 373.118 Ibid., p. 376.119 Marwick (2003), p. 158.120 Ibid., p. 160.121 Ibid., p. 164.122 Ibid., p. 228.123 Marr (2008), p. 411.124 Ibid., p. 413.33 emerging was what academics were beginning to understand as a new post-industrial age based on IT, services, and leisure.125 With the selling off to private buyers of nationalised industries and the deregulationof the city after the big bang, the emphasis was now on the world of finance and notproductive industry.126 This was coupled with the deskilling of much of theworkforce, replacing skilled crafts with routine work. However, as Gallie has noted,with the growth of IT, supportive as it is to individualistic desk top enterprises,permeating many aspects of work, there was a shift which had little to do with partypolitics.127 Thus, in the twenty years following 1971, the percentage of thoseemployed in the service sector, financial services and leisure rose while those inmanufacturing declined. ‘Jobs generated by the service sector’, however, ‘werefrequently part time (and) largely taken by women’.128 1.5 Structures of FeelingEarlier in this introduction I stated that one of the overall aims of this thesis was toisolate a structure of feeling expressed by a number of significant writers whichemphasises anxieties around white, heterosexual, working-class masculinities. Inthis section I intend to provide an introductory explanation of the concept as definedby Raymond Williams, setting out its parameters, its development, its usefulness,and limitations and finally how and why it is employed in this thesis. I will then go onto expand and develop upon this in the chapter dealing with my methodology.125 Marwick (2003), p. 240.126 Ibid., pp. 267-269.127 Gallie (2003), pp. 404-424 (p. 405).128 Ibid., pp. 407-409.34 Firstly I must acknowledge that as a concept structure of feeling is hardly new.However, while it has been developed and redefined throughout Williams’s careerand has undergone considerable criticism for its ambiguity and failure to have beendeveloped to ‘theoretical satisfaction’, I will argue that it retains currency as amethodological tool in a number of disciplines and is used in a number of innovativeways, not always entirely in accord with Williams’s own intentions.129 Williams’s proposal of the concept of 'structures of feeling' emerged into theprevailing climate of Marxist structural determinism and was principally amethodological approach that would allow for the examination of cultural meaningsrather than reducing them to the inevitable outcome of material structures.130 Culture had been of less concern as an object of analysis but was simply aphenomenon that, once evaluated, would lead to an understanding of the ‘logic ofcapitalism’, thus any reading of literary texts would be reduced to ideologicalcritique.131 This base-superstructure model argued that the ‘economic base ofsociety’ should be understood as ‘determining everything else in the superstructureincluding social, political and intellectual consciousness’.132 In developing his owntheory of cultural materialism Williams defines ‘culture as a constitutive socialprocess’ rather than something marginal or subsidiary.133 Thus, in interpretingculture as material Williams was enabling a much subtler analysis of culture andliterary texts.129 Raymond Williams, Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review (1979; rpt. London: Verso,1981), p. 159.130 Ismo Kantola, Attachment of Enthusiasm in Structures of Feeling. (University of Jyvaskyla, 2005) [accessed 15 September 2012] (p. 2).131 Ibid.132 Daniel Chandler, Marxist Media Theory: Base and Superstructure [accessed 15 September 2012]133 Williams (1977), p. 19.35 Williams intended structures of feeling to convey how individual experience andemotion are connected to wider social and economic structures. He is particularlyinterested in uncovering social experiences which may be undervalued, dismissed,or repressed and which exist outside of official consciousness or the dominantideology. Williams’s concept attempts to ‘define the quality of social experience’which is ‘historically distinct from other(s)’ and provides a feeling of a period orgeneration.134 However, these particular qualitative changes are not assumed to be‘merely secondary evidence of changed social and economic relations’ and are farfrom superficial or incidental.135 Williams argues that a generation’s structure of feeling can be understood byengaging with cultural and literary artefacts from any given period. In particular, hewants to ‘show the importance of literature for the articulation of alternatives todominant world views, and thus is related to the politics of social change’.136 ForWilliams, texts can be seen as both dynamic yet subtle interpretations of specificstructures of feeling.Morag Shiach has suggested that the structure of feeling of a period ‘seeks tohistoricize emotional as well as cognitive frameworks; it describes the characteristicfears, desires, and blindnesses of the period’.137 It is, according to Kaplan, ‘the lived134 Williams (1977), p. 131.135 Ibid, p. 131-132.136 Paul Filmer, ‘Structures of Feeling and Socio-Cultural Formations: The Significance of Literature andExperience to Raymond Williams's Sociology of Culture’, British Journal of Sociology, 54.3 (June 2003),199-219 (p. 199).137 Morag Shiach, ‘A Gendered History of Cultural Categories’, in Cultural Materialism: On RaymondWilliams, ed. by Christopher Prendergast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp 51-70 (p.58).36 affect of a time, its dynamic, ephemeral stories’.138 I will argue then, that there werea number of writers in television who expressed these ‘fears, desires andblindnesses’ in their own ‘ephemeral stories’ by foregrounding a ‘structure of feeling’that emphasised anxieties about socio-cultural changes while exploring the limitsand constraints upon effective transformation particularly within working-classcultures. They explored an area of social experience of individuals and groupswhich was frequently discounted, overlooked, or inhibited together with therelationship between these experiences and the structures of the period. They alsoquestion the potential for genuine transformative change in masculine identities,suggesting that working-class men had an adherence to a construction ofmasculinity which, while perceived as authentic, was actually both troubling andtroubled.If, as Mercer has argued, ‘identity only becomes an issue [...] when somethingassumed to be fixed, coherent, and stable is displaced by the experience of doubtand uncertainty’, then these writers actively engage with those feelings.139 Whatemerges from the texts themselves is the actual experience of masculinity andchange in contrast to the confident assertions of the social order, revealing a set oftensions frequently at odds with prevailing discourses; in short, what RaymondWilliams has defined as, a ‘structure of feeling’.140 While structure of feeling is a term which occurs across much of Williams’s work howit is expressed, defined, and articulated over time reveals a degree of variation. It138 Cora Kaplan, ‘What We Have Again to Say: Williams, Feminism and the 1850s’, in Cultural Materialism:On Raymond Williams (see Shiach above), pp. 211-236 (p. 231).139 Kobena Mercer, ‘Welcome to the Jungle: Identity and Diversity in Postmodern Politics’, in Identity:Community, Culture, Difference, ed. by Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), pp. 43-71 (p. 43).140 Williams (1977), pp. 128-135.37 first appears in A Preface to Film and is then variously applied and referencedthroughout his career. 141 It is subject to both discussion and application in The LongRevolution, abstraction in Marxism and Literature and defence in Politics and Letters,and while Williams does offer a number of definitions of the term, it tends to remainsomewhat imprecise.142 Although the term is not explicitly articulated as such in ‘For Continuity in Change’Williams asserts that he aims to ‘explore the relation of art to society’ whileexpressing the ‘desire to factor […] feeling into the equations of historical andsociological study’.143 Later in the ‘Literature in Relation to History’ conference hestresses the need for literature to be included in an interdisciplinary approach.‘Change and continuity’ he states, is ‘often seen most clearly in […] literature,(which) forms a record of vitally important changes and developments in humanpersonality. It is as much the record of the history of a people as politicalinstitutions’.144 Williams questions intellectual conventions where historians dismiss‘certain kinds of important literary evidence’ particularly the ‘distinction betweenthought and feeling’ and ‘hard fact and experience’ arguing that ‘it seemed to meanother simply historical phenomenon’.145 It was in A Preface to Film that Williams first articulates explicitly structure of feelingas well as employing it as tool for the analysis of contemporary literature. Here he141 Raymond Williams and Michael Orrom, Preface to Film (London: Film Drama, 1954).142 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (Peterborough, On: Broadview Press, 1961 repr. 2001); Williams,(1977), pp. 128-135; Williams, (1979), p. 156-162.143 Raymond Williams, ‘For Continuity in Change’, Politics and Letters, 1.1 (Summer 1947), 3-5 (p. 5); SeanMathews ‘Change and Theory in Raymond Williams’ Structure of Feeling’, Pretexts: Literary and CulturalStudies, 10.2 (2001), 179-194 (p. 183).144 Raymond Williams, ‘Literature in Relation to History’, in Border Country: Raymond Williams and AdultEducation, ed. by John McIlroy and Sallie Westwood, (Leicester: NIACE, 1993), pp. 166-173 (p. 172).145 Ibid, p. 170.38 suggests that changes in art, including drama, are an articulation of ‘man’s radicalstructure of feeling’ and are most apparent at transitional junctures when social andcultural change occurs. 146 Thus, Williams sees structure of feeling as amanifestation of the new and emergent.Subsequently, in The Long Revolution, Williams brings together much of his previouswork setting out an entire chapter on the analysis of culture central to which is thestructure of feeling and the process of change.147 Here, he argues,one generation may train its successor, with reasonable success, in the socialcharacter or the general cultural pattern, but the new generation will have itsown structure of feeling, which will not appear to have come ‘from’ anywhere.For here, most distinctly, the changing organization is enacted in theorganism: the new generation responds in its own ways to the unique world itis inheriting, taking up new continuities that can be traced […] yet feeling itswhole life in certain ways differently, and shaping its creative response into anew structure of feeling.148 In suggesting that it is beyond ‘social character’ or fixed ideology, Williams critiquesEuropean Marxist theory for the ‘reduction of the social to fixed forms’.149 Thus, whatthey may reveal are ‘the experiences to which the fixed forms do not speak at all,which indeed they do not recognize’ because they are beyond the ‘availablemeaning’, being ‘actively lived and felt’.150 What Williams wants to relate is the experience of life, and while clearly this isaffected by ideology it is in some way an expression of something more. Expandingon this in Marxism and Literature, he is talking about the146 Williams (1954), p. 23.147 Williams (1961), pp. 57-88.148 Ibid., p. 65.149 Ibid., p. 63; Williams, (1977), pp. 129-130.150 Williams, (1977), pp. 129-130.39 characteristic elements of impulse, restraint and tone; specificallyaffective elements of consciousness and relationships; not feelingagainst thought but thought as felt and feeling as thought.and it is the arts he argues that are of ‘major importance’ since it is ‘here, ifanywhere, the characteristic is likely to be expressed’.151 As Williams’s writing moves into the 1970s and literary criticism is coming underthreat from French theory his defence of literature and its unique qualities becomeseven more vehement.152 Once again Williams makes a case for artistic formsrecording ‘the pressure and structure of active experience, creating forms, creatinglife’, with the structure of feeling manifesting itself in the ‘lived and experienced butnot yet quite arranged as institutions and ideas’.153 Above all, however, it is theliterary form which is most capable of conveying original experience.154 It is in Marxism and Literature that Williams is able to articulate the nature andapplication of structures of feeling most precisely. What emerges here is that theyconstitute an evolutionary process. While much cultural analysis has frequentlytended to separate ‘the personal, seen as fluid and changing, and the social seen asstatic, and thus wrongly deemed irrelevant to the personal’, Williams’s concept seesthis as a false distinction.155 Thus, where feelings and experiences may operate on151 Williams (1977), pp. 131-132; Williams, (1961), pp. 64-65.152 David Simpson, ‘Raymond Williams: Feeling for Structures, Voicing History’, Social Text, (1992), 9-26(p.19).153 Raymond Williams, The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence (New York: Oxford University Press,1970), p. 138; 192.154 Simpson, (1992), pp. 9-26 (p. 19).155 Anon, ‘Structures of Feeling’, Marxwiki, [n.d.] [accessed 18June 2011]40 a personal and collective level, they should not be viewed as random, since structure‘exert(s) palpable pressures and set(s) effective limits on experience and action’.156 Finally Williams sums up his theory thus:methodologically a 'structure of feeling' is a cultural hypothesis, actuallyderived from attempts to understand such elements and their connections in ageneration or period, and needing always to be returned, interactively to suchevidence. It is initially less simple than more formally structured hypotheses ofthe social, but it is more adequate to the actual range of cultural evidence’.157 As such, while ‘the effective formations of most actual art relate to already manifestsocial formations, dominant or residual […] it is primarily to emergent formations(though often in the form of modification or disturbance in older forms) that thestructure of feeling, as solution, relates’.158 While Williams’s definition and uses of structure of feeling may shift throughout hiswork, in certain key ways it also remains relatively consistent. It is always utilised asa way of identifying new and emergent voices at moments of change although hedoes concede that it could be applied in other ways; change is always identified bycomparing new emergent feelings with more formal conventions and expressions;structure of feeling is always considered to be more subtle, complex and unstablethan ideology; it provides a way of considering greater varieties of evidence forstudying societies; it facilitates a way of linking ordinary cultural experience tocultural products; it privileges literature over other sources; and it remains outside of156 Anon, ‘Structures of Feeling’, Marxwiki, [nd]; Williams (1977), p. 132.157 Williams (1977), p. 133.158 Ibid., p. 134.41 the theoretical precepts of European Marxism and in opposition to the economicdeterminism of orthodox Marxism.159 As I have already suggested, as a concept, structure of feeling is not without itsproblems, attracting a fair degree of academic criticism. It has been variouslycritiqued for its literary exceptionalism, its employment of the selective tradition, itsattempts to reconcile (or not) high and popular culture and its absence of ‘women asactive agents, as producers or transmitters of culture’.160 While I intend to discusssome of the more specific criticism in greater detail in the Methodology, here I willoutline Williams’s awareness of the difficulties inherent in his approach and thejustifications he offered for it. As a term it would appear to be somewhatcontradictory. In The Long Revolution Williams describes it as ‘firm and definite as‘’structure’’ suggests, yet it operates in the most delicate and least tangible parts ofour activity’.161 Later in the Politics and Letters interviews it appears ‘deliberatelycontradictory’, as ‘a structure in the sense that you could perceive it operating in onework after another which weren’t otherwise connected-people weren’t learning it fromeach other; yet it was one of feeling much more than of thought-a pattern ofimpulses, restraints, tones’.162 Thus, as Mathews has observed, by bringing thesetwo terms together Williams is challenging those who might dismiss emotion asunmeasurable or extraneous his writing representing a struggle to grasp changesthat are of historical significance but also of private concern. 163 159 Williams, (1954), p. 22; Williams, (1961), pp. 64.160 Shiach, (1995), pp. 51-70 (p. 54); Kaplan, (1995), pp. 211-236 (p. 212).161 Williams, (1961), pp. 64.162 Williams, (1979), p. 159.163 Mathews (2001), pp. 179-194 (pp. 179-181).42 Williams himself while justifying the concept has also alluded to its difficulties. As hestates in Marxism and Literature: ‘The term is difficult, but ‘feeling’ is chosen toemphasize a distinction from more formal concepts of ‘world-view’ or ‘ideology’.164 Indeed, even in suggesting that ‘an alternative definition would be structures ofexperience: in one sense the better and wider word’, he says that this would itself notbe without its own ‘difficulty that one of its senses has that past tense which is themost important obstacle to recognition of the area of social experience which isbeing defined’.165 Ultimately, while Williams justifies its use as a way of looking atthe ‘actual conventions of literary or dramatic writing’ he also says he has ‘neverbeen happy’ with it and appears to acknowledge its lack of substance as atheoretical concept.166 As Simpson has argued, Williams ‘permits himself anuntroubled foundational rhetoric that either cannot be theoretically factored out, orcan be so factored only by adding in missing links and crucial limitations’.167 Significant inconsistencies in Williams’s concept were identified in interviews by theNew Left Review in Politics and Letters where it emerges as a key concept, but onewhich lacks a stable conceptual identity.168 Where Williams is variously critiqued forhis ‘blurring of the formal literary and general ideological‘, his ‘literaryexceptionalism‘, and ‘descriptive ambiguity’ of the phrase, while he accepts thesecriticisms, he still defends structures of feeling for its use pragmatically as ‘ananalytic procedure for actual written works’.169 164 Williams (1977), p. 132.165 Ibid.166 Williams (1981), p. 159.167 Simpson (1992), pp. 9-26 (p. 21).168 John Higgins, Raymond Williams: Literature, Marxism and Cultural Materialism (London: Routledge,1999), p. 37.169 Simpson (1992), pp. 9-26 (p. 20); Williams (1979), p. 159.43 While the notion of structure of feeling is not without its problems with some criticspronouncing it as ‘ambiguous […] slippery […] and shifting’, Peschel argues that ‘it isalso a rich and evocative concept, and retains considerable resonance in a numberof disciplines’.170 However, as Peschel goes on to say, ‘few […] engage with all itsaspects. Some, for example, have applied the term simply as a label for almost anysocially shared emotional experience. Others, more creatively, have selectedindividual elements from Williams’s description and then interpreted those elementsmore flexibly than he allows for’.171 This thesis, as I will argue, will itself adopt amore flexible interpretation of Williams’s concept.As Peschel observes, structure of feeling is increasingly being employed ‘not as aterm but as a methodology: as a way to isolate and identify certain characteristics ofthe affective experiences they are trying to analyze’.172 ‘This methodology’ she says,‘is creating richer descriptions of extremely varied emotional structures rather thanidentifying those that actually match Williams’s definition’ and is thus an ‘even moreproductive use of his work’.173 Peschel, has recognised that in a number of recentstudies, the employment of structure of feeling has become increasingly pastoriented focusing upon new and emergent structures which draw upon residualdiscourses rather than on Williams’s preference for the emergent or pre-emergent.174 Central to Williams’s concept of structures of feeling is the notion of the residual, thedominant, and the emergent which he addresses explicitly in Marxism and Literature.170 Lisa Peschel, ‘Structures of Feeling as Methodology and the Re-emergence of Holocaust SurvivorTestimony in 1960s Czechoslovakia’, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 26.2 (Spring 2012) 161-172 (p. 161).171 Ibid.172 Ibid.173 Ibid.174 Ibid.44 Culture is not static or coherent and there is constant interrelation betweenmovements and tendencies which Williams describes as ‘internal dynamic relationsof any actual process’.175 It is this concept of the residual, the dominant, and theemergent which forms the framework for the analyses in this thesis. However, whileit focuses on a period of social and cultural change it works to deconstruct thefeelings and experiences which are attached to residual discourses.This thesis then seeks to establish the voice and presence of a particular structure offeeling informed by residual discourses. While there is considerable evidence ofnew emergent discourses in the 1970s and 1980s, (frequently within the media)themselves constituting powerful structures of feeling around feminism, gay activism,and black consciousness, this thesis argues another discourse became evident butone which was oriented toward the past. Expressing anxieties around social andcultural changes and masculine transformation, this was an affective experiencelargely confined to heterosexual, white, working-class males. This was at once new,in that it was responding to challenges to normative, previously unchallengedpatriarchal systems, but residual in the way it drew upon older discourses to meetthose challenges. Thus, a structure of feeling can be traced which, while orientedtowards the past and founded upon residual discourses, was a response to changesand emergent discourses in the present which were oriented towards the future.In this way Williams’s methodological concept has facilitated my analysis of aparticular group of writers as they explore an area of social experience of individualsand groups which may be frequently discounted, overlooked, or dismissed together175 Williams (1977), p. 121.45 with the relationship between these experiences and the structures of the period.Structure of feeling is employed as a methodology to conduct a textual andcontextual study of the representations of masculinity of the period where textualanalysis facilitates purposeful dialogic exchange between television narratives andthe wider, prevailing discourses of masculinity.1.6 Thesis StructureThis thesis is structured into seven chapters. Following on from this Introduction,Chapter Two consists of a Literature Review of some of the most important literatureconcerned with the representations of masculinity on screen. It begins with the mostsignificant early literature on representations in American cinema which haveprovided a framework for later studies. It proceeds to examine more recent workundertaken on British cinema which covers a number of critical approaches beforereviewing the limited amount of work to date on masculinities in British television. Itconcludes with an overview of literature covering the context of broaderdevelopments in masculinity studies which developed concurrently with that inscreen studies.Chapter Three is divided into three sections. The first section will outline theprincipal methodological approach which underpins this thesis. It will develop someof the issues previously raised in this Introduction, looking at Raymond Williams’sstructures of feeling, the principal criticisms of it, and how it is applied in this thesis.This is intended to further validate its uses while acknowledging some of itslimitations. The second part of this chapter will introduce the key theoreticalperspectives which will be applied directly throughout the textual analysis as a46 method of understanding the reconfiguration of discourses of masculinity. It willoutline the approaches to gender and transformative change put forward by keytheorists, followed by a third section which will address questions about structureand agency.Chapters Four, Five, and Six consist of the analysis of case studies which aretargeted at exploring the shifting discursive constructions of masculinity and genderpolitics in Britain of the period, while accounting for the embeddedness of residualmasculinities particularly in the face of emergent discourses. Their principal aim is todeconstruct the work of writers who foregrounded a ‘structure of feeling’ thatemphasised anxieties about these changes while exploring the limits and constraintsupon effective transformation particularly within working-class cultures.While these case studies employ a chronological structure moving from theentrenched residual and dominant discourses of the mid to late seventies with thework of Peter McDougall, through the challenges to these from emergent discourses,to the increased plurality of the early to mid eighties with Clement and La Frenais’Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, each chapter examines a different reason for the limits ofdiscursive masculine transformation. Of course while these are not mutuallyexclusive the fictional narratives tend to treat them in relatively discrete isolation.Thus, while each chapter establishes its own unique focus it also develops theargument that masculine transformation was highly problematic by adding anotherlayer to this thesis.47 Anxieties around change and the problems around masculine transformation arepolysemic and can refer to the bleak pessimism of McDougall, the hegemonicresistance of Trevor Preston’s Fox, the ineffectual desperation of Alan Bleasdale’sBoys from the Black Stuff or the recursive uncertainties of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.Thus while the notions are variably modulated they are consistently employed todesignate the means by which televisual narratives of the period display men andmasculinity as both faltering yet deeply embedded.While the principal method of approaching the case studies will be through detailedtextual analysis of the programmes in the context of social and cultural change, I willalso draw upon other sources to assess their impact. To this end, each case studywill initially examine the critical reception of the relevant programme as evidence ofwider structures of feeling principally through press reviews and comments. Thismaterial functions as a barometer of both the popular and serious press and theirattitudes to the ways television represented particular issues at the time. As such,any critical response will frequently be inflected with a class bias and political bias ofits own, which are, at times, clearly written into its assessment. While academicdebates of the time about form, style, realism and so forth were rarely engaged withoutside of academia they were, to some limited degree, employed in more popularcriticism. This can be seen, for example, in the criticism from right wingcommentators of much docudrama for its formal tendencies as much as for itsfrequently left wing content.176 While some critics celebrated realism as a way intounderstanding ordinary experiences others viewed it as a pernicious mask for leftwing propaganda. Thus, the reviews will reveal criticism of both form and content176 Cooke (2003), pp. 100-101.48 from a number of different class and political perspectives. While this professionalcritical response is clearly something of a specialist view, I will also go on to assessthe impact and affect of the programmes on their wider constituent audiences.In the first of the case studies, Chapter Four will aim to consider how and why asense of working-class masculinity was so particularly entrenched within wider socialstructures that it largely escaped any possibilities of self reflexive transformation.The key objective is to interrogate specific structures to reveal the ways in whichthey establish and confine working-class masculine identity. Through anexamination of three social realist plays written by Peter McDougall, Just AnotherSaturday (UK, 1975), The Elephant’s Graveyard (UK, 1976) and Just a Boy’s Game(UK, 1979), I will argue that while the narratives are critical of residual and dominantdiscourses of masculinity and express some of the anxieties of their maleprotagonists, they are also profoundly pessimistic about the possibilities of anymeaningful engagement with emergent ones. Thus, while they articulate a profoundneed for change they reveal men who are largely unable or unwilling to effect thatchange, entrenched within a deeply conservative sense of residual working-classmasculine discourses. This is in accord with Connell’s argument that the‘unreflective dimensions of gender’ set the ‘limits of discursive flexibility’.177 The first part of this chapter will place the narratives within the context of broadermeanings of working-class culture and their effect upon working-class masculineidentity. Here I will argue that there is a particular link between class and masculinitywhich is especially explicit in working-class cultures. Throughout this section I will177 R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Genderand Society, 19.6 (December 2005) 829-859 (pp. 842-843).49 draw on a number of theoretical perspectives, including those of Connell andMesserschmidt, which emphasise the importance of social structures asconstraining. The second part will examine a number of more specific culturaltraditions and how they bolster a certain kind of working-class masculinity. Particularfocus will be on the place of violence and working-class masculinity which will belinked to identity, belongingness, and masculine performance. Here ‘symbols,myths, and ideologically informed practices lend gender representations a sense oforder, naturalness and timelessness’ creating structures which position subjectswithin specific confinements.178 Chapter Five will go on to examine the reactions of men when confronted withchanges which threaten to erode their patriarchal positions revealing deep anxietiesabout these changes. While the previous chapter considered the ways existingsocial structures worked to inhibit emergent discourses of gender, this chapter isprincipally concerned with identifying strategies employed to manage and resist newand emergent discourses. In examining Trevor Preston’s Fox (UK, 1980) and AlanBleasdale’s Boys for the Black Stuff (UK, 1982), two television drama series whichfocus on working-class communities experiencing social and cultural change but inmarkedly different ways, the key objective of the chapter is to demonstrate that whilecircumstances may differ between the narratives the principal aim of their maleprotagonists is to maintain or restore patriarchy. The chapter will examine how keymale characters negotiate change adopting two very different strategies, but whilethey may have different emphasis, they share a deeper structure of feeling aroundanxiety which is manifested in a number of ways.178 Stephen M. Whitehead and Frank Barrett, ‘The Sociology of Masculinity’, in The Masculinities Reader, ed.by Stephen M. Whitehead and Frank Barrett (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 12).50 While they articulate anxieties around changes within working-class culture ingeneral, exhibiting a sense of foreboding, I will argue that both writers dealparticularly uneasily with the emergent voice of working-class women. While muchcontemporaneous analysis of Boys for the Black Stuff tended to focus on the plightof its male protagonists and the consequences for their masculine identities whilelargely ignoring their female equivalents, this chapter will redress this imbalanceadopting a feminist analysis to parts of the narrative. As Laclau argues ‘theconstitution of a social identity is an act of power’ since ’if [...] objectivity manages topartially affirm itself it is only by repressing that which threatens it’ or is perceived tothreaten it, in this case, women. 179 This chapter will also argue that Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity is aparticularly apposite in its analysis of Fox where identities and configurations ofgender practices are allowed to remain virtually unaltered. Here hegemonicmasculinity is shown to adapt by absorbing some but rejecting most emergentdiscourses, particularly with regard to women. As patriarchal positions and existinggender relations are challenged, the chapter will also demonstrate how nostalgicfeeling is employed by both narratives as a key discourse in attempting to maintainor restore identities, relying on increasingly residual discourses of masculinity.In its exploration of the discursive limitations of gender construction andtransformation, Chapter Six aims to engage with the ways emergent and residualdiscourses in the 1980s were frequently experienced by men as a site of conflict.179 Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), p.32.51 While the previous chapter argues that working-class masculinities were particularlyresistant to social and structural changes in the early eighties, I will argue thatClement and La Frenais’ drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (UK, 1982; 1986)demonstrates a greater willingness to embrace new discourses but neverthelesshighlights the limitations for many men.In examining Auf Wiedersehen, Pet as a drama which exhibits a range of working-class masculine discourses, this chapter seeks to show the ways men are frequentlymoving back and forth in a recursive relationship between emergent and residualdiscourses of masculinity, revealing identity construction as a non-linear open endedprocess operating in a state of tension. As Whitehead has argued, while men’snotions of the masculine self may undergo shifts, there may also be minimal change,since men are frequently subject to ’the pressures and compulsions which limit thescope of […] (their) agency’ and ‘the costs of making certain discursive choices canbe extremely high’.180 The first part of the chapter will seek to establish the shifting discourses of working-class masculinity which were beginning to emerge in the 1980s, particularly inrelation to structural changes in the working-class. The chapter will then go on toexamine Whitehead’s theories around the perceived dichotomy between public andthe private spheres, and examine how homosociality, nostalgia, and myth making180 Whitehead and Barrett (2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 10); Thomas Okes, ‘Power Always Goes on and on: The Limitsof Masculinity in Marabou Stork Nightmares and Fight Club’, Academia.edu [accessed 2 February 2013] (p. 76); R. W. Connell andJames W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Gender and Society, 19.6(December 2005) 829-859 (pp. 842-843).52 operate as a way of dealing with problematic feelings, relationships and anxietiesaround change, which are articulated within the narrative of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.These three case study chapters serve to develop the argument that the practices,experiences and feelings of white, heterosexual working-class men reveal astructure of feeling which sits uneasily with some of the more confident assertions ofpost-structuralist theories of gender identity. In employing an analytical perspectiveto the televisual narratives and their representations of masculinity, these casestudies will explore how discourses of masculinity, anxiety, and change were bothconstructed and interpreted by television informed by the cultural, social, andeconomic contexts of the period.1.7 ConclusionThis thesis then is concerned with male masculine identity and what happens to it attimes of stress. While discourses emanating from the social order may suggest arelatively comfortable embrace of change, other discourses, particularly popularfictional representations, may assume normative, traditional masculinity ascontinuing and untroubled. Such androcentric representations will thus rendermasculinity all but invisible. As Middleton writes:Masculine bias in many existing concepts of subjectivity and power isan obstacle to gender reflection. Men have after all written plentyabout their subjectivity and power, but they have constantlyuniversalized it at the same time, and assumed that the rationality oftheir approach was the sum total of rationality. Universality andrationalism were built into these concepts to avoid disturbing self-examination by men. 181 181 Peter Middleton, The Inward Gaze: Masculinity and Subjectivity in Modern Culture (London: Routledge,1992), p. 3.53 It is this very self-examination which emerges from these texts as they ask thequestion what is the experience, the structure of feeling, which leads masculineidentity to be so indelibly linked to immutability and intransigence?By the end of this study then, this research will have provided some answers to keyquestions about how and why, even when there are manifest economic, social andcultural challenges to normative/traditional identities, as was the case in the ‘longeighties’, change is often slow to follow. Masculine identity, constrained bydiscourses, structures and institutions, those which men have frequently constructedthemselves to underpin masculine myths, makes them particularly resistant tochange as does their privileged position in gender power relations. The constructionof masculine identity is necessarily linked to wider structures of identity and powerwhich both influence that construction and provide institutional structures to facilitateit. Race, class, religion, work, leisure - all these spheres have been dominated bypatriarchy, with attendant institutional structures, constructed with a sense ofpermanence, not intended to be fluid, intricately woven, complexly and rulegoverned. But, as Lawler observes ‘it is perhaps when identities are seen to ‘fail’that we see most clearly the social values that dictate how an identity ought to be’.182 182 Steph Lawler, Identity: Sociological Perspectives (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), p. 144.54 2 Literature Review2.1 IntroductionUntil the late 1980s there was a paucity of research and theorising on men as men,rather than men as the norm, in mainstream academia. For example, in thediscipline of psychology Wetherell and Griffin have argued that traditional psychologyhas not been about men, but ‘about some sort of mutant person’.183 ‘The idea thatyou would actually look at [...] male self-presentations, male meanings, maleperspectives, was something absolutely absent’.184 However, in the past two decades studies of masculinities have proliferatedparticularly in the discipline of sociology. These have consisted of the criticalinterrogation of men, largely informed by feminism, intent on questioningassumptions about masculinity, making it visible, and in the process ‘demonstratingthat masculinities are historically constructed, mutable and contingent’.185 Studies ofmasculinities which have emerged over the last twenty years have been boththeoretically and methodologically diverse, emanating from a number of disciplines.Just as feminist theory has moved through first, second and more recently thirdwaves of critical enquiry so has the sociology of masculinity. It is an area that hasdrawn on many theories including Marxism, psychoanalysis, critical structuralism andpost-structuralism. Academics including R. W. Connell, Stephen Whitehead, DavidMorgan, Lynne Segal, Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill have made183 Christine Griffin and Margaret Wetherell, ‘Feminist Psychology and the Study of Men and Masculinity,Part 1: Assumptions and Perspectives’, Feminism and Psychology, 1.3 (1991), 361-391 (p. 385).184 Ibid., p. 387.185 Rachel Adams and David Savran, ‘Introduction’, in The Masculinity Studies Reader, ed. by Rachel Adamsand David Savran (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002), pp. 2-8 (p. 2).55 considerable and significant contributions to the area with a diversity ofapproaches.186 Others such as Simon Winlow, Tim Newburn, and Elizabeth Stankohave investigated specific aspects of masculine construction and performance.187 As with Gender Studies as an academic discipline in its widest sense, the bulk ofliterature which dealt with representations of gender in the media, including that oftelevision, has largely given priority to the representation of women, for exampleChristine Geraghty’s Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps andBritish Cinema in the Fifties: Gender, Genre and the New Look; Tania Modleski’sLoving with a Vengeance : Mass Produced Fantasies for Women; and NationalisingFemininity: Culture, Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War byChristine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson. These have all helped to formulate the basisfor the study of gender on screen. 188 Partly as a consequence of this very necessaryand valuable work which emerged from second wave feminism, representations ofmasculinity were largely overlooked. Nevertheless as part of an increasingly widermove to address questions around masculine identities there has, in recent years,been a number of academic works examining masculine representation on thescreen.186 nd R. W. Connell, Masculinities, 2 edn (Cambridge: Polity, 2005); Stephen M. Whitehead, Men andMasculinities: Key Themes and New Directions (Cambridge: Polity, 2002); Morgan, David, ‘Class andMasculinity’, in Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, ed. by Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn andRobert W. Connell (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 165-177; Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: ChangingMasculinities, Changing Men, 3rd imprint (London: Virago, 1990); Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac anGhaill, Men and Masculinities: Theory, Research and Social Practice (Buckingham: Open UniversityPress, 2003).187 Simon Winlow, Badfellas: Crime, Tradition and New Masculinities (Oxford: Berg, 2001); Elizabeth E.Stanko, ‘Challenging the Problem of Men’s Individual Violence’, in Just Boys Doing Business?; Men,Masculinities and Crime, ed. by Tim Newburn and Elizabeth A. Stanko (London: Routledge, 1994, repr.1996), pp. 32-45.188 Christine Geraghty, Women and Soap Opera: A Study of Prime Time Soaps, (Cambridge: Polity, 1991);Christine Geraghty, British Cinema in the Fifties: Gender, Genre and the ‘New Look‘, (London: Routledge,2000); Tania Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance : Mass Produced Fantasies for Women, (Hamden, Conn:Archon Books, 1982); Christine Gledhill and Gillian Swanson eds., Nationalising Femininity: Culture,Sexuality and British Cinema in the Second World War, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996);Sue Harper, Women in British Cinema: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, (London: Continuum, 2000).56 The aim of this chapter then is to explore how Film Studies and Television Studieshave dealt with masculinity. It will show that while there has been sustained andwide ranging analysis of American and in particular Hollywood cinema with regard torepresentations of masculinity, British Cinema, with a few, somewhat isolated,exceptions has only recently attracted critical attention. It will also reveal the paucityof critical research into masculinities in British television to date.The first section of this chapter will map out some of the most prominent literatureand assess its range and diversity. The second section will address researchspecifically into British Cinema. The third section will focus principally on literaturedealing with representations of masculinity in British Television including those of the1970s. The final section will place these within the wider context of sociologicalinvestigations into masculinity and gender identity which preceded or developedconcurrently with the studies of media representations.This chapter will thus demonstrate how studies of masculinities from a number ofcritical approaches in both film and television have developed, and how they haveinformed my own research. It will also argue that academic interrogation ofmasculinities on the British screen remains somewhat inchoate, especially in thearea of television, and that this thesis makes a significant contribution as the firstcritical interrogation of representations of men and masculinity in British television ofthe 1970s and 1980s.57 2.2 Masculinity and Film: American CinemaThe study of screen masculinities developed as something of an ‘afterthought’ tofeminist scholarship and ‘was never constituted as a discipline in the same way asfeminist film analysis’.189 Powrie, Babbington and Davies argue that the principalreasons for this were firstly that Film Studies had been focused on a ‘few key issuesin spectatorship theory’ in the 1970s and 1980s; secondly, they suggest, by focusingon representations of deviance which challenged accepted norms, Gay and QueerStudies in the 1990s avoided any investigation of ‘heterosexual masculinestructures’.190 Nonetheless, in the 1980s there was some significant literature which did engagewith representations of masculinity in the cinema. The first of these was Pam Cook’sScreen article ‘Masculinity in Crisis?’. In her analysis of Scorsese’s Raging Bull (US,1980: Martin Scorsese) Cook suggests that the violence the film depicted as aconsequence of the disempowerment of its principal male protagonist, whilepresented as problematic, is simultaneously celebrated within the narrative. Whilethe film critiques violence as destructive and self-destructive, it is also validated, asthe audience is invited to mourn the loss of masculinity as it is placed within a stateof crisis.191 While the narrative characterises the ‘explicit representation of violenceas a masculine social disease’ it is nonetheless ‘ambiguous’ in that it does not offer a‘radical critique of masculinity’ presenting violence as one of its ’essentialcomponents’.192 By combining ‘moralism’ and ‘nostalgia’, Cook argues, whatever the189 Phil Powrie, Ann Davies and Bruce Babbington, ‘Introduction: Turning the Male Inside Out’, in TheTrouble With Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema, ed. by Phil Powrie, Ann Davies andBruce Babbington (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), pp. 1-17 (p. 1).190 Ibid., p. 2.191 Pam Cook, ‘Masculinity in Crisis?’, Screen, 23.3-4 (1982), 39-46 (p. 39).192 Cook (1982), 39-46 (p. 39).58 positive value placed on change’ any such change also ’involves loss’.193 Thisnotion of male disempowerment and violence and how the latter is simultaneouslycritiqued and celebrated by particular narratives is something which I will explore inthe case studies which are to follow.Steve Neale’s article for Screen the following year ‘Masculinity as Spectacle:Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema’, was intended to open up thediscussion of representations of masculinities on screen as well as in a widercontext.194 He argues that Laura Mulvey’s melding of psychoanalytic perspectiveson the cinema and feminist approaches to the representation of women, whileimportant in exposing the normative assumptions of patriarchy, was followed by workwhich either focused solely on the representation of women or on stereotypes of gaymen. 195 Thus, he argues, ’images and functions of heterosexual masculinity’ havebeen largely ignored, and while it ‘has been identified as a structuring norm’ inrelation to women and gay men, it is rarely discussed as such.196 What Neale attempts to do is problematise the notion of the male spectator’sidentification with the active male subject together with the passive female being thesole object of the ‘male gaze’. Neale argues that even if identification is channeledand regulated in terms of gender it nonetheless should be seen as ‘multiple’ and‘fluid’, shifting across ‘positions and roles’.197 Thus, the process of identification is farmore complex than had been previously understood, with both men and women193 Ibid., p. 46.194 Steve Neale, ‘Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema’, Screen, 24.3-4(1983), 2-16 (p. 16).195 Ibid., p. 2.196 Ibid.197 Ibid., p. 4.59 constantly transgressing these positions, identifying with and objectifying both maleand female characters.Neale argues that objectification in Hollywood cinema applies to men as well aswomen. Thus, the spectacle of male bodies in Italian westerns and the epic film canfunction as the object of both voyeurism and fetishism for its male audience. Hegoes on to say that the male can also operate as the object of the erotic female lookciting the cinematic treatment of particular male stars and genre specific examplesincluding the musical.198 However, Film Studies continues in its ‘refusal toacknowledge or make explicit an eroticism in relation to the male image’ bydifferentiating between the ‘cinematic representations of images of men andwomen’.199 Even if the spectator is implicitly male, which he acknowledges thatwithin mainstream cinema it usually is, this does not deny the possibility of ‘eroticelements involved in the relation between the spectator and the male image’ sinceany suggestions of homosexuality are constantly repressed and disavowed withinmainstream cinema.200 Neale concludes that within Film Studies the interrogation ofgender representation has meant that women have come to be seen as ‘a problem,a source of anxiety, of obsessive enquiry; men are not’. This, he says, works on theassumption that ‘masculinity is known […] femininity is a mystery’.201 While these two early works, together with those from Richard Dyer and PaulWillemen, constituted important interventions in the study of masculinities, they couldbe considered something of a ‘false start’ since it was not until the 1990s that there198 Neale (1983), 2-16 (p. 14).199 Ibid, pp. 14-15.200 Ibid., p. 15.201 Ibid., pp. 15-1660 was any sustained analysis.202 Powrie, Babbington, and Davies have argued thatthere were two principal reasons for this. Firstly the resurgence of what wereconsidered masculine genres and the accompanying academic interest in them;secondly, the shift towards issues of performance influenced by Judith Butler’s workwhich ‘clearly was an issue for men, as well as for women’.203 A third reason wasthat academic study of masculinities was emerging in a number of disciplines,particularly in the area of sociology.Brian Baker has recognised the early 1990s as the ‘origin point for the study ofscreen masculinities’.204 The considerable body of work which has since emergedengages with discourses of masculinity in American cinema, is informed bymasculinity studies and feminist film theory, and crosses both historical and genericboundaries. Some of this work has taken a specifically generic approach tomasculine representation. It includes Mike Chopra-Gant’s and Frank Krutnik’sdifferent explorations of film noir, Melvin Donaldson with the interracial buddy filmsand masculine crisis, Roderick McGillis and the B western and Robert Eberwein onAmerican war films.205 Two volumes, Jeffords’ Hard Bodies and Yvonne Tasker’sSpectacular Bodies, have also dealt with the rise of action movies in the period andtheir significance to the performance of masculinity.206 202 Richard Dyer, ‘Don’t Look Now: The Male Pin-up’, Screen, 23.3-4 (1982), 61-73; Paul Willemen,‘Anthony Mann: Looking at the Male‘, Framework, 15-17 (Summer 1981), 16-20; (2004), pp. 1-17 (p. 2).203 Powrie (2004), pp. 1-17 (p. 3).204 Brian Baker. Masculinity in Fiction & Film: Representing Men in Popular Genres 1945-2000, (London:Continuum, 2006), p. vii.205 Mike Chopra-Grant, Hollywood Genres and Postwar America, (London: I. B. Taurus, 2005); FrankKrutnik, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity, (London and New York: Routledge, 1991);Melvin Donaldson, Masculinity in the Interracial Buddy Film, (Jefferson: McFarland, 2005); RoderickMcGillis, He was Some Kind of Man, (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier UP, 2009); Robert Eberwein, TheHollywood War Film, (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).206 Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era, (New Brunswick: RutgersUniversity Press, 1993); Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema,(London and New York: Routledge, 1993).61 There have also been a number of collections including Male Trouble edited byConstance Penley and Sharon Willis.207 The most significant early contribution,however, is Steven Cohan’s and Ira Rae Hark’s collection, Screening the Male whichexamines the notion of masculine subjectivity as central to Hollywood. In theirintroduction they outline what they hoped to achieve stating, ‘instead of theunperturbed monolithic masculinity produced by a de-contextualised psychoanalysis,this volume portrays filmed men and male film characters overtly performing theirgender, in neurotic (and even psychotic) relationships to it, or seeking alternatives tomasculinity as their culture defines it’.208 In critiquing feminist work of the 1970s theysuggest that screen representations of men are no less a spectacle than those ofwomen. ‘In concentrating on the female body as the primary stake of cinematicrepresentation’ they say, Film Studies has ‘ignored the problem of masculinity’.209 While they stress the importance of work on both female spectatorship and womenwithin the diegesis in American films, by ignoring the spectacle of masculinerepresentation, Film Studies may actually work to preserve the notion of masculinitynot being a social construction.210 Thus, they include essays which explore issues of‘spectacle, masochism, passivity, masquerade […] (and) the body’ which film theoryhad linked to femininity but not masculinity.211 The notion of spectacle together withperformance is made explicit in the essays included in their anthology which isdivided into four sections. The first, ‘Star Turns’ stresses the overt performances ofactors, in particular dancers. The second section ‘Men in Women’s Places’ includes207 Constance Penley and Sharon Willis,(eds) (1993). Male Trouble: A Camera Obscura Book (Mineapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1993).208 Steve Cohan and Ira Rae Hark, ‘Introduction’, in Screening the Male : Exploring Masculinities inHollywood Cinema, ed. by Steve Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), pp.1-22 (p. 3).209 Ibid., p. 2.210 Ibid.211 Ibid.62 essays which examine narratives which place men in positions which had largelybeen occupied by women, for example performing the role of victim. The thirdsection, concerned with homosociality, is entitled ‘Man to Man’. The final section‘Muscular Masculinities’ comprises of essays which foreground the role of the malebody in action movies.Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim’s two volumes of the same period also assume theexistence of plural masculinities and focus on masculinity as spectacle. While thefirst of these volumes You Tarzan only included contributions from male academicsthe ensuing volume Me Jane consisted entirely of essays from female contributors.While this may have invited criticism that they were reinforcing a binary model ofgender, their rationale was that social experience may lead to readings beinginflected in different ways. In explaining their first volume they stated that ‘it isimportant for men themselves to write about the construction and representation ofthe masculine in relation to their experience’.212 While the chapters in both volumes come from a variety of theoretical perspectivesand include European, Asian and American cinema, many are informed by genretheory and star studies. Kirkham and Thumim’s argument that gender differencemay lead to readings being inflected in different ways is borne out by the malewriters being principally concerned with signs and performance of masculinity,focusing particularly on issues around the body and action and how these aresocially played out.213 The female writers, however, concerned themselves more212 Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim, ‘You Tarzan’, in You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies and Men, ed. by PatKirkham and Janet Thumim, (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1993), pp. 11- 30 (p. 11).213 Pat Kirkham and Janet Thumim. ‘Me Jane’, in Me Jane: Masculinity, Movies and Women, ed. by PatKirkham and Janet Thumim, (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1995), pp. 11-35 (p. 12).63 with sociology and gender politics, particularly through feminist critique of the wayfilms work in the reproduction of patriarchal power.214 They also looked at thefragility of masculinity, particularly with regard to the body, something which the malewriters, the editors suggest, may have felt threatened by. There was also adifference in genre focus with the second volume having a bias towards ‘thrillers,westerns and melodramas’ and the male writers working with ‘action and thespectacular display of the male body, and the epic, war, horror and science fictiongenres’.215 Ultimately, through their diverse and wide ranging approaches, both Cohan andHark’s, and Kirkham and Thumim’s volumes feature essays which serve toproblematise gender and representations of masculinity rather than seeking any formof theoretical closure. They offer feminist critiques of American cinema by exposingthe ways patriarchal hegemonic masculinity is maintained through itsrepresentations. In the process they reveal masculinity as a social constructionrather than the natural entity presented by much of American culture, together withthe existence of multiple masculinities and their attendant instability.While Cohan and Hark, and Kirkham and Thumim presented the most importantcontributions to the study of screen masculinities in the 1990s, since the millenniumthe work of Phil Powrie, Bruce Babington and Anne Davies has made the mostsignificant contribution to the area. In their book on masculinities in European andHollywood cinema The Trouble with Men they attempt to assess the state ofscholarship on the representations of masculinity, concluding from the diverse214 Kirkham and Thumim (1995), pp. 11-35 (p. 18).215 Ibid., p. 12.64 collection of essays included in their anthology ‘that there are two poles ofspectacular masculinity, ’damaged man’ and ‘man feminised by spectacle anddisplay’.216 Drawing on a number of theoretical perspectives they argue that theimage of the damaged man has been seen as ‘a smokescreen’ for the realignmentwithin patriarchal power structures.217 Indeed, they argue, images of man feminisedthrough suffering might be seen as ‘complacent male hysteria’ allowing masculinityto consolidate its power. 218 However, they also acknowledge Kirkham’s argumentthat ‘the ideal man is one who is partly de-masculinised in order to be partlyfeminised; who is deconstructed to be reconstructed. Wounding makes men moreaccessible to women’s imagination’.219 This echoes Gledhill’s suggestion thatrepresentations of men who exhibit wounded vulnerability may offer for women ‘thegratifying spectacle of masculinity crossing the gender divide’.220 However, asKirkham and Thumim have said ‘the masculine crossing of the gender divide is anadventure largely conducted in the interests of the male subject’.221 Nonetheless,Powrie, Babington and Davies maintain that the ’redemptive function ascribed to thedamaged male on screen […] (may) operate as much for male as for femalespectators’.222 Thus, they argue, damage ‘has a positively destabilising function’ andshould be seen as reconstructive.223 These reviews of the most significant critical analyses into representations ofmasculinity in American cinema serve to illustrate how they have contributed to the216 Powrie (2004), pp. 1-17 (p. 12).217 Ibid., p. 13.218 Ibid., p. 12.219 Pat Kirkham, ‘Loving Men: Frank Borzage, Charles Farrell and the Reconstruction of Masculinity, in MeJane: Masculinity, Movies and Women (see Kirkham and Thumim above), pp. 94-112 (p. 107).220 Christine Gledhill, ‘Women Reading Men’, in Me Jane: Masculinity, Movies and Women (see Kirkham andThumim above), pp. 73-93 (p. 87).221 Kirkham and Thumim, (1995), pp. 11-35 (p. 31).222 Powrie (2004), pp. 1-17 (p. 13).223 Ibid., p. 14.65 considerable body of work which has emerged in the last twenty years. This workhas engaged with a variety of theoretical approaches, has been informed byfeminism and its corollary masculinity studies which emerged and developed over asimilar time frame, crosses both historical and generic boundaries and has ultimatelyprovided the framework for the study of screen masculinities.2.3 Masculinity and Film: British CinemaWhile sustained critical attention on representations of masculinity in Americancinema has been extensive, with regard to British cinema it has been much morefractured. Discussions about masculinity within British cinema studies have tendedto focus on some eras and genres to a far greater degree than others. SteveChibnall’s collection British Crime Cinema, for example, while setting itself up ascomprehensive analysis of a previously neglected genre also features two chapterswhich deal specifically with representations of masculinity. Andrew Clay’s noiressay, Men, Women and Money: Masculinity in Crisis in the British ProfessionalCrime Film 1946-1965 argues that the portrayal of professional criminals operates asan expression of ‘men’s contradictory experience(s) of power’ as ordinary men withlittle power are seduced into crime, but inevitably pay a heavy price.224 ClaireMonk’s chapter argues that in contrast to many anachronistic British gangster filmsof the period which were profoundly masculinist, a number of crime films emerged inthe 1990s which challenged the ‘tough macho ethos’ of the genre. 225 However, while224 Andrew Clay, ‘Men, Women and Money: Masculinity in Crisis in the British Professional Crime Film1946-1965’, in British Crime Cinema, ed. by Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy, (London and New York:Routledge, 1999), (pp. 51-65) (p. 51).225 Claire Monk, ‘From Underworld to Underclass: Crime and British Cinema in the 1990s’, in British CrimeCinema (see Clay above), pp. 172-188; Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy, ‘Parole Overdue’, in BritishCrime Cinema (see Clay above) pp. 1-15 (p. 14).66 a number of other chapters, as one might expect from studies on crime cinema,touch on issues around masculinity, these are rarely dealt with explicitly and remainrather peripheral.Andy Medhust has made a significant contribution to the analysis of masculinity inBritish films, television, and popular culture combining historical scholarship withqueer and gay readings of a number of texts. Although these are of less relevanceto this thesis, they are worthy of note since they provide evidence of the diversity ofengagements with the subject area.In ‘Masculinity and Forbidden Desire in The Spanish Gardener’, Medhurst posits aqueer reading of The Spanish Gardener (UK, 1956: Philip Leacock).226 Medhurstargues that this is a film entirely about male relationships and masculinity. It is abouthow look, gesture, and nuance are sufficient to convey these very things.Generically, it may be a melodrama but its subject as well as its theme is therelationship between the three male characters. The rest of the narrative is merelyperfunctory providing events to examine these relationships. Medhurst argues, thatwhile many British films of the 1940s and 1950s were about masculinity andEnglishness, what makes The Spanish Gardener stand apart is its degree ofinterrogation.In his star study of Dirk Bogarde, Medhurst explores similar ground, arguing thatmany of the actor’s films exhibit ‘distant hints of homosexuality’.227 Thus, while a filmlike The Blue Lamp (UK, 1950: Basil Dearden) may be a ‘troubled examination of226 Andy Medhurst, ‘It’s as a Man That You’ve Failed’: Masculinity and Forbidden Desire in The SpanishGardener’, in You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies and Men (see Kirkham and Thumim above) pp. 95-105.227 Andy Medhurst, ‘Dirk Bogarde’, in All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema, ed. by Charles Barr,(London: BFI, 1986), pp. 346-354 (p. 349).67 post-war youth’ it also operates as a test of ‘masculine parameters’.228 Whatunderscores Bogarde’s performances, argues Medhurst, is a degree of ‘sexualambiguity’ operating ‘beneath repressive ideologies’.229 Medhurst does not confine himself to Film Studies and he has examined a number ofareas including television and music hall performance exploring the tradition ofeffeminacy in English comedy and issues around gender in the male double act.230 What much of his work shares, however, is a concern for the construction of nationalidentity and potentially subversive rereadings of popular culture of the past.While Chibnall’s anthology and Medhurst’s specific historical studies are evidence ofnot only the diversity but also the fractured nature of the study of masculinity, Powrie,Davies and Babbington’s diverse collection of essays mentioned above, offers moresustained yet wide ranging approaches. While it covers an astonishing range offilms and issues around the cinematic representations of masculinity there are threechapters on British Cinema which share some common ground through their focuson working-class masculinities.Robert Shail’s chapter is a star study of Michael Caine in the 1960s. He takes aButlerian approach, stressing the instability and fluidity of masculinity of the period asa result of wider historical processes.231 He goes on to discuss the emergence of anew, particularly southern, masculinity, one which was both metropolitan and228 Medhurst (1986), pp. 346-354 (p. 347; 349).229 Ibid., p. 350; 354.230 Andy Medhurst, A National Joke: Popular Culture and English National Identities, (Abingdon: Routledge,2007).231 Robert Shail, ‘Masculinity and Class: Michael Caine as ‘Working-class Hero’, in The Trouble With Men:Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema (see Powrie, Davies and Babbington above), pp. 66-76(p. 66).68 working-class, which he traces through Caine’s films. Ultimately, while herecognises an ‘emancipation’ for working-class masculinity at the start of the decade,by its end, he says, these films indicate a ‘hardening’ of ‘proletarian’ masculinity.232 John Hill’s essay focuses on working-class masculinity and its relationship tosocialism. He argues that through an analysis of three films portraying minersbetween the 1930s and the 1990s, that there has been the ‘decline of Socialist Man’,as these films gradually move towards ‘questioning the norms of male heterosexualmasculinity’ which have ‘underpinned working-class political activism’.233 Hisanalysis culminates with Billy Elliot (UK, 2000: Stephen Daldry) which ‘articulatesthemes of class and gender’ as it ‘mobilises its anti-macho statements’.234 Inconclusion, however, he critiques the film on a number of levels, including its‘simplified confrontation between class and gender politics’, its critique of masculinityas ‘mobilised against the miners’, and its inability to depart too radically from theideologies of masculinity which it questions.235 John Leggott’s essay is concerned with a number of films at the turn of themillennium which concentrate of paternal obligations.236 He argues that these filmsexhibit an ‘obsession with ‘failing or absent father figures and the threats posed tohomosocial territories’.237 He recognises two strands of film, one which is presentedfrom the adult male point of view, the other which ‘deploys young boys as central232 Shail (2004), pp. 66-76 (p. 75).233 John Hill, ‘A Working-class Hero is Something to be? Changing Representations of Class and Masculinityin British Cinema’, in The Trouble With Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema (seePowrie, Davies and Babbington above), pp. 100-109 (p. 108).234 Ibid., p. 100.235 Ibid., p. 108; 105.236 James Leggott, ‘Like Father?: Failing Parents and Angelic Children in Contemporary British Social RealistCinema’, in The Trouble With Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema (see Powrie, Daviesand Babbington above), pp. 163-173 (p. 163).237 Ibid.69 characters’.238 He goes on to argue that while the adult male seeks to ‘restorehomosocial brotherhood’ and reclaim contested patriarchal territory the boys attemptto ‘reanimate homosocial space’ in a different reimagining of masculinity, thusoffering up narratives which could be considered to be more progressive.239 While the majority of literature has been diverse, somewhat fractured and focused onparticular genres or eras, Andrew Spicer in Typical Men has provided the mostcomprehensive and sustained account to date of representations of white andheterosexual masculinity in British cinema. While he covers a broad chronology, hisfocus tends to be on the 1940s and 1950s with some attention to the 1960s before,rather curiously, adding a chapter on ‘contemporary types’ of masculinity, drawing onfilms from the 1990s.240 While his research is exhaustive he acknowledges hisreluctance to develop his analysis through the seventies suggesting that in Britaincinema had become ‘undeniably supplanted by television’ which took its place ‘asthe central form of popular entertainment’.241 As such, this thesis takes up thismantle to make an important intervention into representations of the 1970s and1980s which Spicer largely ignores.Beyond chronology, Spicer adopts as his organising principal a taxonomy of malecultural types and how these are established, reinforced, and modified in keyparadigm films. These types, he argues, are dynamic and competing, frequentlyevolving within specific genres. 242 In focusing on ‘dominant popular types’ Spicer238 Leggott (2004), pp. 163-173 (p. 163).239 Ibid., p. 170.240 Andrew Spicer, Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema (London: I. B.Taurus, 2001), pp. 184-200.241 Ibid., p. 4.242 Ibid., p. 2.70 largely ignores ‘circumscribed or marginalized types’.243 However, through his‘cartography of varying masculinities’ and their continuities and changes, his workranges across all classes, including working-class masculinities.244 It takes inrepresentations of spivs, delinquents and gangsters but also the working-classeveryman, and the angry young man of social realism, which prefigures and leadsinto my own work. Spicer is also interested in ‘British culture’s marked preoccupationwith the bonds between men’ something which is central to my own work.245 Spicer’s work then is useful in charting the changing representations of masculinityallowing for a largely historical rather than particularly analytical look at thedevelopment of those representations. This thesis, however, by concentrating on aspecific historical period allows for greater depth in its analysis. Additionally, whileSpicer acknowledges that his work allows ‘us to understand gender in Foucauldianterms’ his engagement with theoretical perspectives does not go beyond this.246 Thus, since my own work is informed much more by gender theory it provides acritique of masculinity, gender discourses, and gender relations as they aremanifested within the context of television, something which Spicer does not do forcinematic representation.Furthermore, Spicer’s cultural types appear relatively discrete, each type embodyinga particular manifestation of masculinity, rather than the performances of multipleand conflicting masculinities which may reside within any one character which Iaddress in my own analyses.243 Spicer (2001), p. 5.244 Ibid.245 Ibid.246 Ibid.71 E. Anna Claydon takes a rather different approach from Spicer with a much tighterfocus on four apparently unconnected films from one decade. Employing Kristeva’sconcept of ‘abjection’ and Brittan’s notion of ‘masculinism’ as theoretical approaches,her aim is to investigate the ‘culturally specific iconographies of masculinity’ in Britishcinema.247 She argues that the 1960s witnessed a questioning of gender norms byother ‘decentred’ masculinities which rejected ‘masculinism’. A number of films, shesuggests, demonstrated uncertainty around masculinity, highlighting its problems.These films ‘question the ideological apparatus of ‘’the establishment’’ and offervarious modes of cultural rebellion that result in the rejection of the male protagonistfrom society’.248 Thus, Claydon’s work offers up a far more critical and theoreticalanalysis of British masculinities than Spicer’s much broader historical overview.A particularly significant strand of studies into masculinity has focused on a numberof British films from the 1990s, informed by social realism, which were perceived tosuggest a crisis in working-class masculinity. This was seen to be predicated uponunemployment and feminism; transgressive and transformative masculinity; violentmasculinity; and dysfunctional masculinity. Each of these engendered severalacademic studies which either concurred with the prevailing notion of crisis at thetime, or critiqued it. For example, Bromley’s questioning of the unreflectiveassumptions about masculinity in traditional working-class communities implicitlyaddressed in The Full Monty (UK, 1997; Peter Cattaneo); Glen Creeber’s analysis ofNil By Mouth (UK, 1997; Gary Oldman) suggesting that while the narrative initiallyprivileges the intense masculine world it depicts, in accord with much traditional247 Elizabeth Anna Claydon, The Representation of Masculinity in British Cinema in the 1960s: Lawrence ofArabia, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, and The Hill (New York, NY: Edwin Mellen Press,2005), p. 41.248 Ibid., p. 5.72 social realism, it ultimately foregrounds the female voice, reflecting a positive butnonetheless painful repositioning; Mark Schrieber’s reading of Brassed Off (UK,1996; Mark Herman) and Billy Elliot seeing them ‘as triggers for a cultural healingprocess (for men) of the trauma of social and cultural destabilisation caused byeconomic decline and a gradual realisation of what one might call ‘post-industrialmasculinity’; Claire Monk’s argument that there was a cycle of post-industrialunderclass films which either functioned as a process of loss, mourning andrestoration (again for men), evident in Brassed Off and The Full Monty or, as withTrainspotting (UK, 1996; Danny Boyle), reject the notion of problem and solutionsentirely; and E. Anna Claydon’s trenchant dismissal of perceived crisis, which manyof these films represent, as a form of hysteria, an acting out of discontent on the partof the masculinist as a consequence of the condition of British male social identity.249 Monk has also made a case for British films of the period reflecting both ‘hard times’for male protagonists and ‘interesting times’ for the ‘emergence of men andmasculinity as key themes’ and the ‘diversity of representations’.250 She argues thata ‘range of contradictory tensions’ may have led to the ‘masculinism and misogyny’evident in some films, while in others there was a celebration of gender confusion249 Roger Bromley, ‘The Theme that Dare not Speak its Name’, in Cultural Studies and the Working-class:Subject to Change, ed. by Sally Munt (London: Cassell, 2000), pp. 51-68; Glen Creeber, ‘Can’t HelpLovin’ Dat Man: Social Class and the Female Voice in Nil by Mouth’, in Cultural Studies and the Working-class: Subject to Change (see Bromley above), pp. 193-205; Mark Schreiber, ‘Renegotiating Concepts ofMasculinity in Contemporary British Film’, Gender Forum: The Internet Journal for Gender Studies, 17.1 [accessed I March 2011]; Claire Monk, ‘Underbelly UK: The 1990sUnderclass Film, Masculinity and the Ideologies of “New” Britain’ in British Cinema, Past and Present, ed.by Justine Ashby and Andrew Higson (London & New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 274-287; E. AnnaClaydon, ‘New Perspectives on British Cinema: Going Beyond the ‘Crisis’ in Masculinity’ , A ConferencePaper Presented in Newcastle (25 May 2007), University of Leicester Research Archive [accessed 3 March 2011].250 Claire Monk, ‘Men in the 90s’, in British Cinema in the 90s, ed. by Robert Murphy (London: BFI, 2000),pp. 156-166 (p. 156).73 and ambiguity.251 She goes on to trace, across a wide range of films, both‘emotional inarticulacy’, male rage, ‘dysfunction’ and ‘desperation’, and the‘mourning’ of a perceived loss of gender certainties as well as ’more fluid andprovocative images’ which celebrate the ‘changeability […] of gender and sexualrelations’.252 Thus, while the majority of literature dealing with representations of masculinityarising from social and economic changes in the 1990s seeks to question discoursesof crisis, interrogating narratives which either retreat even further into misogyny anddysfunction or those which mourn the residual masculinities of the past, Monkargues that there were far more positive and hopeful discourses at work.There are clearly parallels between the film representations of masculinity in the1990s and those of the 1970s and 1980s. In both periods, as dominant discourseswere challenged, representations emerged which expressed either male anxieties orembraced and encouraged new gender discourses. Of the recently published bookswhich have explored British culture in the 1970s, both Justin Smith and E. AnnaClaydon in Paul Newland’s collection Don’t Look Now have addressed this issuemost explicitly.Claydon makes a case for ’aberrant’ masculinities, those that do not ’fit in’, movingfrom a state of abjection in the 1960s, which she had previously addressed, to a251 Monk (2000), pp. 156-166 (p. 158).252 Ibid., p. 158; 156.74 state of dejection in an era of social fragmentation.253 Claydon argues that the waymen were represented in the 1970s was not simply as the ‘evolution of the 1960s’but existed in a ‘broader cultural framework’ which she identifies as includingmemories of National Service, the demise of Empire and greater visibility of thosewho had been previously ‘othered’.254 Crucially, however, she says that while ‘adialogue of identity’ emerged there was ‘little acceptance of changing practices’.255 As older men struggled with their increasingly residual constructions of masculinity,what had been considered as aberrant emerged questioning patriarchy andmasculinist power regimes, not least in the form of the rock star. However, whilewhat was normal became debatable this existed in tension with aberrantmasculinities which moved into a ‘state of limbo’.256 She goes on to examine thisnotion of aberrant dejection as it is represented in a number of key British films.Smith’s essay takes three ‘cult’ films from the period which, he says, represent‘particular crises in British masculinity’.257 Each of the films feature performances ofmasculine ambiguity, with their male protagonists displaying qualities of ‘emotionalvulnerability and physical dependency’.258 He goes on to argue that here there is a‘displacement for the audience’s own sexual anxieties’, where the dominant sexualdivisions of the phallic order do not, temporarily, exist.259 Thus, the films provide253 Elizabeth Anna Claydon, ‘Masculinity and Deviance in British Cinema of the 1970s: Sex, Drugs and Rock‘n’ ‘Roll in The Wicker Man, Tommy and The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, in Don’t Look Now: BritishTelevision in the 1970s, ed. by Paul Newland (Bristol: Intellect, 2011), pp. 131-142 (p. 133).254 Claydon (2011), pp. 131-142 (p. 134).255 Ibid., p. 136.256 Ibid.257 Justin Smith, ‘The ‘’Lack’’ and How to Get It’: Reading Male Anxiety in A Clockwork Orange, Tommy andThe Man Who Fell to Earth’, in Don’t Look Now: British Television in the 1970s (see Claydon above), pp.143-160 (p. 147).258 Ibid., p. 154.259 Ibid., p. 155.75 alternative subject positions furnishing the audience with ‘reassuring symbols ofidentification’.260 In Sian Barber’s book The British Film Industry of the 1970s: Capital, Culture andCreativity, the author features two chapters which deal explicitly with masculinity inBritish films. The first, Stardust (UK, 1974: Michael Apted) she argues, shows the‘uncertain male’ of the fragmenting 1970s, experiencing ‘the difficult transition fromfixed certainties and exciting possibilities of the 1960s’ leaving them in a state of‘awkward unease’.261 This manifests itself in Stardust with the lead characterdisplaying both qualities of ‘softness’ and ‘vulnerability’ together with ‘androgyny andfemininity’.262 However, as class and gender relations shift he also experiences‘guilt’ and ‘anxiety’ and highlights dress and costume as a key signifiers of both shiftsand anxieties.Barber also considers the film version of Scum (UK, 1979: Alan Clarke) wheremasculinity is ‘presented as reactive, violently aggressive, and unequivocal’.263 Shesuggests that the ‘reaffirmation of patriarchy’ at the end of the film, could be linked to‘the turbulent social period’ which saw a number of traditional masculine socialstructures experiencing collapse.264 While masculine power regimes may bechallenged at times within the narrative, she argues that, through a complex set ofhierarchies the film shows ‘the rules of patriarchy (as) clear and immovable’.260 Ibid., p. 154.261 Sian Barber, The British Film Industry in the 1970s: Capital, Culture and Creativity (Basingstoke: PalgraveMacMillan, 2013), p, 130.262 Ibid., p. 132.263 Ibid., p. 153.264 Ibid.76 Attention to critical issues around representations of masculinity is also evident inSue Harper and Justin Smith’s anthology British Film Culture in the 1970s: TheBoundaries of Pleasure. The authors argue that many films of the 1970s ‘look backin longing’ to when gender certainties seemed more fixed while simultaneouslyanticipating future shifts with both ‘terror and desire’.265 What many shared was theconcern with ‘what men are […] how they should behave’ in the face of ‘the gradualtransmission of power’.266 While some were preoccupied with ‘codes of masculinity’others were dealing with ‘transformations in masculinity’.267 Films like The Man whoFell to Earth (UK, 1976: Nic Roeg) foregrounded the ‘instability of masculinity’ whileothers dealt with ‘troubled masculinity’.268 As is evident from the critical analysis of representations of masculinity in Britishcinema, the literature covers wide ranging ground, is extremely diverse, and isfrequently driven by a concern for particular genres and stars. Some work isoverwhelmingly historical and relatively uncritical in its approach, as with AndrewSpicer, while other writers, such as Claydon employ more rigorous theoreticalapproaches which constitute the foundation of their critical analysis. However, withthe surge of interest in the1990s together with more recent work addressing the1970s, a theme has begun to emerge which suggests degrees of tension betweenemergent and residual discourses of masculinity in decades of social, cultural andeconomic change. Thus, while a number of writers have recognised that bothperiods produced films which were either conservative or presented negative265 Sue Harper and Justin Smith, ‘Boundaries and Taboos‘, in British Film Culture in the 1970s: TheBoundaries of Pleasure, ed. By Sue Harper and Justin Smith, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,2012), pp. 138-154 (p. 148).266 Ibid.267 Ibid.268 Sue Harper and Justin Smith, ‘Key Players‘, in British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries ofPleasure (see Harper and Smith above), pp. 115-137 (p. 133; 131).77 responses to change by their male protagonists other films offered far morealternative or progressive representations.2.4 Masculinity and TelevisionWhile there has been then considerable research in the last two decades intomasculinity and film, work on television has been rather more limited. TelevisionStudies, particularly in Britain, has tended to focus on issues around institution andaudience or provide broad historical overviews of developments and analysis ofparticular decades.269 Where there has been significant critical attention into genderthis has almost exclusively focused on women, which has tended to leave therepresentation of men as a marginal issue, suggesting that there was little need foranalysis.270 Despite this, however, there have been a number of significant studiesincluding Iglebaek’s work on heterosexual male friendship in Friends (USA, 1994-2004) and how this, at times, serves to challenge accepted normative masculinebehaviour and Mackinnon’s Representing Men which devotes a considerableamount to television, including sport on television, as part of a wider analysis ofhegemonic gender roles in the media in the 1980s and 1990s.271 269 See for example Lez Cooke, British Television Drama: A History (London: BFI, 2003); George Brandt ed.,British Television Drama in the 1980s (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1993): Bob Franklin ed.,British Television Policy: A Reader, (London: Routledge, 2001); David Gauntlett and Annette Hill, TVLiving: Television, Culture and Everyday Life (London: BFI, 1999).270 See for example Christine Geraghty, Women and Soap Opera : A Study of Prime Time Soaps (Cambridge:Polity, 1990); Tania Modleski, ‘In Search of Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas: Notes on a FeminineNarrative Form’, Film Quarterly, 33.1 (1979), 12-21; Charlotte Brunsdon, The Feminist, the Housewife andthe Soap Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).271 th Vegard Iglebaek, ‘What Kind of Male Friendship? A Case of Joey and Chandler in Friends’, 4 EuropeanFeminist Research Conference, Bologna (2 October 2000) [accessed 3 May 2009]; Kenneth MacKinnon, Representing Men: Maleness andMasculinity in the Media (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003).78 More recently Rebecca Feasey’s Masculinity and Popular Television has attemptedto provide detailed textual readings of a variety of masculinities from contemporaryBritish and particularly American programmes and how the representations of mencan be understood in relation to wider social and sexual debates. This examinationis crucial she says ‘not because it accurately reflects reality but because it has powerand scope to foreground culturally accepted social relations and define norms’.272 While she acknowledges that thelived experience of masculinity will always be more complex and fluctuatingthan those representations of manhood in contemporary television, this doesnot detract from the power of the medium to define norms and conventionsand to portray what is considered appropriate and inappropriate socialrelations.273 Feasey lays out her methodological approach thus ‘the scope is not to test outinterpretations through audience research or look at economics, structure,organisation or production practices but to examine representations within the widercontext of society’.274 While her approach is indeed comprehensive in its coverageof the most popular and prevailing genres and deals effectively with issues aroundhomosociality and the public and private dichotomy, it covers a great deal of groundand a considerable number of programmes and in that sense some of her analysislacks depth. Additionally, the historical aspects serve as a useful but relativelyperfunctory preamble to the main business of her book, to examine thecontemporary television landscape as a site for emergent masculinities and howcontemporary masculinity can adhere to, negotiate, or challenge hegemonicmasculinity. Indeed it is Connell’s notion of hegemonic masculinity, which I willdiscuss later, which forms its principal theoretical thrust. However, in doing so shefails to account for the complexities of individual constructions of masculinity and272 Rebecca Feasey, Masculinity and Popular Television (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), p. 4.273 Ibid., p. 155.274 Ibid.79 tends to pit new masculinities against some form of monolithic and relatively statichegemonic masculinity.275 While then these few examples of research into the analysis of representations ofmasculinity in television show a degree of critical engagement, research intospecifically British representations, while diverse, would appear to be even morefractured, faltering and limited than with that of British cinema. Leon Hunt’s book onthe 1970s, British Low Culture covers a wide range of media and literature from theperiod, which includes popular television. While Hunt’s focus is not primarily onmasculinity he does devote a chapter to the topic of what he calls ‘Some 1970sMasculinities’ and the renegotiations of these particularly in situation comedies.276 Hunt tends to adopt, at least in part, a similar approach to Spicer involving a limitedform of typology. While he acknowledges that politically and economically there wasa ‘sense of impending apocalypse’, together with a mood of uncertainty unfoldingwhich led to a culture of nostalgia, there was also something very positive whichemerged in the1970s.277 The legacy of the sixties was manifesting itself in a moredemocratic form in the 1970s, something Hunt terms as ‘permissive populism’, atrickle down of what had only previously been permissible in elite middle-class andnew aristocratic circles.278 This clearly had significant implications for themaintenance of hegemonic masculinity. Through a conflation of permissive populismtogether with a shift away from consensus towards fragmentation, there was a socialand cultural climate which allowed for the emergence of a variety of masculinities,275 Ibid., p. 154.276 Leon Hunt, British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 56.277 Ibid., p. 17.278 Ibid., pp. 19-20; p. 2.80 which, while undermining dominant constructions of masculinity, were able not to beperceived as aberrant.Hunt is able to identify a number of new and emergent masculine types in popularpolice shows and low brow sitcoms, some of which emerge from traditionallyworking-class masculinities, others from middle or upper-class traditions.279 It is theformer, however, which informs my own research, embodying masculine attitudes farmore grounded in everyday reality rather than aspirational fantasy. These are thetypes who are caught between the reality of their own often mundane situations,grounded in tradition and the rhetoric of a new order, often barely comprehended bythose exposed to it. These are closer to the representations which this research willendeavour to explore.While Hunt deals with masculinity across a range of media and as part of a widerproject of media and cultural analysis, there are a number of other writers who havedealt with specific television programmes. David Rolinson’s unpublished paper onmasculinity and class in Steptoe and Son (UK, 1962-74), argues that the seriesreveals the ‘inadequacy and failure’ of masculinity in modern society while imbuing itwith a sense of pathos.280 He sees in the recurring themes of thwarted classaspiration and ‘the association of culture with failed masculinity’, a principalprotagonist who is simultaneously ’unsure of his masculinity and class position’.281 279 Hunt (1998), pp. 56-73.280 David Rolinson, ‘You Dirty Old Man!: Masculinity and Class in Steptoe and Son (1962-74)’, BritishTelevision Drama [accessed 17 April 2014]281 Ibid.81 Similarly Phil Wickham’s BFI Classic The Likely Lads explores as part of its remitmasculinity and class in a British situation comedy, again revealing a tension orunease. He sees the series and its sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?(UK, 1973-74) as revealing the homosocial appeal of the working man’s worldtogether with their fear of women and the perceived emasculation that class andgender changes might bring about.282 Osgerby and Gough-Yates’ anthology on action television, while focusing onAmerican output from the 1970s, includes three significant chapters which deal withmasculinity and its representation in British Television. While Rolinson and Wickhamare concerned with working-class masculinity these chapters are concerned withprogrammes about aspiration and fantasy. In Hunt’s analysis of The Professionalshe argues that the key to understanding the series is the possibility of reading thepolitical through codes of masculinity.283 As a hybrid it was able to combine thetestosterone heroics with a more reflective and comparatively moderate discourse.This was reflected in its protagonists being both tough in the course of protecting thenational interest while mediating fashion and consumption. Hunt sees this as anadaptation or remodelling of masculinity which incorporates ‘New Man’. Thus, whilethe series celebrates tough masculinity it was also critiques its characters’ sexualchauvinism and profound insecurity.Andy Medhurst’s piece on the subversive construction of masculinity of Jason King(UK, 1971-72) offers a queer reading of the series through his clothes and282 Phil Wickham, The Likely Lads (London: BFI, 2008), pp. 53-83.283 Leon Hunt, ‘‘Drop Everything…including Your Pants!’: The Professionals and ‘Hard’ Action TV’, inAction TV: Tough Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks, ed. by Anna Gough-Yates and Bill Osgerby(London: Routledge, 2001), pp.127-140 (p. 129).82 mannerisms rather than his actions. He embodies a particular type of masculinity –a fop, dandy, aesthete, epicurean peacock.284 These are traits, according toMedhurst which have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with conventional codesof masculinity being outside the boundaries of hegemonic masculinity.Hermes offers a feminist reading of what she calls duplicitous masculinity in ThePersuaders (UK, 1971-72. For all its trappings of glamour and material pleasure it isthe sentiments of friendship that lie at the heart of the show’s narrative. ThePersuaders' carefree life of jokes and fun can be mobilised by a female audiencebecause of its open coding and its presentation of a fairly diffuse and ungenderedform of sexual identity.285 They are unfettered by Tolson’s concept that men face a‘tough job at containing emotions and providing for dependents’.286 Therefore, theyare bound less by gender codes.Together with Hunt’s book on low culture, these essays represent the limited amountof work that had been done on masculinity and British television until very recently.However, as part of wider interest in 1970s culture, which yielded the essays onmasculinity and British cinema dealt with earlier in this chapter, several academicshave looked at its manifestation in television of the period. Emerging out of a paperat The Portsmouth 1970s Conference, Peter Hutchings has produced ‘I’m the Girl HeWants to Kill’, which posits the argument that ‘women in peril‘ narratives such asthose included in the ITV series Thriller (UK, 1973-76) reflected ‘doubt and284 Andy Medhurst, ‘King and Queen: Interpreting Sexual Identity in Jason King’, in Action TV: Tough Guys,Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks (see Hunt above), pp. 169-188 (p. 169).285 Joke Hermes, ‘The Persuaders!’, in Action TV: Tough Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks (see Huntabove), pp.159-168 (p. 161).286 Ibid., p. 162.83 uncertainty’ with particular regard to gender identities through, for example, therepresentation of male protagonists as inadequate and dysfunctional.287 From the same conference Peri Bradley’s chapter in British Culture and Society inthe 1970s, deals with its somewhat contentious argument, that the politics of camp inBritish television signalled a disruption in the representation of gender identities andoperated as a liberating force. This is an argument supported by some journalistsclaiming that camp characters were a powerful symbol of popular tolerance butundermined by gay activists who saw their television presence at the time as anaffront.288 However, as Claydon has suggested, in her previously discussed chapterin Don’t Look Now, while there may have been a dialogue around what masculinitieswere acceptable, it remained a site of conflict. Thus, she suggests, television of theperiod allowed for the visibility of ‘aberrant masculinities’ including camp men, to besimultaneously permissible and not permissible.289 Through the stereotyping oftypes of what she calls ‘deject’ they were consequently ’made safe’ for a mainstreamaudience.290 While this is a particularly fascinating argument about populartelevision at the time, regrettably Claydon does not develop it in this essay,preferring to explore its manifestation in cult films of the period.While then, there is some evidence of a broad based engagement with issues ofmasculinity within recent British television studies, there is not a strong criticaltradition of sustained textual or discourse analysis. Consequently it tends to feature287 Peter Hutchings, ‘I’m the Girl he Wants to Kill’, Visual Culture in Britain, 10.1 (2009), 53-70 (pp. 65-68).288 Peri Bradley, ‘You are Awful…But I Like You!: The Politics of Camp in1970s Television’, in BritishCulture and Society in the 1970s: The Lost Decade, ed. by Laurel Forster and Sue Harper (Newcastle:Cambridge Scholars, 2010), pp. 119-130 (pp. 122-130).289 Claydon (2011), pp. 131-142 (p. 135).290 Ibid.84 in much literature principally as an addendum to other media or cultural analysis, aswith Hunt. While there have been a few significant contributions, recent academicstudies of 1970s culture appears to have either placed television as the poor andperhaps less worthy relation to British cinema or suggested that it is an area stillawaiting sustained investigation.291 I would argue that it is the latter which should beseen to be the case.2.5 Masculinity StudiesThis thesis approaches the representation of masculinity from an interdisciplinaryperspective which demands an engagement with a number of other academicdisciplines. In combining television analysis with the cultural politics of gender it isinformed by a number of studies which emerged concurrently with the study ofscreen masculinities. This section, while providing a brief overview of some of theextant literature, will also examine a number of texts which have provided this thesiswith its wider theoretical basis.As I have already acknowledged, recent years have witnessed the growth of studiesof masculinities in a number of disciplines, not least sociology. Largely informed byfeminism, these have questioned normative assumptions about masculinity thoughtheir critical interrogation of men’s practices. They have included work by R. W.Connell, Stephen Whitehead, David Morgan, Lynne Segal, Chris Haywood andMairtin Mac an Ghaill all of which provide theoretical frameworks for the study ofmasculinities. While they have all been employed to varying degrees in the critical291 See for example Sue Harper’s suggestion that 1970s television could be studied in tandem with film, in SueHarper, ‘Keynote Lecture: Don’t Look Now Conference, University of Exeter, July 2007’, in Don’t LookNow: British Television in the 1970s (see Claydon above), pp. 21-28 (p. 27).85 analysis in this thesis, this section will focus particularly on Connell andWhitehead.292 Early studies into masculinity by, for example, Tolson and Farrel, were founded uponthe sex role paradigm of the 1970s.293 These highlighted thesocially constructed nature of masculinity and its reliance onsocialisation, sex role learning, and social control. These processeswere identified as limiting and even harmful to men’s psychological andphysical health, the pressures of performance and emotionalrepression being common targets.294 Coming from a sociological background, writers such as Kimmel, Brod and Pleckwrote largely as a response to feminist critique and tended to imply a high degree ofhomogeneity.295 Men were socialised into masculinity and were consequentlyshaped by the institutions in which (they) are embedded. Furthermore,aggression, competitiveness, and emotional inarticulateness reflectmen’s position in the economic system.296 Beynon argues that with these early studies,masculinity is thus viewed as a set of practices into which individualmen are inserted with reference to upbringing, family, area, work andsub cultural influences. Socio-economic positioning profoundly292 nd R. W. Connell, Masculinities, 2 edn (Cambridge: Polity, 2005); Stephen M. Whitehead, Men andMasculinities: Key Themes and New Directions (Cambridge: Polity, 2002); Morgan, David, ‘Class andMasculinity’, in Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, ed. by Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn andRobert W. Connell (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 165-177; Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: ChangingMasculinities, Changing Men, 3rd imprint (London: Virago, 1990); Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac anGhaill, Men and Masculinities: Theory, Research and Social Practice (Buckingham: Open UniversityPress, 2003).293 Andrew Tolson, The Limits of Masculinity (London: Tavistock, 1977); Warren Farrel, The Liberated Man(New York: Random House, 1974).294 Tim Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), p. 2.295 Michael S. Kimmel, Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity (New York:Sage, 1987); Harry Brod ed., The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies (London: Allen andUnwin, 1987); Joseph H. Pleck, The Myth of Masculinity (Cambridge, MA; MIT Press, 1981); JohnBeynon, Masculinities and Culture (Buckingham: OUP, 2002), p. 54.296 Ibid., p. 56.86 impacts on the masculine sense of self so much so that men’sidentities are constructed through social structures which exist overand above any actions of the individual.297 While these writers were concerned with the conditioning of appropriate genderedbehaviours, they also tended to assume a degree of ahistorical gender essences.Thus, regardless of conditioning they attempted to define and measure masculinityas something objective. Pleck suggests, however, that while there may be an idealrole for males, lived experience is likely to be in contradiction with this, thus fallingshort of what masculinity should be.298 The second wave of literature in the 1980s was highly critical of this first wave, firstlybecause it assumed a ‘level playing field’ between men and women and, secondly,because it did not address pluralities of masculinities and only really addressedhegemonic masculinity.299 Consequently the second wave was overtly pro-feminist,concerned itself with power, and took a far more political approach.300 Addressingwomen’s oppression and how masculinity is situated within a structure of genderedhierarchies, these writers examined the ways ‘particular social practices are used toreproduce social divisions and inequality’.301 These studies recognised a greater degree of heterogeneity of masculinities allowingfor considerable variance according to social locations. Hearn, for example, arguedthat masculinity was experienced differently within specific historical contexts andthat the type and amount of male power was dependent on its relationship to the297 Ibid.298 Pleck (1981), p. 11.299 Edwards (2006), p. 2.300 Ibid.301 Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2003), p. 8.87 existing social structures.302 Taking this further, Connell with his widely influentialbook Masculinities puts forward the idea that masculinities are not only multiple anddifferent but exist in a hierarchy of relations of power. Drawing upon Gramsci’sconcept of hegemony, where one social class is seen to predominate over others,Connell adapted the term and applied it to masculinity, where it referred to thedominant form of masculinity within the gender hierarchy.303 However, while aparticular paradigm of masculinity may become culturally dominant, subordinatingboth femininities and other masculinities, this dominance will not be immune tochallenge. Thus, this is an approach which acknowledges the possibilities ofchange.304 However, while Connell recognises that masculinities may be complexand multiple, the notion of hegemonic masculinity suggests that there are inevitablyculturally dominant forms of gendered being. 305 It must be stressed that Connellsees considerable disjuncture between the cultural ideal of hegemonic masculinitiesand the realities of men’s lives, thus what they actually provide are models‘embedded within specific social environments’ which ‘express widespread ideals,fantasies and desires’ about what masculinity should be.306 Masculinity, according to Connell, operates within a structured world, where socialstructures operate as constraints in ‘social organisation’.307 While he recognises theimportance of practice in the ‘transformation of […] (a) situation in a particular302 Jeff Hearn, Men in the Public Eye: The Construction and Deconstruction of Public Men and PublicPatriarchies (London: Routledge, 1992).303 Connell (2005), p. 77.304 Ibid., p. 67.305 Ibid., p. 77.306 R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Genderand Society, 19.1 (December 2005), 829-859 (p. 839; 838).307 R.W. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge: Polity, 1987), p.92.88 direction’ this nonetheless can only occur within existing structures.308 The structurethus ‘constrains the play of practice’ while the ‘consequence of practice is atransformed situation which is (then) the object of new practice’.309 In this waystructure ‘specifies the way practice (over time) constrains (further) practice’.310 Thus, while practice is constrained, it is also open to both history and change in adialectic which attempts to acknowledge both the importance of structures togetherwith the possibility of commutation.311 In the face of criticism that his concept of hegemonic masculinity equated to a modelof social reproduction, Connell’s response in 2005 was to acknowledge a morecomplex model of gender hierarchy and open up the ‘dynamics […] recognizinginternal contradictions and the possibilities of movement toward genderdemocracy’.312 Nevertheless he continued to emphasise the limits to discursiveflexibility which he had established in Masculinities.The third wave of masculinity studies is one which is principally post-structural,seeing gender in terms of ‘normativity, performativity and sexuality’.313 Covering thedisciplines of media and cultural studies as well as social science, it is concernedwith change and continuity, emphasises the ‘potential for artifice, flux andcontingency’ and leans toward the positive.314 Much of this work has beenparticularly influenced by theoretical approaches to the construction andperformance of gender identity developed by Michel Foucault and Judith Butler. As308 Ibid., p. 95.309 Ibid.310 Connell (1987), p. 95.311 Ibid., pp. 96-116.312 Connell and Messerschmidt (2005), 829-859 (p. 829).313 Edwards (2006), p. 3.314 Ibid.89 these have particularly informed the analysis of case studies in this thesis, I shallexamine them in more detail in the following Methodology chapter.Stephen Whitehead in Men and Masculinities has highlighted the growing influenceof the post-structural perspectives of Foucault circulating around the notion ofidentity and applied them directly to masculinity. He argues that there are multiplemasculinities, that theydiffer over space, time and context, are rooted only in the cultural andsocial moment and are thus inevitably intertwined with other powerfuland influential variables such as sexuality, class, age and ethnicity.315 Whitehead goes on to say that while it is only fictional and superficial accounts ofmasculinity which suggest an ‘embeddedness in men’s inner selves’, these arefrequently both powerful and mythic.316 However, while in this sense it is illusory,masculinities are nonetheless implicated in the everyday practices of men. Thus, asterms applicable to identity, masculinity and men are fluctuating, transitory andgeneral, ‘inadequate in themselves for revealing the subjectivities of the individualmale and consequent anxieties’.317 Consequently, Whitehead clearly seesmasculinity as something individual men experience in often vastly differing ways.Whitehead’s approach emphasises the importance of understanding men andmasculinities as discursive. However, in adopting Foucault’s analysis of gender herecognises both the limitations as well as the possibilities of this approach as heexamines the way Foucault’s discursive subject intersects with its ‘incomplete andfragmented and shifting material existence’.318 In the process of examining men’s315 Whitehead (2002), p. 34.316 Ibid.317 Ibid.318 Edwards (2006), p. 134.90 practices and lived realities including the perceived dichotomy of public and privatein contemporary society, men’s relationships and families, sense of loss andemotional immaturity, and perceived sense of crisis, Whitehead is, in a sense,materialising the discursive male body.Whitehead has also cogently outlined what he has called the sociology of masculinityand its relationship to change. Feminism, he states, is the forerunner of masculinitystudies and its direct consequences have been to expose and highlight the power,position, and practices of men in an effort to expunge gender inequalities.319 Oneparticularly acute observation he makes, which is particularly relevant to this thesis,is that for all the changes that have benefited Western women over the last fewdecades, none is a direct result of men changing.320 Whether through changes inlaw, science and technology, educational opportunity or economic transformations,the social, economic, and political transformations that have come about are in spite,not because of men, and are largely driven by financial imperatives. Increasedopportunity for women in many cases has been a consequence rather than anintention. Furthermore, in concurrence with many other commentators, structuralgender inequalities continue to exist, even in the West.321 As Lynne Segal hasobserved, men overall, still have greater power, cultural prestige, political authorityand wealth than women. 322 Consequently, any notion that men are or were in crisisis discredited, since men still ‘retain a capacity to resist and threaten this challenge’of feminism to male privilege.323 Despite then,319 Stephen M. Whitehead and Frank Barrett, ‘The Sociology of Masculinity’, in The Masculinities Reader, ed.by Stephen M. Whitehead and Frank Barrett (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), pp. 1-26 (pp. 4-8).320 Ibid., p. 5.321 Ibid., p. 6.322 Lynne Segal, Why Feminism?: Gender, Psychology, Politics (New York: Columbia U.P., 1999), p. 161.323 Whitehead and Barrett (2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 7).91 the apparent multiplicity of masculine expression, traditionalmasculinities and associated values still prevail in most culturalsettings. Many men still act dominant, deny emotions, resort toviolence as a means of self-expression, and seek to validate theirmasculinity in the public rather than the private world.324 A performance which, Whitehead suggests, masks a deeply fragile identity.However, Whitehead argues, men adapt, and this is a continual process,generational, largely experienced unknowingly, where men’s notions of themasculine self undergoes shifts.325 Nevertheless within their lifetime many menexperience minimal change, while resistance to change is likely to be a consequenceof men’s perceptions that they may gain little from the gender revolution.326 ‘Suchmen’, suggests Whitehead ‘often remain locked in a juvenile and crude display ofmasculinity’, what he calls the ‘performance as masculine subject’.327 While this is‘detrimental to men emotionally and in their relationships’, it is sustained ‘throughfraternal groupings […] male bonding rituals, rejection of intimacy and an avid denialof the other’.328 Clearly then, Whitehead is suggesting that while the discursivepossibilities of transformation in gender relations is not impossible, it is frequentlycontradictory and subject to considerable male resistance.In conclusion, this chapter has explored how Film Studies and Television Studieshave engaged with issues of gender and specifically the representation ofmasculinity. It has demonstrated that while American cinema has a strong traditionof sustained and wide ranging analysis into representations of masculinity, Britishfilm, with a few, somewhat isolated, exceptions, has only recently attracted critical324 Whitehead and Barrett (2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 7).325 Ibid.326 Ibid., p. 10.327 Ibid.328 Ibid.92 attention. It has gone on to reveal the lack of scholarship on British television andmasculinities. In the process it has provided an overview and assessment of anumber of groundbreaking and influential works informed by feminism which havebecome important in establishing a framework for understanding masculinities onscreen together with more specific essays which have informed my own analyses.Finally it has accounted for the development of masculinity studies focusingparticularly on two key academic texts which stress the limits of discursive flexibility,something which underpins the case studies that are found in my own research.Thus, while this thesis draws upon a number of academic works in the disciplines offilm, television and masculinity studies it also makes a significant intervention as thefirst critical interrogation of representations of men and masculinity in Britishtelevision of the 1970s and 1980s.93 3 MethodologyThis chapter will outline the principal methodological approach which underpins thisthesis, together with the theoretical framework which informs the textual analysis inthe case studies which are to follow. The first section will explain how RaymondWilliams’s concept of structures of feeling has been appropriated as a methodologyfor the analysis of television programmes through the combination of textual andcontextual study of the representations of masculinity. It will develop some of theissues previously raised in the Introduction, looking at Williams’s application of theconcept, the principal criticisms of it, and how it is applied in this thesis. This isintended to further validate its uses while acknowledging some of its limitations.The second part of this chapter will introduce the key theoretical perspectives whichwill be applied directly throughout the textual analysis as a method of understandingthe reconfiguration of discourses of masculinity. It will outline the approaches togender and transformative change put forward by key theorists which stress bothpossibilities and limitations, examining both the notion of the discursive subject ofFoucault and Butler’s theory of gender and performativity. Following directly on fromthis, the third section will address questions about structure and agency put forwardby Giddens concluding with a discussion of the limits of reflexive transformationsuggested by Bourdieu.3.1 Textual Analysis and Structures of FeelingAs I have discussed in the Introduction, Williams’s own definitions of the concept ofstructures of feeling and its applications altered in emphasis over the arc of hiscareer. However, the principal aim for Williams at any of these stages was to ‘showthe importance of literature for the articulation of alternatives to dominant world94 views, and thus is related to the politics of social change’.329 He stresses the needfor literature to be included in an interdisciplinary approach. ‘Change and continuity’he states, is ‘often seen most clearly in […] literature, (which) forms a record of vitallyimportant changes and developments in human personality. It is as much the recordof the history of a people as political institutions’.330 Indeed, in attempting toconstruct an interdisciplinary approach, Williams was explicitly critical of the ‘lack ofany methodological consensus between historians, literary critics andsociologists’.331 While literary analysis dominates much of his early work he laterengages with wider cultural and social practices arguing that literature should not beregarded as being privileged over other sources. He also argues that all forms ofwriting should be studied, not just the high canonised texts.In practice, however, Williams’s attempt to analyse the cultural meanings of art formsand their contexts has not gone without criticism. By prioritising the literary-critical ithas been argued that Williams becomes distanced from any ‘engagement with non-literary historical’ elements.332 Thus, ‘the relation of any of these literary particularsto any more general social-historical formation’ and hence ‘"total" history’ remainsunexplored.333 While literature is ‘assumed to be the barometer of a general culture[…] no exact interactions are specified’.334 Thus, it could be argued that Williams,while claiming that he wants to ‘define the theory of culture as the study of329 Raymond Williams, Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review (1979; rpt. London: Verso,1981), p. 159.330 Raymond Williams, ‘Literature in Relation to History’, in Border Country: Raymond Williams and AdultEducation, ed. by John McIlroy and Sallie Westwood, (Leicester: NIACE, 1993), pp. 166-173 (p. 172).331 Sean Mathews ‘Change and Theory in Raymond Williams’ Structure of Feeling’, Pretexts: Literary andCultural Studies, 10.2 (2001), 179-194 (p. 184).332 David Simpson, ‘Raymond Williams: Feeling for Structures, Voicing History’, Social Text, (1992), 9-26 (p.18).333 Ibid.334 Ibid.95 relationships between elements in a whole way of life’ in practice, by drawing entirelyfrom literary sources, is guilty of literary exceptionalism.335 Nonetheless, Williams intended structures of feeling as a ‘tool to facilitate themovement in analysis between social wholes and parts, between subject anddisciplinary boundaries, between background and text’.336 Indeed, in the ‘Idea ofCulture’ Williams elevates context to the same level as text, so it is no longer treatedas mere background to textual analysis.337 Although at one point he concedes ‘itseems to me impossible directly to relate the highly specific experiences of a work ofart to any more general qualities of living in the society in which it is provided’.338 Hegoes on to say thathowever difficult it may be in practice, we have to try to see the process as awhole, and to relate our particular studies, if not explicitly at least by ultimatereference, to the actual and complex organisation.339 Thus, while Williams sees art as central in understanding social and cultural change,he also stresses the need to study those wider structures in which it operates. Hecalls forthe study of relationships between elements in a whole way of life. Theanalysis of culture is the attempt to discover the nature of the organisationwhich is the complex of these relationships.340 In the case of television, while it functions as a key mediator of cultural ideas theconstruction of its narratives is conditioned by prevailing cultural ideologies anddiscourses. Thus, while the principal method of this thesis is textual analysis, thesocial, historical, cultural, and economic contexts are also addressed. This then335 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (Peterborough, On: Broadview Press, 1961 repr. 2001), p. 63.336 Mathews (2001), pp. 179-194 (p. 185).337 Raymond Williams, ‘The Idea of Culture’, Essays and Criticism, 3.3 (July 1953), 239-266 (p. 259).338 Raymond Williams, ‘For Continuity in Change’, Politics and Letters, 1.1 (Summer 1947), 3-5 (p. 5).339 Williams (1961), p.44.340 Ibid., p. 46.96 allows for the examination of discourses circulating at any one time and howtelevision contributed to and was a product of those discourses.A further complication with structures of feeling is what Williams himself hasrecognised as the ‘selective tradition’.341 As Dickens has observed ‘much culturaland social analysis, and certainly most analysis of literature concerns itself with thedead, and while records may survive, processes of selective tradition will inevitablyensure that the records that do survive tell a decidedly biased story’, one which haslargely determined by ‘hegemonic forces’.342 In attempting to isolate the structure of feeling of any given period, Williams himselfhas outlined three distinct levels of culture.343 First there is ‘the lived culture of aparticular time and place, only fully accessible to those who live in that time andplace’; then there is the ‘recorded culture of every kind from art to everyday facts’;finally there is ‘the selective tradition’.344 This last level occurs when culture is notlived anymore, and can only be approached through its records. However, it would ofcourse be impossible to access all the recorded works of a period.345 Thus, although‘theoretically a period is recorded […] this record is exposed to a selective traditionwhich starts even at the given period, when certain works are more valued oremphasized’.346 Subsequently as further selection takes place over time much of341 Williams (1961), p. 64.342 John Dickens, ‘Unarticulated Pre-emergence: Raymond Williams’ Structure of Feeling’, Constellations(University of Warwick) [n.d.] [accessed 20 February 2014] (p. 2).343 Williams (1961), p. 66.344 Ibid.345 Ibid.346 Ibid.97 what is deemed unimportant, but may indeed be extremely significant record of aparticular culture, is rejected.Simpson has argued, that while Williams acknowledges this selective tradition, hedoes not allow it to ‘interfere with his assumption of a relatively direct transmission ofthe structure of feeling; as if we may indeed choose between different ones, but whatwe get is real enough when we do get it’, and is largely ‘unaffected by the process ofreconfiguration’.347 For Williams, the analysis of art can enable us to go beyondfixed formations of the ‘social character’ taking us ‘behind and beyond the selectivetradition’.348 However, a further related criticism levelled at Williams is that because ‘he choosesto discuss mainly the most prescient literature, not even tentatively completeanalysis of historical determination can be attempted’.349 Furthermore, while he mayhave proclaimed that ‘culture is ordinary’, the cultural products he selects in which tolocate ordinary, lived cultural experience are, what Dickens has called, the‘exceptional, the hegemonically determined extra-ordinary’.350 As Scott Wilson hasobserved, in Williams’s workthere was the desire to study not just high-canonical texts, but a “whole way oflife”, yet this went along with an actual distaste for and disapproval of theactualities of the mass entertainment that actually constituted much ofworking-class life, so [he] either ignored or gave an uninformed orunsympathetic account of a crucial part of that whole way of life.351 347 Simpson (1992), pp. 9-26 (p. 16).348 Ibid.349 Ibid., p. 17.350 Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (London: Verso, 1989), pp. 3-14;Dickens, ‘Unarticulated Pre-emergence; Raymond Williams’ Structure of Feeling’, [n.d.] p.2.351 Scott Wilson, Cultural Materialism: Theory and Practice, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 29.98 Indeed, while Williams himself states ‘we should not seek to extend a ready-madeculture to the benighted masses […] we should accept, frankly, that if we extend ourculture we shall change it’, he also devotes little critical attention to anything thatmight be considered truly popular.352 However, as Dickens has observed, ‘while theliterary text can be and invariably is an excellent conduit in which to unearth traces ofstructures of feeling, to fully understand a community at a certain time, you have toinclude everything which that community values as important; whether modernistnovel or Christmas pantomime’.353 By analysing ‘high-cultural forms’ Williams is thusencountering that ‘which are socially and linguistically some of the least amenable toarticulating working-class experiences, and most tied to hegemonic forces’.354 However, while I would argue that this weakens the efficacy of structures of feelingas a methodological tool, I also concur with Dickens’s assertion that future writersshould seek to strengthen it by ‘extending […] analyses to broader areas of culture’by going ‘beyond the confines of […] (Williams’s) own, formalized and hegemonicallycrystallized work’.355 It should be noted, however, that while most of Williams’s focus was on literature, healso considered film and television, as evidenced by his reviews and articles on anumber of generically and formally diverse programmes for The Listener between1968 and 1972.These illustrate Williams’s response to a wide range of TV themes andpleasures - from an enthusiasm for television sport to a distrust in themedium's stress on ‘visibility’, to arguments about the economic andpolitical relationships between production and transmission.356 352 Williams (1989), p. 16.353 Dickens, ‘Unarticulated Pre-emergence: Raymond Williams’ Structure of Feeling’, [n.d.] p.2.354 Ibid.355 Ibid.356 Anon, ‘Williams, Raymond’, Museum of Broadcast Communications [accessed 18 June 2011]99 Indeed, Williams himself has argued for the significance of television drama as acultural form. He argues that the television play was the ‘ultimate realisation of theoriginal naturalist convention […] in which a few characters lived out their privateexperience of an unseen public world’.357 Williams sees television drama in terms of ‘the exploring eye of the camera, the feelfor everyday ordinary life, the newly respected rhythms of the speech of work andthe streets and of authentic privacy’.358 He cites the Wednesday Play (UK, 1964-70)as the most notable British example of creative innovation in British television in the1960s which tended to embody this naturalist approach.359 Writing in 1974, Williamsobserved that the place of drama was transformed. What had been, in the theatresa ‘minority art, was now a major public form’.360 ‘Drama as an experience is now anintrinsic part of everyday life […] watching dramatic simulation of a wide range ofexperiences has now become an essential part of our modern cultural pattern’.361 Williams also talks about the dramatic importance of both the popular serial andseries. While frequently generically specific or historically based, often produced asa corporate dramatic enterprise, and restricted by limiting conventions and formulae,may also make ‘serious engagements with the run of ordinary experience’ where ‘inso much traditionally serious drama and fiction, there has been a widespreadwithdrawal from general social experience’.362 Thus, he sees the original serial asperhaps the most important of all television forms. Clearly then, Williams was acutely357 Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London: Fontana, 1974), p. 56.358 Ibid.359 Ibid., p. 58.360 Ibid., p. 59.361 Ibid.362 Ibid., pp. 60-61.100 aware of a popular cultural form like television, and although there was no extendedanalysis of any television programmes themselves, he did attribute them with valueand meaning.In the face of possible criticism over selectiveness of particular texts, I will of coursemake no claim to universality. While they have a generic and formal diversityranging from the one off social realist drama to the drama-comedy series and thusare neither exclusive to one type or style nor comprehensive in their coverage of all,what the texts I have identified share is a structure of feeling which is grounded inthe experiential and the emotional and which operates both personally andcollectively in exploring male anxieties about change and flux. However, this is notconfined to, what was considered to be, serious drama and can be traced intelevision across popular drama as well. While the work of Alan Bleasedale and to amuch lesser extent Peter McDougall, emanating from the high canon of Play forToday, could be considered to be legitimate drama worthy of analysis, Fox and AufWiedersehen, Pet, generally fall outside of that category. However, since they werepart of ‘the mass entertainment that actually constituted much of working-class life’,their analysis goes beyond Williams, incorporating a wider cultural scope. 363 A further weakness with the concept, which some feminist writers have identified, isthe absence of ‘women as active agents, as producers or transmitters of culture’along with the characteristic displacement of gender and sexuality as categories of363 Wilson, (1995), p. 29.101 analysis.364 Thus, according to Shiach, it is difficult for feminists to appropriate theterm, since much of Williams’s writing including critiques and his own novels placewomen ‘consistently within the sphere of the domestic, providing a kind of moralgrounding for the narratives of male working-class identity’ largely removing themfrom any notion of ‘class, poverty and struggle’.365 Thus, as a concept it is blind to its’own gendered history’ and ‘the social experience and identities of women’.366 Nonetheless, Shiach argues that feminist scholarship can uncover structures offeeling around the historical experience of women, and one of the ways to do this isto move away from canonized, tightly defined literary tradition and include a numberof other genres where women’s experience is valued, and focus on areas whichappear marginal in Williams’s writing’.367 Unlike Williams, this thesis places gender as the principal category of analysis ratherthan class. While it does focus on representations of men and masculinity myanalysis has foregrounded and critiqued these rather than working with normativeassumptions. Furthermore, although it is not intended to uncover structures offeeling around the historical experience of women, those experiences arenecessarily included as part of a critique of masculine practice. Thus, byproblematising working-class masculine identities this thesis has also been able toexplore gender relations and go beyond Williams’s normative assumptions aboutgender within working-class communities.364 Morag Shiach, ‘A Gendered History of Cultural Categories’, in Cultural Materialism: On RaymondWilliams, ed. by Christopher Prendergast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp 51-70 (p.54); Cora Kaplan, ‘What We Have Again to Say: Williams, Feminism and the 1850s’, in CulturalMaterialism: On Raymond Williams (see Shiach above), pp. 211-236 (p. 212).365 Shiach (1995), pp. 51-70 (p. 54).366 Ibid., p. 56; 68.367 Ibid., pp. 67-68.102 A further way that this thesis differs from Williams’s own use of structures of feelingis in how it employs his concepts of the residual, dominant and emergent. At thecore of Williams’s structures of feeling is the interplay between all three.368 Thisopens up opportunities for alternative or oppositional elements within the dominantculture through the inclusion of ‘marginal’ or ‘incidental’ evidence.369 While Williamssuggests that the residual and emergent may be ‘significant both in themselves’within the process, they can also ‘reveal […] characteristics of the dominant’ whichotherwise may not be recognised.370 It is this notion of the residual, the dominant, and the emergent which comes to formthe framework for the analysis in this thesis. However, while it is concerned withmoments of social and cultural change in accord with Williams, it is also, unlikeWilliams, particularly interested in feelings and experiences which are attached toresidual discourses.As I have attested earlier, Williams’s principal focus is on the emergent rather thanthe residual. He distinguishes the emergent from ‘elements of some new phase ofthe dominant’ or something which is ‘merely novel.’371 His is a concern for, ‘newmeanings and values, new practices, new relationships and kinds of relationships’which are ‘substantially alternative or oppositional to’ the dominant culture, providing‘the sense of a generation or of a period’, and while it is ‘the undeniable experienceof the present’ it is nevertheless oriented toward the future reflecting something368 Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 121.369 Ibid.370 Ibid., p. 122.371 Ibid., p. 123.103 which has ‘not yet come.’372 However, while Williams focuses his concept onemergence and indeed pre-emergence, the not yet fully articulated, I will argue that itcould equally apply to the residual subjective experience’ itself a ‘living presence’,perhaps never fully articulated because of either a degree of marginalisation orbecause its articulation takes on new meaning within a new and changing context.373 Thus the residual as well as the emergent may equally be without recognisable‘semantic figures’.374 As I observed in the Introduction, in a number of recent studies, the employment ofstructure of feeling has become increasingly past oriented focusing upon the residualrather than on Williams’s preference for the emergent or pre-emergent.375 AsPeschel has argued, while new emergent arts may become apparent, particularlyamong the young, offering an alternative or oppositional view to the dominanthegemonic order, older people may draw on residual art forms which also, in theirown way, ‘may have an alternative or even oppositional relation to the dominantculture’.376 Thus, in ‘reaching back to those meanings and values which werecreated […] in the past’ residual discourses may ‘still seem to have significancebecause they represent areas of human experience […] which the dominant cultureneglects’.377 It is this particular interpretation which has proved most useful for thisthesis in focusing upon residual discourses throughout the 1970s and 1980s, buthow they are employed within an emergent structure of feeling.372 Williams (1977), p. 123; 121; 128; 130.373 Ibid., p. 122.374 Ibid.375 Lisa Peschel, ‘Structures of Feeling as Methodology and the Re-emergence of Holocaust SurvivorTestimony in 1960s Czechoslovakia’, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 26.2 (Spring 2012) 161-172 (p. 161).376 Ibid.; Williams (1977), p. 122.377 Williams (1977), p. 122.104 Williams defines residual as something that is not necessarily located in the past butrather ‘formed in the past, but it is still active in the cultural process’ frequently not 'asan element of the past, but as an effective element of the present’.378 Thus,certain experiences, meanings, and values which cannot be expressed orsubstantially verified in terms of the dominant culture, are nevertheless livedand practiced on the basis of the residue-cultural as well as social-of someprevious social and cultural institution or formation.379 So, like Peschel and others, while I employ Williams’s concept, I have used it as amethodological tool for the examination of texts which generally express feelings thatare largely conservative and residual rather than the progressive and emergentwhich so interested Williams.Connell has argued, with regard to his own theories, that ‘theoretical formation findsapplication in other settings and by other hands, the concept must mutate-and it maymutate in different directions in different environments’ and this too can be the casefor structures of feeling.380 Thus, this thesis employs structures of feeling in anumber of ways which mark it out from Williams’s own uses. It engages with popularforms of television rather than high canonical texts; it addresses issues aroundgender rather than solely around class; it concerns itself with residual discoursesrather than emergent ones; and while textual analysis is its principal focus it alsoincorporates social, historical, cultural and economic contexts into that analysis.Structure of feeling then, is employed in this thesis as a methodology to conduct atextual and contextual study of the representations of masculinity of the period. It378 Williams (1977), p. 122.379 Ibid.380 R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept, Genderand Society, 19.6 (December 2005), 829-859 (p. 854).105 allows for textual and discursive analysis which facilitates a purposeful dialoguebetween television narratives and cultural discourses of masculinity. As amethodological approach it has facilitated my analysis of a particular group of writerswho explore an area of social experience which may be frequently overlooked ordismissed together with the relationship between these experiences and thestructures of the period.3.2 Gender TheoryThis section is intended to outline the principal theoretical approaches to genderidentity that have been employed in the textual analysis of the case studies whichare to follow. This thesis is about change. Thus it engages with Williams’s conceptsof residual, dominant, emergent. It is also about gender. Therefore it seeks tointerrogate theoretical approaches which stress both the transformative possibilitiesas well as the limits to reconfigurations of gender practice. Through the applicationof these theoretical approaches to the textual analyses which follow, this thesis willshow how they can contribute to the understanding of masculinity of the period.A number of academics principally in the discipline of sociology, in addressingidentity in its widest sense, have developed a social constructionist perspective ofidentity formation. Hall for example argues that:Identities are never unified and in late modern times increasinglyfragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply constructedacross different often intersecting and antagonistic discourses,practices and positions […] they are subject to a radical historicisationand are constantly in the process of change and transformation.381 Similarly, Lawler has suggested that ‘identity, subjectivity, personhood are allslippery yet necessary terms which are entirely embedded within and produced by381 Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs identity?’ , in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. by Stuart Hall andPaul du Gay (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 1-17 (p. 4).106 the social world’.382 While many claims for identity continue to take an essentialistperspective, Woodward maintains that identity is in fact ‘relational and difference isestablished by symbolic marking’ and is maintained through social and materialconditions.383 All then reject any notion of essentialism as the basis of identity which sees it assomething which is inherent and natural rather than a categorisation which ishistorically and culturally constructed.384 Similarly, in the discipline of academicpsychology, Cordelia Fine has critiqued the essentialism of what she describes asneurosexism, placing culture at the root of identity formation.385 The approach toidentity then, which dominates and informs much of my own research, is one whichis predicated upon the model of social constructionism but one which incorporates adialectic between structure and agency where the discursively constituted subject isneither fully determined nor fully agentic. Thus, the textual analysis of the casestudies which are to follow operates on the understanding that while masculineidentities are socially constructed, that construction is heavily reliant upon discourseswhich may both enable and constrain.As an approach to gender identity specifically, constructionism has been theorisedwith particular acuity in the writing of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s work has beenhugely influential on subsequent theories of gender identity, for example those ofJudith Butler and Anthony Giddens, which tend to emphasise the increasing potentialfor the transformation of social identities as a consequence of social, cultural, and382 Steph Lawler, Identity: Sociological Perspectives (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), p. 144.383 Kathryn Woodward, ‘Concepts of Identity and Difference’, in Identity and Difference, ed. by KathrynWoodward (Milton Keynes: OUP, 1997, repr. 2002), pp. 7-62 (p. 12).384 Vivienne Burr, An Introduction to Social Constructionism (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 13-14.385 Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender (London: Icon, 2011), pp. xxvi-xxix.107 economic changes in contemporary society.386 For Foucault the construction ofone’s identity is dependant upon social processes and is thus potentially open andmutable. Nothing then, not even the body itself, can be considered to be natural,identities being neither fixed nor stable. The subject is not a firm entity, but ratheridentity is contingent upon historically constructed discourses, which, throughreiteration can become reified. ‘It’s my hypothesis’ argues Foucault ‘that theindividual is not a pre-given identity’ and that ‘the positions of the subject are definedby the positions that it is possible for him to occupy’ and what will be acceptable.387 However, while these discourses may enable subject positions they are also subjectto constraints, limits, and ‘regularities’.388 Foucault critiqued long term socio-culturaltrends, searching instead for ‘displacements and transformations’.389 He recognisedthat while discourses are ‘governed by analysable rules’ they are also characterisedby’ transformations’.390 Gender and sexual identity are always shifting, arguesFoucault, and these can change through resistance, itself ‘a process of breaking outof discursive practices’.391 Thus, while Foucault acknowledges that identities are regulated by availablediscourses he also recognises the possibilities for transformative agency. Hesuggests that agency could only operate within the parameters of existing discourses386 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990);Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford:Stanford UP, 1991), pp. 18-37.387 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, trans. ColinGordon and others (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 73-74: Michel Foucault, The Archaeology ofKnowledge, (New York: Pantheon, 1972), p. 52; p. 197.388 Foucault (1972), pp. 231-232.389 Ibid., p. 211.390 Ibid.391 Michel Foucault, The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984: Ethics, trans. by Robert Hurley, ed. by PaulRainbow, 3 vols (New York: The New Press, 1997), I, p. 168-169.108 yet he also maintains ‘that knowledge should transform the self’ and that ‘the maininterest in life and work is to become someone else you were not’.392 Foucault has also made significantly radical advances in his conceptions of power.While in his early work including Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish,he gives the impression that power is vested in institutions, he subsequently shiftedhis position seeing power not as something which a person can have but rather assomething exercised in interaction.393 While certain power relations may seemunchangeable, since ‘power is exercised from innumerable points’ it should beunderstood as being dynamic, fluid and mutable since ‘where there is power there isresistance’.394 This resistance will lead to ‘liberation’ which in turn will create ‘newpower relationships'.395 However, as Sawicki has argued, while Foucault mayemphasise resistance, he is also ‘sceptical about widespread transformation and farfrom utopian’.396 Since Foucault’s definition of gender identity is not rigid and immutable but in aconstant state of fluctuation, it is thus possible to disrupt accepted notions of genderidentity. For Foucault, the principal way to undermine accepted social positions is to392 Rux Martin, ‘Truth, Power: An Interview with Michel Foucault’, in Technologies of Self: A Seminar withMichel Foucault, ed. by Luther H Martin, Huck Gutman, Patrick Hutton (Amerherst: University ofMassachusetts Press, 1988), pp. 9-15 (p. 9).393 See Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization, trans. by Richard Howard (London: Routledge, 2001 repr.2005 originally published 1961); Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. byAlan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books/Random House, 1995, originally published 1975).394 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, trans. by Robert Hurley, first publishedunder the title The History of Sexuality: An Introduction 1978, 3 vols (London: Penguin, 1998),I, pp. 94-95.395 Michel Foucault, The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984: Ethics, trans. by Robert Hurley, ed. by PaulRainbow, 3 vols (London: Penguin, 2000), I, pp. 283-284.396 Jana Sawicki, Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 28.109 emancipate historical knowledges from […] subjection to render them[…] capable of opposition and of struggle against the coercion of atheoretical, unitary, formal and scientific discourse.397 This clearly has significant consequences for the construction of masculinity in itschallenge to dominant discourses of gender construction, ‘normative standards’ forthe masculine and its call to transcend prevailing prescriptions.In his later work, Foucault puts forward an idea which lies at the core of hisconceptualisation of identity formation. He talks about an individual’s ethics as the‘care of the self’ itself ‘a certain way of considering things and having relation withother people’ or ‘an attitude towards the self, others and the world’.398 This thenleads to certain practices, which Foucault calls ’technologies of self’ which are‘exercised by the self’ and ‘by which one takes responsibility for oneself and bywhich one changes, purifies, transforms and transfigures oneself’.399 Thus,technologies of self can be understood as what it means to be a person, how oneconstructs and polices oneself and this is highly dependant upon the discoursescirculating at any historical moment.Judith Butler has developed this Foucauldian perspective of gender construction inher conceptualisation of the notion of performativity. Like Foucault, she argues thatidentity is an agglomeration of cultural and social facets and components which onehas acquired through prior expression or attribution and these then solidify into aperformance where one’s identity is reified through repetition ‘of meanings already397 Michel Foucault, ‘Two Lectures’ in Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault Habermas Debate, ed. byMichael Kelly (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 17-46, p. 24.398 Michel Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Subject: Lectures at the College de France, 1981-82, trans. byGraham Burchell, ed. Frederick Gros (New York: Picador, 2005), p. 11.399 Ibid.110 socially established’.400 The corollary of this is that as a construction, identity ispotentially open, dynamic, and liable for transformation. Thus, Butler argues, thather aim is to subvert and displace ‘naturalized and reified notions of gender thatsupport masculine hegemony and heterosexist power (and) to make gendertrouble’.401 What then has been socially constructed as an ideal is little more than a ‘norm, and afiction that disguises itself as a developmental law regulating the sexual field that itpurports to describe’.402 Thus what Butler is suggesting, is that the norm ofheterosexuality is maintained through gender identity acting as a regulatoryconstruct.403 This she has called the ‘heterosexual matrix’ where there emerges astable sex expressed through a stable gender […] that is oppositionallyand hierarchically defined through the compulsory practice ofheterosexuality.404 As Butler observes in Gender Trouble ‘gender is not a noun, but neither is it a set offree floating attributes for we have seen that the substantive effect of gender isperformatively produced and compelled by the regulatory practice of gendercoherence’.405 Thus, ‘gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject whomight be said to pre-exist the deed’.406 Consequently ‘there is no gender identitybehind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by thevery ‘’expressions’’ that are said to be its results’.407 400 nd Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2 edn (New York: Routledge,1999), p. 178.401 Ibid., p. 44.402 Ibid., p. 173.403 Ibid., p. 175.404 Ibid., p. 194.405 Ibid., p. 33.406 Ibid.407 Ibid., p. 25.111 Butler offers a model of gender identity which is progressive and positive. Sheargues that ‘the loss of gender norms would have the effect of proliferating genderconfigurations, destabilizing substantive identity, and depriving the naturalizingnarratives of compulsory heterosexuality of their central protagonists: man andwoman’.408 However, as Berger has critiqued, if the ‘rigid social constructions of themasculine have resulted in political, (social) and cultural forces of oppression,repression, and denial’ how easily can these be transformed?409 Other critics ofButler such as Tim Edwards, for example, argue that while gender may certainly beperformative, this does not necessarily lead to endless possibilities and potential,and a variety of other social factors and circumstances may actively mitigate againstthese possibilities.410 Thus, through the application of these theoretical approachesto the textual analysis in the case studies which follow, both the limits as well as thetransformative possibilities to reconfigurations of gender practice are explored.3.3 Structure and AgencyOf particular concern to this thesis are the ways existing social structures function tolimit agency. While several theorists have attempted to resolve the dichotomybetween structure and agency, it is with Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration,where we can see the fuller implications it may have for identity transformation.Giddens’ notion of structuration, which he developed in The Constitution of Society,sees structure and agency operating in a recursive relationship.408 Butler (1999), p. 187.409 Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson, ‘Introduction’, in Constructing Masculinity, ed. byMaurice Berger, Brian Wallis and Simon Watson (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 1-10 (p. 5).410 Tim Edwards, ‘Queer Fears: Against the Cultural Turn’, Sexualities, 1. 4 (November 1998), 471-484 (p.472).112 While defining structuration as the ‘conditions governing the continuity andtransformation of structures, and therefore the reproduction of systems’, Giddensallows for a degree of modification through human agency. 411 By developing atheory which incorporates both ‘enablement and constraint’, he argues that ‘to be ahuman being is to be a purposive agent’ with a degree of reflexivity which mayengender change ‘across space and time’.412 Like Foucault and Butler, Giddens sees the self not as something either essential orfixed, but rather there is a ‘reflexive project of the self, which consists of thesustaining of coherent yet, continually revised, biographical narratives’.413 However,while subjects have become increasingly able to freely construct and perform theiridentities in ‘post-traditional times’, there are ‘standardising influences too’.414 AsGiddens has argued, ‘for individual actors […] social structure and social constraintcan be extremely powerful’, comparable, he says, to any physical constraints.415 ‘Society only has form’ he continues, ‘and that form only has effects on people in sofar as structure is produced and reproduced in what people do’.416 In this senseindividual and group behaviour while informed by social conventions will thenfeedback into and re-enforce those conventions.417 People develop a considerableinvestment or ’faith’ in the ‘coherence of everyday life’ which is continually reiterated411 Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in SocialAnalysis (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 66.412 Christopher G. A. Bryant and David Jary, Giddens’ Theory of Structuration: A Critical Appreciation(London: Routledge, 1991), p. 8; Anthony Giddens The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory ofStructuration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.413 Giddens (1991), p. 5.414 Ibid.415 Anthony Giddens and Christopher Pierson, Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making Sense ofModernity (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998), p. 87.416 Ibid., p. 77.417 Giddens (1984), p. 14.113 in social interaction418 . How the subject chooses to act is thus both influenced, andarguably constrained, by traditional discourses whilst being affected by greaterfreedoms in contemporary society. However, ‘the more post-traditional the setting inwhich an individual moves, the more lifestyle concerns the very core of self-identity,its making and remaking’.419 This then is a resolutely positive view of agency and self-reflexive identitytransformation within late modernity. While the performance of gender may belearned and policed and constantly monitored, in a post-traditional society, identitybecomes ‘the reflexive project of the self’, where it is made rather than simplyassumed.420 However, Giddens also stresses that identity relies on a sense ofcontinuity where a ‘continuous narrative can be sustained’ and while being open tosubtle reinterpretations and alterations, is nonetheless involved in the ongoingdialectic between structure and agency. 421 The work of Foucault, Butler, and Giddens then, has been immensely important astheories of reflexive identity transformation emphasising new possibilities as aconsequence of the destabilisation of the traditional. Foucault’s concept of thetechnologies of self for example suggests that sexual identity is generally open to aprocess of self-modification. However, it could be argued that this may underplaythe entrenched elements of gender which resist adaptation or remodelling. While I418 Giddens (1991), p. 38.419 Ibid., p. 81.420 Ibid., p. 9.421 Ibid., p. 53.114 am not suggesting that identity is stable and unchangeable, I am arguing that whatmay persist as a consequence of ‘inculcation’ may remain extremely durable.422 It is here then, that Bourdieu’s notion of ‘an open system of dispositions […]constantly subjected to experiences‘, and identified as ‘durable’ but not immutable,proves particularly apposite.423 Bourdieu’s model suggests a set of subjectivedispositions, which he calls habitus, which operate within wider social structures andare a response to objective conditions, which he calls the field. This results in theemergence of a doxic relationship where the assimilated, axiological, routine‘common sense’ beliefs and values serve to inform an agent's actions and thoughtswithin a particular field.424 Furthermore, the habitus is not something which isreflexively constituted since ‘agents never know completely what they are doing’ butis acquired through ‘le sens pratique’ or ‘feel for the game’ which Bourdieu describesas ‘tactical intelligence’.425 While this may be viewed as somewhat deterministic,Bourdieu’s model does allow for a degree of identity transformation within thebounds of the field, where the habitus can forge new performative paradigms.However, these tend to be ‘reasonable’ and ‘common sense behaviours […] whichare possible within the limits of […] regularities’.426 In his most influential work Distinction, Bourdieu maps out the limits of reflexivetransformation and identity in relation to class. Here social divisions organise and422 Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), p. 67.423 Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Cambridge: Polity, 1992),p. 133.424 Bourdieu (1990), p. 55.425 Ibid., p. 69; 82.426 Ibid., p. 55.115 limit the social world, where objective limits become subjective limits and ‘the senseof limits implies forgetting the limits’.427 As Bourdieu argues:One of the most important effects of the correspondence between realdivisions and practical principles of division, between social structuresand mental structures, is that doxa facilitates adherence to relations oforder which, because they structure both the real world and thethought world, are accepted as self-evident.428 It is in La Domination Masculine where Bourdieu examines the embedded characterof identity with regard to gender. With his research into the androcentric Kabylesociety, Bourdieu notes how male dominance works to affect an essential position byassimilating itself into the wider objective social world which is then adopted andreified into an individual’s socially learned dispositions. As Bourdieu argues, ‘thestrength of the masculine order is seen in the fact that it dispenses with justification:the androcentric vision imposes itself as neutral and has no need to spell itself out indiscourses aimed at legitimating it’.429 The dualism of masculine and feminine isexperienced in ordinary, quotidian, daily practices and interactions, ‘with the verystrict distribution of […] activities’ where the social arena is structured restrictingwomen to the limits of particular areas, particularly the domestic, while men are freeto inhabit those locations which are deemed to be in the public arena. 430 This is thenfurther endorsed by the doxic relationship which emerges from the consolidation andsolidification of oppressive power relations which are imposed onto and habituatedwithin gender identities which have come to appear as natural.431 This is how,427 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. by Richard Nice(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984), p. 471.428 Ibid., p. 471.429 Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, trans. by Richard Nice, previously published 1998 and 2001(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 9.430 Ibid., pp. 9-10.431 Ibid., pp. 8-9.116 according to Bourdieu, the ‘social order functions […] to ratify the masculinedominance on which it is founded’.432 Ultimately, what Bourdieu suggests is a model of gender, which, whilst undergoing aconsiderable degree of destabilisation which may facilitate certain changes innormative behaviour, may also be so deeply entrenched within the individual andcollective unconscious as to render certain aspects of reflexive transformationproblematic.The theoretical perspectives outlined in this chapter have focused on transformativepossibilities as well as the limits to reconfigurations of gender practice. Throughoutthe textual analyses of the case studies which are to follow, I will develop myanalysis and application of these theories of gender in the context of therepresentations of masculinity within those case studies. They will reveal how farmasculinities are enabled and constrained by discourses, what are the limits toreflexive transformation, and how social structures operate in relation to agency. Inthis way I intend to show how theories of gender, when applied to the textualanalysis of popular television, can contribute to an understanding of masculinity.3.4 ConclusionThis chapter has outlined the principal methodological approach which underpinsthis thesis, Raymond Williams’s concept of structures of feeling. It has shown howWilliams intended it as a method for textual analysis while incorporating discoursescirculating within the wider social, cultural, and political contexts. It went on to432 Bourdieu (2002), p. 9.117 examine some of the limitations of its use both theoretically but also in how it wasapplied by Williams himself. It explained how it is used in this thesis, and how itdiffers from Williams own application. Firstly, it allows for the examination of bothwider historical discourses as well as textual analysis. Secondly, it focuses ontelevision and in particular popular television rather than canonical texts. Thirdly, itsprincipal concern is with gender representations and relations rather than class.Fourthly, its main consideration is for residual discourses of gender rather thanemergent ones.The second part of this chapter examined the theoretical framework which underpinsthe following case studies. While the principal methodology throughout this thesis isthe textual analysis of significant television programmes, I have outlined theapproaches to gender and transformative change which will inform that analysis.Through the introduction of key theorists who stress both possibilities and limitationsthis section has examined the notion of the discursive subject of Foucault, Butler’stheory of gender and performativity, questions about structure and agency putforward by Giddens and finally the limits of reflexive transformation suggested byBourdieu. In the next three chapters I will apply these directly throughout the textualanalysis as a method of understanding the reconfiguration of discourses ofmasculinity within the specific cultural context of Britain in the 1970s and 1980s.118 4 Dead End: Peter McDougall and John Mackenzie4.1 IntroductionThis chapter will argue that the work of Peter McDougall reveals a structure offeeling expressing male anxieties around the construction and performance ofmasculinity, which, while showing residual and dominant discourses as both troubledand troubling, sees the possibilities of change as profoundly problematic. It willconsider the argument that in certain societies working-class masculine identitiesmay become so habituated and conditioned within existing social structures that thepotential for self reflexive transformation is heavily proscribed. The principal aim isto investigate culturally specific social structures to establish the ways in which theycreate and limit working-class masculine identity. Through an examination of threesocial realist films written by Peter McDougall and directed by John Mackenzie whichemerged out of the broader context of BBC television drama strand Play for Today inthe 1970s, this chapter will show how the extant social structures serve to establishand confine masculine identities on both collective and individual levels and restrictthe capabilities for reflexive transformation. I will argue that while the narratives mayoperate as a critique of residual and dominant discourses alluding to emergentdiscourses existing outside of the immediate culture, by prohibiting both access toand comprehension of these discourses by his protagonists, McDougall expressesanxieties about the masculinities he chronicles, suggesting that there is minimalpossibility for meaningful change.This chapter will initially introduce McDougall’s work within its historical, cultural andproduction contexts, and attempt to assess its critical reception. It will draw upon the119 press coverage for all three films as wider evidence of anxieties and concernsaround working-class experience revealing both engagement with and hostility to itsfictional representations of working-class men, alternating between sympathy fortheir plight and criticism of the excesses of their masculine practices. While thismaterial functions as a barometer of both serious and popular press and theirattitudes to television, further evidence will be considered for the impact of theprogrammes on their wider constituent audience.The chapter will then go on to explore specific theoretical perspectives whichunderpin the analysis which is to follow, focusing on masculinity and social structuresand examining how they function as constraining forces. It will take into accountConnell’s approach which understands masculinity to be operating within astructured world where ‘social structure’ refers to ‘the constraints that lie in a givenform of social organization’.433 It will also consider Messerschmidt’s position whichargues that while there may be both the ‘meaningful actions of individual agents andthe structural features of social settings’, also acknowledges that the ways gendermay be performed are highly dependent upon the social circumstances whichfrequently demand a set of normative standards.434 Thus, while masculinity is aconstruct which is experienced and negotiated in particular contexts through acolloquy between reproduction and revision, specific social structural conditions mayserve to limit the many ways gender can be performed.433 R. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge: Polity, 1987), p. 92.434 James W. Messerschmidt , ‘Men, Masculinities and Crime’, in Handbook of Studies on Men andMasculinities, ed. by Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn and Robert W. Connell (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 197).120 I will then go on to introduce the specific social structure of class and working-classpractices in particular which will form the principal framework from which themasculine experiences described by Peter McDougall can be understood. At thispoint the chapter will consider a number of more specific working-class culturaltraditions relevant to McDougall’s narratives and how they serve not only to establishand bolster but also to confine a particular kind of working-class masculinity. First itwill explore the tension between work and play in working-class cultures and howthis functions in relation to the construction and performance of masculine identities.I will argue that while work and working practices performed a key function in theformation and self-definition of working-class masculinities it is play and leisurewhich informs the masculinities portrayed by McDougall as his protagonists managethe formal system through both flight from responsibility and ‘domestic refusal’.435 This chapter will then go on to examine the geographically and culturally specificliterary tradition of Clydesideism and the notion of the ‘hard man’ which portraysmasculinities that are at once oppressive, self-destructive and deeply dysfunctional.Through the analysis of some of McDougall’s key protagonists I will assess how theyfit into this Scottish literary tradition. This will then lead on to an extendedexamination of the function of violence in helping to establish identities. Informed bya number of significant academic studies I will show how masculinities cansimultaneously be characterised by conflict, competition, and self-differentiationwhich can manifest itself in violent behaviour. What emerges is a pattern of violentinteraction which while a consequence of economic deprivation is also a means toachieve status. I will show how McDougall’s work conforms to a number of social435 Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill, Men and Masculinities: Theory, Research and Social Practice(Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003), p. 37.121 and cultural concepts as it explores how the social distribution of honour andprestige, frequently within one class-based strata, is achieved through violence andhow this can become a pleasurable experience taking on both expressive andaesthetic qualities. However, I will go on to stress that again it is the socialstructures which underpin this violence, whether territoriality and affective localism orsectarianism and localised gang culture, and examine how these function in helpingto construct and confine masculine identities.Finally this chapter will consider McDougall’s conclusion that, for his protagonists,masculine transformation is something of an impossibility, since the extant socialstructures, created by men, have left those same men so brutalised and adrift fromdiscourses emanating from outside of their own culture that they remain locked intotheir subject positions. It will show that even when his male characters possess adegree of awareness about their constructions and performances of masculinity,revealing their anxieties and uncertainties, the possibilities opened up by thoseanxieties are ultimately extinguished by established discourses.4.2 Peter McDougall in ContextWhile McDougall’s films make minimal allusion to their wider historical context, theynevertheless emerged from, and were a product of, their times. Thus, there were anumber of historical factors in the 1970s which might be considered to affect both thetimbre and content of his work. Firstly, there is the social and cultural context withthe ostensible legacy bestowed by the 1960s upon the 1970s. A great deal hasbeen written about the differences between the two decades, with the sixties widely122 characterised by its optimism and the seventies by its ‘surliness and introversion’.436 While Shail has argued that the two periods are not discrete from each other, hegoes on to say that ’there was a historic shift from the exuberance which marked theworking-class emancipation of the early sixties, to the besieged mentality which wasto become a characteristic of the […] seventies’.437 Another view, from ChristopherBooker, coming from the right, was that while the 1960s and early 1970s had been aperiod of escapism and fantasy it was only by 1975 that Britain witnessed an‘explosion into reality’.438 He saw the decade as one that was wholly dispiriting.Hunt has argued that while there was important liberalising legislation in the 1970smost actually occurred in the 1960s.439 Indeed, he goes on, there was actually a‘counter-strike of punitive legislation’ including the Industrial Relations Act,Emergency Powers Act, Misuse of Drugs Act and Immigration Act all of which wereintended to defend what Hall has described as ‘hegemony in conditions of severecrisis’.440 Thus, from a number of critical perspectives the decade has beenperceived as a period of disillusion and retrenchment.While then, the widely accepted though certainly not uncontested axiom was that theseventies was the negative corollary of the sixties, on initial viewing McDougall’sthree films might appear to bear this out.441 They are certainly bereft of theoptimism, hope, or opportunity that many have argued the sixties heralded for theworking-class. They are also characterised by their lack of escapism reflecting a436 David Gibbs ed., Nova 1965-1975, (London: Pavillion, 1993), p. 38.437 Robert Shail, ‘Constructions of Masculinity in 1960s British Cinema’ (unpublished doctoral thesis,University of Exeter, 2002), p. 96.438 Christopher Booker, The Seventies: Portrait of a Decade (London: Allen Lane, 1980), p. 110.439 Leon Hunt, British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 17.440 Ibid; Stuart Hall and others, Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, (New York, NY:Holmes and Meier, 1978), p. 278.441 See for example Andy Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), p. 201, for a more measured assessment of the decade.123 largely grim view of society. McDougall’s work, however, does not sit particularlycomfortably with this rather oversimplified view of the two decades. Rather thansuggesting that the sixties had come to a crashing end, for his protagonists, it hadlargely passed them by. As Wickham has observed with Whatever Happened to theLikely Lads, the characters may be ‘bound up in the times but also the place’, in thiscase the North-East.442 He sees Clement and La Frenais’ protagonists as ‘distancedby geography and wealth’ living in a place which is both ‘industrial and provincial’.443 Thus, while this may have led to much of Britain being remote from the ostensiblechanges occurring in the South, when sixties permissiveness did trickle down, it didso in a very different form.444 Away from metropolitan London social and cultural changes may have trickled downbut, arguably, these could be viewed as superficial. Where promiscuity, long hairand rock music have finally reached the West Coast of Scotland from swingingLondon they have done so in a bastardised, threadbare and highly localised form. Inone telling scene in Just a Boy’s Game, as The Cuban Heels perform The RollingStones’ ‘Paint it Black’ from 1966, to a backdrop of violence, it is clear that theostensible spirit of the 1960s is characterised by its absence. Other writers such asWaterhouse and Hall recognised this failure of the 1960s to have little real impact onworking-class lives, and in their case this was even in the West End of London.Thus, the legacy of the 1960s was frequently experienced in a watered down,piecemeal way with signifiers of emergent discourses around permissiveness largelywithout their full meaning behind them. For many, social mobility, greater equality,442 Phil Wickham, The Likely Lads (BFI: London, 2008), p. 32.443 Ibid., p. 33.444 Hunt (1998), p. 20.124 and freedom from traditional social practices, let alone feminism and gay rights hadlittle impact on prevailing dominant discourses.Another view of the 1970s was that while it was undoubtedly a period of widespreadeconomic decline it also witnessed, for a considerable amount of the population,aspiration, affluence and increased consumerism.445 Once again, while this mayhave been the case, McDougall’s work, seems to accord more comfortably withMarwick’s economic assessment of industrial Scotland where ‘whatever optimismthere had been in the late 1940s’ by the 1970s it ‘had by now almost completelyevaporated’.446 From the 1950s there was ‘a deepening depression in the old heavyindustries’ with unemployment ‘well above the national average’.447 Thus, while the1940s and 1950s may have witnessed a degree of prosperity for previousgenerations in Scotland, whatever economic benefits the 1960s or 1970s may havehad to offer, these were not felt everywhere, as Scotland’s population declinedthroughout both decades.A further historical factor, with specific regard to gender, which would appear to haveinfluenced McDougall’s work, is that the 1970s can be seen as an extremelyimportant decade for working-class men. Regardless of the decline in manufacturingthroughout the period, the decade actually witnessed the apotheosis of the power ofthe working man, largely through the economic importance of heavy industry coupledwith the strength of powerful trade unions. By 1971 over half of all male employees445 See for example Dominic Sandbrook, Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974-1979 (London: Allen Lane, 2012), pp. 13-19: Alwyn Turner, Crisis, What Crisis?: Britain in the 1970s (London: Aurum, 2008),pp. 126-127.446 th Arthur Marwick, British Society Since 1945: The Penguin Social History of Britain, 4 edn (Penguin:London, 2003), p. 154.447 Ibid.125 were members of a union and throughout the 1970s all governments needed unioncooperation if they were to be able to operate effectively.448 With exceptionallyheavy levels of unionisation through all key industries and a large number ofmuscular unions, this was a time of considerable political militancy.449 Consequently, throughout the decade the country experienced almost continualindustrial action, powerful enough to bring down a government.450 If this power may have led to a level of hubris and feelings of invincibility for manyworking-class men there were only minimal signs in their working experiences of thedramatic fall that was to occur in the following decade. While McDougall’s films donot address politics or economics in any explicit sense there are, however,indications of what may be about to come to an end. He shows us automatedshipyards with sealed containers largely negating the need for multitudes of dockers;more tellingly, as two of his unemployed working-class protagonists discuss theirsituations this is juxtaposed against employees’ cars entering an IBM factory. Thus,McDougall appears to be suggesting that many men will not be well placed to takeadvantage of these new post-industrial economic developments.While McDougall’s work is clearly conditioned by the wider historical context of theperiod, as a writer of original fiction for television he was perfectly placed within theproduction context of the period. As I have already argued in the Introduction, by the1970s television had become central to British cultural life and in terms of bothpopularity and subject matter it was undoubtedly more important than film as a448 Marwick (3003), p. 173.449 Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (London: Pan MacMillan, 2008), p. 324.450 Ibid., pp. 340-343.126 reflection of British working-class life.451 Television was also willing and able to workthrough an enormous amount of contentious issues and deal with matters broughtabout by social fragmentation presenting a diversity of programmes to a massaudience.452 Throughout the 1970s Play for Today (UK, 1970-1984), which had evolved out of theWednesday Play (UK, 1964-70), was among ‘several strands which encouragedwriters to tell their own stories in their own voices, the more original the better’.453 Itwas at this time that the BBC was looking for social realist screenplays and ‘hadstarted hot-housing Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Willy Russell’.454 Colin Welland,however, felt that they should not be looking for writers who are writing plays, theyshould be looking for writers who are not. People from backgrounds where they donot consider writing to be something they could ever possibly be involved in.McDougall has claimed that he had never read a book, and when he did start to writehe would be so embarrassed he would hide his work.455 What resulted fromWelland’s subsequent ‘discovery’ and championing of the writer was a six yearcollaboration between McDougall and director John Mackenzie, which Mackenziehas described as ‘a sort of marriage, we complemented each other’.456 Indeed itwould be foolish to underestimate the contribution made by Mackenzie to the451 See for example Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London: Fontana, 1974);Richard Dyer, Gays and Film (London: BFI, 1977); Andrew Spicer, Typical Men: The Representation ofMasculinity in Popular British Cinema (London: I. B. Taurus, 2001); David Rolinson, ‘The Last StudioSystem: A Case for British Television Films’, in Don’t Look Now: British Television in the 1970s, ed. byPaul Newland (Bristol: Intellect, 2011), pp. 163-176.452 Lez Cooke, British Television Drama: A History (London: BFI, 2003), p. 91.453 Razor Sharp, w. Simon Farquar, d.Bevis Evans-Teush, p. Gillian McKirdy. [Included as DVD extra to ThePeter McDougall Collection, John Williams Productions, 2006].454 Paul Dale, ‘Peter McDougall and John Mackenzie: Pull No Punches’, The List, 631, 11 June 2009, ListFilm Section [accessed 14 August 2009]; The Late Show: Big Boy’s Tale: A Profile of Peter McDougall, BBC2, 15September 1993, 23.15, 40mins.455 Razor Sharp (2006).456 Ibid.127 success of their work together. While accuracy, situation, and dialogue may beattributable to McDougall, Mackenzie gives ‘brawls an alarming urgency’, observesGreenock as ‘poised between desolation and the picturesque’ and provides‘immediacy, fluidity and pace’.457 According to Simon Farquhar this waspretty much the first time that contemporary Scotland had been seenon screen […] without concession and without apology. It changedScotland’s image permanently.458 Not used to seeing their nation painted in such bleak and unflinching detail, ‘the localpress had a field day‘.459 While some critics valued its impact seeing it as a positiveexposure of the problems in contemporary society, others viewed that same impactto be entirely negative. Indeed much of the critical reception for McDougall’s workhas taken exception to its violence, its depiction of Scotland and to its ostensiblemoral ambivalence. Just Another Saturday, (UK, 1975) for example, while invitingthe ire of both the Orange Lodges and Greenock Council also disgusted many otherviewers.460 It was, however, Just a Boy’s Game, (UK, 1979) which received themost negative press reaction. Richard Last accused it of dredging the ‘depths ofhuman degradation for its own sake’ and while it was ‘shudderingly atmospheric’ itwas without the ‘strong social motivation of Scum’, (UK, 1977).461 The GlasgowHerald forewarned that ‘the correspondence columns of newspapers (would be) acolourful riot […] of indignation’ epitomised by a letter to the Western Mail calling it a457 Allen Wright, ‘Life in the Raw –But the View is from London’, Scotsman, 3 November 1979; DuncanPetrie, Contemporary Scottish Fictions: Film, Television and the Novel (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2004), pp. 22-23.458 Razor Sharp (2006).459 Dale (2009).460 Wright (1979).461 Richard Last, ‘Nastiness for its Own Sake’, Daily Telegraph, 9 November 1979.128 ‘most repellent and sickening piece of TV drama’.462 Elsewhere ClydesideCouncilors claimed it was far from typical, would fail to attract industry or people, andshowed ignorance of the area. 463 However, responding to accusations that his workis unnecessarily and graphically violent, McDougall has argued that while thestylised violence of The Sweeney (UK, 1975-78) might prove more acceptable, whathe shows is the real thing.464 ‘To emulate those fights you have to have been there’he says which accords with Mackenzie’s claim that this is ‘a serious look at violenceshowing it for what it is – nasty’.465 However, while McDougall may have some grounds for questioning why the Scottishobjected to him for giving them a bad name, which he says is not the case withLiverpool and Bleasdale (contrary to what Bleasdale himself attests), positive criticalreception for his work was considerable.466 Stanley Reynold, for example, describedJust Another Saturday as a small piece of life, riveting in its little details andexchanges and James Thomas saw it as taking ‘a scalpel to the bone of everydaysociety’.467 Similarly Sylvia Clayton recognised the privileged nature of the ‘writingcharged with the energy of direct experience’ evoking what Stewart Lane has calledthe ‘heady nature’ of its subject matter; and while Allen Wright described it as one ofthe ‘most pungent plays that any Scotsman has written’, critics also singled out its462 William McIIvanney, ‘Why The Demons Should Steer Clear Of Greenock’, Glasgow Herald, 10 November1979a; Judith Cook, ‘Letters’, Western Mail, 10 November 1979.463 William McIIvanney, ‘Violent TV Play Angers Clydeside’, Glasgow Herald, 9 November 1979b; Anon,‘Provost Calls BBC Liars and Cheats’, Glasgow Herald, 10 November 1979.464 The Late Show (1983).465 Ibid.466 Ibid; The South Bank Show: Alan Bleasdale, LWT, 13 January 1985, 22.30 hrs.467 Stanley Reynold, The Times, 25 August 1977; James Thomas, ‘A Day When Hate Erupts into Violence’,Daily Express, 14 March 1975.129 part documentary approach, the ‘powerful fusion of actuality and fiction’ being a‘triumph for the production team’.468 Just a Boy’s Game was received even more favourably by parts of the British press.McIIvanney described it as ‘a bathyscope sunk into the social identity, anexamination of working-class subcultures, in this case machismo ‘revealed through arepetitive structure of ‘sequences of bleak events’.469 It showed, he said, violence as‘a contrived response to a penal environment’ which is ‘assuredly real and withus’.470 While Wright maintained that ‘seldom has the ugly futility of violence beenexplored to greater effect’, Stanley Eveling’s praise was that while it ‘did not provideanswers’ it did furnish a ‘sharp picture of the questions’.471 McDougall then, had done what no one before him had: taken the language of thestreets of Glasgow and put it on the page. 472 What emerged were scripts depicting‘the dirty footprint of (Scotland’s) sprawling West Coast’ liberally laced with ‘gallowsof mirth’.473 Jeremy Isaacs has said that McDougall’s ‘greatest achievement is givinga voice to a section of the public who don’t often get to see themselves ontelevision’.474 He writes about things that matter, even if they are uncomfortableexploring the ‘spirit of human defiance and endeavour’ in the face of badsituations.475 Described in 1993 as having written the ‘most controversial and468 Sylvia Clayton, ‘Disillusion of the Orange Day Parade’ Daily Telegraph 14 March 1975; Stewart Lane,‘Orange Day Splendour and Spleen’, Morning Star, 15 March 1975; Wright (1979); Thomas (1975); Lane(1975).469 McIIvanney (1979a).470 Ibid.471 Wright (1979); Stanley Eveling, ‘Television’, Scotsman, 10 November 1979.472 Dale (1979).473 Ibid.474 The Late Show (1983).475 Ibid.130 important television in the past twenty years’, Isaacs believes his work is capable ofsaying ‘very serious things about the human heart and condition’.476 McDougall has made much of his early background in Greenock. He has talked ofbeing married at seventeen; ’weans’ at twenty; and working in the shipyards fromfifteen.477 He has vivid recollections of going to work in Greenock, the harshconditions, the raw environment and the shabby treatment by employers. As awriter, he says, you project back to your past and memories.478 He was unhappy attechnical school where he saw his first fight with a Stanley knife and a meathook; heleft at 15, entered the shipyards, which he hated, with only the Orange parades andbaton throwing to keep him going.479 He can also recall the masculine performanceof men in that particular milieu, ‘their poses and grimaces’, and his own feelings of‘malaise’ and ‘ennui’ where he gradually realised that he ‘didn't fit in to the vacant lotfate found for him in 1950 in Greenock’: ‘Even when I was a child I’d wonder what Iwas doing’ there.480 It was believing there was something else which drove him outof Greenock.481 Thus McDougall, in expressing his own experiences and feelings inthe characters he has created, chooses to employ the trope of escape, emphasisingthe individual, seen as different and special, over the collective or class. Indeed it isthe ‘restricted codes of working-class life’ from which he sees it necessary to liberatehimself from.482 476 The Late Show (1983).477 Razor Sharp (2006).478 The Late Show (1983).479 Ibid.480 Razor Sharp (2006).481 The Late Show (1983).482 John Kirk, ‘Changing the Subject: Cultural Studies and the Demise of Class’, Cultural Logic, 5 (2002) [accessed 15 January 2012] (para 23 of 24).131 McDougall’s films thus reveal a structure of feeling which emerges from livedexperience. This is an experience which McDougall himself went through, one whichreflects an unease with dominant discourses of masculinity while simultaneouslyunsure of alternative or emergent discourses. Kirk has argued that within Hoggart’sUses of Literacy there is astructure of feeling striving to combine in a useful tension betweenwhat might be termed the cognitive and the emotive: what RaymondWilliams tried to make sense of in the term 'thought as feeling, feelingas thought’.483 Here experience is crucial in speaking of working-class subjectivities. It is theexperiential which confers an 'authenticity' upon Hoggart. It is this experience thenwhich forms the nucleus of McDougall’s writing. Much of his work is at least semi-autobiographical, reflecting his involvement with sectarian violence, activelypartaking in the Orange parades, his grandfather and uncles who ran withGlaswegian razor gangs, and existing within the Greenock tenements. A usefulcomparison may be drawn between McDougall and Scot Hames analysis of JamesKelman, who operates within a tradition of working-class realism.484 Like McDougall,Hames suggests that in Kelman there is no aesthetic distance between whatappears to be the objective view of the world, the narrator or author’s voice and theworld itself. We are forced to experience it ourselves subjectively in the ‘moment tomoment consciousness’ of the ‘characters perceptions’.485 It is this focus onexperience which may provide McDougall with his voice of experiential authenticity.Indeed, as Petrie has suggested, what McDougall and Mackenzie appear to want isto483 Kirk (2002), (para 23 of 24).484 Scott Hames, ‘Dogged Masculinities: Male Subjectivity and Socialist Despair in Kelman and McIlvanney’,Scottish Studies Review, 8.1 (Spring 2007), 67-87 (p. 67).485 Ibid., p. 85.132 confront the problem of how to represent working-class experience interms that will be understandable and recognisable to the verymembers of society that their work claims to represent.486 Indeed, Mackenzie has said about McDougall, that as a writer he is ‘a primitive in thebest sense of the word’, with the potential to explore the experiential subjectivities ofhis protagonists from a particularly privileged and authoritative position.487 It couldbe argued then that within McDougall’s writing there is much which is Hoggartian inthat he is able to combine both ethnography and autobiography. However, whatLaurie Taylor and others have described as ‘sentimentality and nostalgia’ in TheUses of Literacy is entirely absent in McDougall. There is nothing romantic about hisunequivocally dystopian vision.488 McDougall’s work articulates a structure of feeling which conveys how individualexperience and emotion are connected to wider social structures. He uncoverssocial experiences which are frequently undervalued, dismissed, or repressed andwhich exist outside of official consciousness or the dominant ideology. He describeswhat Shiach has called the ‘characteristic fears, desires, and blindnesses of theperiod’, expressing ‘the lived affect of a time’ with his ‘dynamic, ephemeralstories’.489 Mackenzie has remarked that McDougall himself tends to write the same plays.490 While this may not strictly be the case across the entire body of McDougall’s work486 Petrie (2004), p. 22.487 The Late Show (1993).488 Thinking Aloud: Richard Hoggart, BBC Radio 4, 31 August 2009, 16.00.489 Morag Shiach, ‘A Gendered History of Cultural Categories’, in Cultural Materialism: On RaymondWilliams, ed. by Christopher Prendergast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp 51-70 (p.58); Cora Kaplan, ‘What We Have Again to Say: Williams, Feminism and the 1850s’, in CulturalMaterialism: On Raymond Williams (see Shiach above), pp. 211-236 (p. 232).490 Razor Sharp (2006).133 which includes the prison/crime biographical drama A Sense of Freedom (UK, 1979)about professional criminal Jimmy Boyle, Down Among the Big Boys (UK, 1993)dealing with the forthcoming marriage between the daughter of a Glaswegian careercriminal and an ambitious young detective, and Shoot for the Sun (UK, 1986) a bleakdrama concerned with Edinburgh’s burgeoning heroin problem, the three plays heworked on in collaboration with Mackenzie for the BBC do bear some strikingresemblances in themes and concerns as well as narrative structures, if not in tone.Just Another Saturday and Just a Boy’s Game appear to be the most similar in theirexpression of masculine dysfunction while The Elephant’s Graveyard (UK, 1976)could be seen as a critique of the other two, an exegesis of the situations andcharacters depicted within them.Just Another Saturday takes place over one day, is centred around the OrangeParade March and features as its principal protagonist John, a seventeen year oldProtestant drum major of the Maryhill Flute Band. McDougall has described the playas an ‘exorcism of that malaise’ which he felt at the time, ‘an articulation’ offeelings.491 There is very little that marks John out as anything exceptional or specialwithin his working-class milieu as he drifts through pubs with their excessive drinkingsessions and violent street confrontations. Peter Leaven has described it as ‘anemotionally crippling environment’ where, according to Sylvia Clayton, ‘the need tobelong, to believe in something’ leads to ‘a study of disillusionment, of tarnishedmagic’.492 While the day itself may stand out as unusual, an annual celebration ofmarching, music, drinking, and speeches it is made up of a series of events which491 The Late Show (1983).492 Peter Leaven, ‘Just Another Saturday’, Sunday Times, 23 March 1975; Clayton (1975).134 have probably been played out, with slight variations, for decades. Indeed the notionof continuity and sectarian tradition underscores the entire narrative.The narrative of Just a Boy’s Game also takes place over a period of approximatelytwenty-four hours, and features Jake, an older but still young working-classprotagonist. His world is almost entirely concentrated around traditional masculineactivities and their attendant purlieux, where women are largely elided from thenarrative, and at the core of these activities is the constant threat or actuality ofviolence. It is a world where ‘respect for the hardman holds sway […] whereverthere is social misery’.493 Here is what McDougall describes as the ‘irony of boysplaying boys games’ with men who have ‘not grown up yet’.494 However, whereJohn in Just Another Saturday is ultimately an innocent victim of masculine violence,Jake is the perpetrator. Indeed violence is pivotal to his existence. Again continuityplays an important role where Jake sees himself as the bearer of a highly coded andrespected male tradition of violence.What is most striking, however, are the thematic similarities of these two plays.While both the narratives operate as critiques of masculine practices within a specificmilieu, they also question any real possibility of change. The characters appear tobe locked into their class and gender positions with very little suggestion that theycan evolve. While the possibility of generational change may be entertained, eventhis appears to be eclipsed by repetition and stasis. The narratives themselves haveno real sense of closure, but rather than opening up possibilities for the future, one isactually left with a bleak sense of pessimism. If we were perhaps to witness the next493 Wright (1979).494 The Late Show (1983).135 24 hours played out by the two protagonists, the next year or indeed the rest of theirlives, they might be seen to resemble the myth of the Flying Dutchman, doomed towander through their milieu forever.It is these thematic similarities which are addressed, indeed discussed explicitly, bythe protagonists in The Elephant’s Graveyard in a self-conscious almost referentialway. Once again the narrative is played out over a short period of time, in this casea working day. However, while Just Another Saturday and Just a Boy’s Game bothhave, to some degree, dramatic narratives with incident and event, here there ismerely a gossamer of a story, an encounter between two men shirking work andevading their wives. There are only two protagonists, and while they do engage insome competitive games and story-telling the main body of the narrative consists ofreflective verbal exchanges between the two. Much of the dialogue operates as ahomily about the pointlessness and hopelessness of the protagonist’s existence.While the narrative attempts to articulate an alternative discourse to those whichdominate his other two plays and establishes the profound need for change,appearing to be open to the possibility of this happening, the end offers somethingwhich is far less optimistic. Indeed the play as a whole operates as a unique almostsupernatural experience for its protagonists, but one fears that ultimately little hasbeen enduringly comprehended and learned. Thus like the Bourbons they havelearned nothing and forgotten nothing.Critical reception for The Elephant’s Graveyard was understandably mixed. Whilesome of the more middle-class commentators failed to see its relevance tocontemporary Britain, other critics were far more aware of its ability to reflect the136 mood of the times. James Thomas saw it as a ‘self-indulgent experiment’ with‘nothing relevant to say about their plight’ and revealing a ‘strange philosophy’, whileDennis Potter dismissed it as ‘a worthless argument […] a tartan Christ withaphorisms’.495 While others, however, thought it ‘insightful but oblique’ many criticswere entirely positive.496 Shaun Usher saw it as ‘little more than eavesdropping, butwhat a lot that was’.497 With its ‘sprightly minded dialogue’ and ‘ intelligent direction’it revealed a ‘sense of communion between strangers’ who have ‘opened theirhearts’ and while it was ‘poetic and uplifting’ it was ultimately defeatist suggestingthat ‘things will only get worse’.498 While others saw it as simply ‘imaginative andresonant’ or ‘refreshing television’, Peter Knight recognised its subject as the ‘deeprifts and personal conflicts which divide people’ and its treatment of ‘light rawhumour’ and ‘sharp edged irony’ was ‘quite brilliant’ revealing the ‘helplessness oftheir situations’.499 While critical responses to McDougall’s plays were varied and official responseswere frequently driven by vested interests within Scotland, for many of the generalaudience the overall affect was a feeling of disgust and outrage.500 While there is aneed to guard against making generalisations about the precise impact on theaudience at the time, there is some limited evidence of viewers’ responses. This,however, while providing an indication of how the programmes’ affected their wideraudience should not, of course, be regarded as conclusive evidence. Judith Cook in495 James Thomas, ‘Marathon Bletherers’, Daily Express, 13 October 1976; Dennis Potter, ‘The Elephant’sGraveyard’, Sunday Times, 17 October 1976.496 Alan Freason, ‘The Friend Who Never Was’, Evening News, 8 August 1978.497 Shaun Usher, ‘Treasures in The Elephant’s Graveyard’, Daily Mail, 13 October 1976.498 Ibid.499 Nancy Banks-Smith, ‘Play For Today’, Guardian, 13 October 1976; Stewart Lane, ‘The Elephant’sGraveyard’, Morning Star, 13 October 1976; Peter Knight, ‘Raw Humour Highlights Personal Rifts’,Sunday Telegraph, 13 October 1976.500 Wright (1979).137 a letter to the Western Mail found Just a Boys Game so beyond the pale that it wasonly likely to ‘appeal to those with sick minds’.501 The BBC also received numerouscomplaints from viewers for both first and repeat screenings of Just AnotherSaturday and Just a Boy’s Game and of these, the majority expressed a deepdistaste at the level of violence in the plays.502 However, as Millington and Nelson have argued, television consists of polysemictexts with ‘complex encoded signal(s) which the viewer interprets’ decoding them ‘interms of their individual constructions of its meanings’.503 The text ‘directs but doesnot determine viewer response’ which is constrained though not determined, by (theviewers) ‘cultural and ideological disposition’.504 Inevitably then, loose groupings ofviewers would be affected in different ways. As such, ‘audiences are problematic’since they are ‘difficult to define’, ‘never completely knowable’ and are neither fixednor controllable.505 Nonetheless, the high viewing figures recorded by the BBC for initial and repeatscreenings clearly reflected something other than outrage or disgust.506 In hersurvey of the responses of Glasgow audiences to the plays, Ajay Close has arguedthat the male audience, in particular, interpreted McDougall’s characters as ‘toughand tender, fearsome and vulnerable’ enabling them to identify with the emotion501 Cook (1979).502 The Late Show (1993).503 Bob Millington and Robin Nelson, Boys From the Blackstuff: The Making of a TV Drama (London:Comedia, 1986), p. 152.504 Ibid., p. 153.505 Nicholas Abercrombie and Brian J. Longhurst, Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination, (London: Sage, 1989), p. 1; Kristyn Gorton, Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), p. 4; 12; 11.506 Razor Sharp (2006).138 while simultaneously engaging with the violence.507 Thus, while a largely maleaudience may have recognised the ‘fears’ and ‘anxieties’ behind the ‘tough facades’this was just as likely to be counterbalanced by an appreciation of the more visceralelements.508 While some of the audience may have felt uneasy about McDougall’ssense of ambiguity about the world he presented, exposing weakness and crueltybut also looking on in awe, it is this ambiguity ‘that permits his plays to be at once anindictment of West Coast machismo and cult viewing for those that subscribe to thecode’.509 The Elephant’s Graveyard, however, elicited a rather different responsefrom the audience, one male viewer being particularly struck by the intimacy of thepiece with the idea of two men exchanging confessional thoughts and anxious fearsas something quite alien to television which should be welcomed.510 More generallya BBC Audience Research Report recorded its participants finding the combinationof optimism and pessimism with idealism and cynicism particularly affecting.511 Gorton has made a convincing case for the study of television audiences togetherwith the concept of emotion and aesthetics.512 She suggests that television in Britaindeveloped in such a way that the dominant aesthetic was one associated withrealism, and that this aesthetic can be employed to elicit audience emotion.513 Thus,in exhibiting an ‘understated, real-life effect’, Gallagher argues that film stock,camera movement, natural lighting, location shooting and ambient sound, contributeto the ‘emotional impact’ of McDougall’s plays, with brief close-ups and human507 Ajay Close, ‘Heart of Darkness-Peter McDougall’, Scotland on Sunday, 16 May 1993. First printed inGlasgow Herald, 14 January 1980.508 Wright (1979).509 Close (1993).510 Stuart McGraw, ‘Television’, Western Mail, 17 October 1976.511 BBC, Audience Research Report, The Elephant’s Graveyard, November 1976, BBC.512 Gorton, (2009), p. viii.513 Ibid., p. 73.139 details building on that emotional affect.514 When there is violence it becomes evenmore disturbing because much is hidden from view. For Gallagher, the emotionalaffect on the viewer is driven as much by the visual elements as it is by thedialogue.515 Thus, he argues, while many of McDougall’s characters mayexperience ‘emotional impotency’ the affect upon the audience is one of both pathosand emotional intensity.516 Indeed, as McDougall himself has stated, in writing emotionally retarded andinarticulate characters he wanted to affect his audience, which he recognised asprincipally male, in a much more profound and deeper way than through emotionalexcess. 517 While, however, there was only limited contemporaneous writtenresponse which might bear out McDougall’s intentions, a number of viewers didexpress a degree of understanding for the male characters and the ways they wereportrayed as trapped by environment and circumstances.518 Thus, while theoverwhelming written response from viewers was a negative one there were alsoindications that sections of his audience found that this emotional inarticulacyconstituted a particularly affective experience.519 4.3 Masculinity, Social Structures, and Class514 Paul Gallagher, ‘Peter McDougall’s Classic Gangland Film’, Dangerous Minds [accessed 19March 2014]515 Gallagher, ‘Peter McDougall’s Classic Gangland Film’, Dangerous Minds[n.d.].516 Ibid.517 The Late Show, (1983).518 Anon, ‘Did You See?’, Glasgow Herald, 10 November 1979; Razor Sharp (2006).519 The Late Show, (1983).140 McDougall’s work is concerned with the ways particular social structures serve toconstruct and confine masculine identities to the point where any meaningful agenticaction becomes problematic. While his own experience of working in the Greenockshipyards and participating in violence and sectarianism was cut mercifully shortthrough his ‘escape’ from his immediate environment, his films are far morepessimistic about widespread change either on an individual or collective level.What McDougall is suggesting is that social structures, including class, operate inways which permit or prohibit the available discourses. Thus, his narrativesdeconstruct his protagonists’ experience of the overpowering influence of the socialstructures which come to determine their construction and performance ofmasculinity.Connell refers to ‘social structure’ as ‘the constraints that lie in a given form of socialorganization’.520 However, he also maintains that practice, while constrained, mayalso alter social structures. As Connell explains:Practice is the transformation of […] (a) situation in a particulardirection. To describe structure is to specify what it is in the situationthat constrains the play of practice. Since the consequence of practiceis a transformed situation which is the object of a new practice,‘structure’ specifies the way practice (over time) constrains practice.521 In terms of gender relations Connell identifies three principal structures, which I havepreviously outlined in Chapter One, labour, power, and cathexis.522 While Connellsees these as interrelated and in some way ordered, they are also shifting andaltering due to historical process.523 The consequence of this process is that thegender order is construed as ‘a historically constructed pattern of power relations520 Connell (1987), p. 92.521 Ibid., p. 95.522 Ibid., p. 96.523 Ibid., p. 116.141 between men and women’.524 What this seems to suggest, argues Jefferson, is thatwhile gendered relations may be ordered and hierarchical, the structures withinwhich they operate are both multiple and complex.525 Thus, by ‘placing constrainedpractice in command […] questions of history and change’ are accommodated.526 While Connell’s argument may be relevant to many cases it is not necessarilyuniversally applicable. For McDougall’s protagonists practice does not lead totransformed situations, and while all identities are historically constructed here theyhave become so entrenched that any alteration in social structures is rendered allbut impossible.Messerschmidt argues that gender must be viewed as something which emergesfrom specific social practices and settings.527 Adapting West and Zimmerman’sconcept of ‘accountability’ he goes on to say that as individuals begin to understandthat in the process of their behaviour being frequently observed and scrutinised byothers and measured against a set of norms, in becoming accountable for theiractions they may be forced to adapt and perform in ways which are consideredappropriate and acceptable in certain social contexts.528 Thus, the ways that gendermay be performed are highly dependent upon the social circumstances whichfrequently demand a set of normative standards.Messerschmidt is particularly interested in the ways that social structural patternscome to influence, enable, and constrain behaviour over time, where, according to524 Ibid., pp. 98-99.525 Tony Jefferson, ‘Theorising Masculine Subjectivity’, in Just Boys Doing Business?: Men, Masculinities and Crime, ed. by Tim Newburn and Elizabeth A. Stanko (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995), pp. 10-31 (p. 15).526 Ibid.527 Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 197).528 Ibid.142 Giddens, they come to ‘exist as the reproduced conduct of situated actors’.529 Hesuggests that social structures are not simply forms of external constraint and thatgenerally, while subjects may tend to reproduce gendered behaviours they may alsoalter social structures.530 Nonetheless, as with McDougall’s protagonists, specificsocial structural conditions may serve to limit the many ways gender can beperformed. As Messerschmidt has argued:Through this interaction masculinity is institutionalized, permitting mento draw on such existing, but previously formed masculine ways ofthinking and acting to construct a masculinity for specific settings. Theparticular criteria for masculinity are embedded in the social situationsand recurrent practices whereby social relations are structured.531 It is this embeddedness which comes through so clearly in McDougall’s narratives.While then, Messerschmidt and Connell see masculinity as a construct which isexperienced and negotiated through a colloquy between reproduction and revision,within specific contexts it is reproduction that may become the norm. Where thepractice of hegemonic masculinity has become so fixed and social structures sofirmly established any form of revision is rendered particularly problematic. Thus,while McDougall offers fleeting impressions of alternative and emergent discoursesof gender practice they appear to have little impact on dominant and residualdiscourses which are constructed by and confined within the existing socialstructures.While McDougall’s films feature a number of specific and localised social structures,central to the understanding of his male protagonists is the idea that their529 Ibid.; Anthony Giddens, New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of InterpretativeSociologies (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1976), p. 127.530 Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 197).531 Ibid.143 constructions of masculinity are inextricably linked to their working-class experience.As Messerschmidt has argued, men are positioned differently throughout society andsocially organised power relations among men are constructed historically on thebasis of class […].532 The importance of class, however, in the construction ofmasculinity is further compounded, as Morgan argues, by men being holders of classpower, ‘men as centrally involved in class practices as individual or class actors’which may lead to ‘economic circumstances and organisational structure (which)enter into the making of masculinity at the most intimate level’.533 While Kirkmaintains that gender and class, ‘are inseparably linked in any understanding ofsubjectivity’, it is perhaps the particularly intricate and relatively explicit relationshipbetween working-class experience and masculinity which can reveal and expressthis dynamic in a particularly cogent way. 534 In discussing the relationship between working-class identities and working-classexperience Munt has maintained that:Despite its objective existence as an expressed category and itsenduring subjective existence as lived experience, the effects ofrelative deprivation can not only affect life chances but also lifestyles.The gradations of such social status inform and prescribe our mobilitythrough social space. They affect our bodily practices, circumscribeour ideational reality, our sense of self.535 Munt maintains that class is a crucial factor in determining how masculinity orfemininity are experienced. Thus, for McDougall’s protagonists, their constructionand performances of masculinity are entirely informed by their working-class532 Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 198).533 David Morgan, ‘Class and Masculinity’, in Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, (seeMesserschmidt above), pp. 165-177 (p.168); R. W. Connell, Masculinities, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Polity,2005), p.36.534 John Kirk, ‘Changing the Subject: Cultural Studies and the Demise of Class’, Cultural Logic, 5 (2002) [accessed 15 January 2012] (para 16 of 24).535 Sally Munt, ‘Introduction’, in Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change, ed. by SallyMunt (London and New York: Cassell, 2000), pp. 1-18 (p. 3).144 experience. It operates as a social structure which simultaneously constructs andconstrains their masculinity.Morgan has argued that there seems ‘to be something particularly masculine aboutthe idea of class’ within social science discourse but also certain class practices, withmen having ‘assumed or been allocated the role of class agents’.536 This has itsdeep historical and symbolic roots argues Morgan, in the prized masculinecharacteristics exhibited within men’s work which largely excluded women and ofcourse men were at the top of any class hierarchies. Whatever the class it was menwho defined its dominant practices and marginalised or trivialised those practices ofwomen. 537 Thus, even when these dominant practices are characterised by nothingmore than heavy drinking, foolish behaviour, and pointless fighting, McDougall’sprotagonists still consider them to be more important than anything women may beengaged in.Class, then, provides a principal framework from which masculine experiences canbe examined and understood. It constitutes a social structure which serves toenable and constrain the construction and performance of masculinity. Thisrelationship is especially intimate where men, functioning as breadwinners, havebeen involved in heavy industries, where occupational roles have been relativelystable and there is a clear delineation between home and work.538 Tolson hasargued that this is especially marked for working-class masculinity and it becomes‘most apparent within the experience of manual labour’.539 However, as I will now go536 Morgan (2005), pp. 165-177 (p. 168).537 Ibid., pp. 168-9.538 Ibid., p. 172.539 Andrew Tolson, The Limits of Masculinity (London: Tavistock, 1977), p. 58.145 on to show, while tough, hard, physical work may be fundamental in definingworking-class masculinities this has much wider implications for the connectedpractices and structures which have grown out of that work.4.4 Work, Play, and Identity in Working-Class CulturesAs I will go on to argue in the next chapter, work and working practices performed akey function in the formation and self-definition of working-class masculinities.Winlow has argued that in industrialised Britain the men who were born into working-class communitieswere socialised to believe that hard physical labour was a manlypursuit. Boys would be keen to enter the world of work as soon aspossible and thereby establish their masculinity.540 As Joanna Bourke has noted in her research into working-class culture, thecorrelation between work and masculinity was paramount to masculine genderconstruction, suggesting that, for some, it was not the money that encouraged themto work but a sense of manhood’.541 While work and its attendant homosocial spaces may have the power to confermasculine status, for McDougall’s protagonists that status is more likely to beachieved through different but related physical activity which has grown out of theirworking practices. Winlow asserts that work was the principal location whereworking-class men ‘attempted to prove themselves and legitimate their image andself-image as men’.542 It was, he says, that ‘working-class self-respect and conceptsof manliness were constructed in response to class deprivation and the paternalism540 Simon Winlow, Badfellas: Crime, Tradition and New Masculinities (Oxford: Berg, 2001), p. 36.541 Joanna Bourke, Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity (London:Routledge, 1994), p. 94.542 Winlow (2001), p. 36.146 of capitalism’.543 However, argues Winlow, it was not the work itself which bestoweda sense of working-class masculinity, but the resultant structures which provided itsframework. Thus it furnished an environment for the affirmation of masculinity wherework places were almost completely male environments where thebasic elements of masculinity were accentuated, where behaviour wastested and categorised and took on specific meanings.544 The friendships and rivalries formed in these tough, uncompromising environmentsenabled its inhabitants to negotiate a sense of self.545 As Kimmel has noted in largepartit’s other men who are important to […] men; […] men define theirmasculinity not as much in their relation to women, but in their relationto each other. Masculinity is largely a homosocial enactment.546 Thus, the homosocial space becomes a crucial element in masculine constructionand performance. However, while the workplace may offer the ultimate homosocialspace, in McDougall’s work it remains peripheral. When we do get to see Jake’splace of work in Just a Boy’s Game, while it may be presented as exclusively male,potentially dangerous, and thus masculine, it features only briefly, as something toescape from. His protagonists are more frequently shown sharing each otherscompany in snooker halls, public bars, or stairwells. These are spaces over whichthey can exercise far more control than the workplace.While work may be seen as important for masculine identity, Clarke has recogniseda more general working-class masculine culture, which, while dependent upon the543 Ibid.544 Winlow (2001), p. 37.545 Ibid., p. 38.546 Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1997), p. 7.147 shop floor, dilated into other areas of life. As Clarke argues:Shop floor culture has always been contradictorily constructed in thatmany of its elements of resistance have been articulated throughspecific conceptions of toughness and masculinity, about being one ofthe boys, being able to take it.547 While these elements may have originated within the specific culture of the workingenvironment, they also came to dominate elsewhere. Cultural forms such asdrinking and football thus come to be recognised for their valorisation of a particulartype of masculinity.548 For McDougall these are far more important than the actualworking environment itself. ‘These sexual and cultural structures have persisted asthe organising elements of working-class life in the post-war, with some degree ofmodification’ and in the process of becoming embedded, women have becomeelided from those cultures.549 As Clark has argued, in nineteenth-century working-class culture, bars operated as clubs both formal and informal and the ‘drink itselflubricated solidarity’, where men could become less inhibited and more intimate.550 A particular definition of masculine honour emerged, one which was wholly reliant onkeeping separate from women, away from ‘feminine interference’.551 Thus, byfocusing his attention upon homosocial cultural practices almost entirely basedaround leisure McDougall is able to dissect the ways working-class masculinityoperates away from both the bounds of work and the influence of women.547 John Clarke, ‘Capital and Culture: The Post-War Working Class Revisited’, in Working Class Culture:Studies in History and Theory, ed. by John Clarke, Chas Critcher and Richard Johnson (London:Hutchinson, 1979), pp. 238-253 (p. 250).548 Ibid.549 Ibid.550 Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1997), p.30.551 Ibid., p. 122.148 While being employed may be the foundation for working-class masculine identity,there is an apparent tension between the responsibility of work and the freedom andautonomy of leisure. This tension between work and play is particularly apparent inboth Just a Boy’s Game and The Elephant’s Graveyard. While there is no genuinethreat of unemployment for its protagonists, Just a Boy’s Game portrays a worldwhere there is the urgent ‘desire to be released form the bonds of responsibility’.552 Haywood and Mac an Ghaill cite the study of working-class masculinity by Willottand Griffin, where being away from the house and escaping from the domesticsphere was a crucial aspect of men’s identities: ‘The pub became an importantresource within which to maintain a spatial division between the public and thedomestic’ and where irresponsibility becomes part of a way of life allowing for adisavowal of respectability.553 With the public sphere seen as more significant thanthe private sphere, and the downgrading of the domestic, ‘on the one side thereappears risk and danger, the possibilities of heroic achievement or spectaculardownfalls and on the other side there is the routine of the everyday’.554 It is perhaps Dancer in Just a Boy’s Game who embodies this tension between work,leisure and the domestic most unequivocally in his attempt to break free from theresponsibility that both work and family demand. His is the portrayal of a feckless,irresponsible alcoholic yet not without considerable positive resources. Hisproblematic relationship with his wife becomes clear when it is revealed that heregularly fails to come home for several days and drinks to the point of alcoholismfrom early in the morning. However, while she physically attacks and berates him,his response is to make light of the situation. To Dancer it is a joke, just another552 Winlow (2001), p. 38.553 Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2003), p. 38.554 Morgan (2005), pp. 165-177 (p. 169).149 unavoidable part of the game. Indeed, as Petrie suggests, beneath these overlymasculine narratives there is a matriarchal underside where many men ‘expect theirwives to function as mothers’.555 Dancer appears to see his relationship with hisfamily as an informal contractual arrangement, as long as he works and provides forthem they should demand nothing more from him. This is as far as his sense of dutygoes. He refuses to be constrained in any way by any form of responsibility whetherit is work, family, or home.Bromley has described a Glasgow with a strong political cultural tradition ofinfantilised males who ‘inhabit spaces snatched within a culture of poverty and wherewomen lack even these spaces’.556 McDougall, however, while showing us men whoare prone to selfish destructiveness and self-neglect also tends to portray women ‘inlargely unsympathetic terms: as downtrodden, bitter wives or smothering mothers’.557 Ultimately, argues Petrie,McDougall has little interest in attempting to view the situation from theperspective of these women and consequently they remain a mystery,equally remote and closed off from the audience as they are from theimmature male protagonists.558 Mackenzie has suggested that McDougall portrays the women he writes from theperspective of many Scottish men of the period. This is largely a matriarchal society,he says, where boys go out to ‘play’, and are cared for by their mothers until they aremarried.559 Many men, however, continue to ‘play’ after they are married. Thus, onematernal figure is replaced by another. This then is precisely what McDougall isdescribing with Dancer’s exasperated yet indulgent wife and the unseen spouses in555 Petrie (2004), p. 34.556 Roger Bromley, ‘The Theme That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Class and Recent British Film’, in CulturalStudies and the Working Class: Subject to Change (see Munt above), pp. 51-68 (p. 57).557 Petrie (2004), p. 34.558 Ibid.559 The Late Show (1983).150 The Elephant’s Graveyard. Perhaps, however, it is Jake’s brutalised and compliantyet perceptive grandmother who epitomises this most succinctly. As McDougall hassaid, when her husband tells her ‘get me ready, you’ there is ‘no more to be said’.560 Nevertheless, it should be noted that while McDougall does not offer anything like afeminist critique of his male protagonists, there are moments when femalecharacters do pass comment on masculine practices. They variously employ pithyridicule, direct criticism or show resigned insights into residual and dominantdiscourses, particularly around violence and sectarianism. However, while his malecharacters may at times display a degree of unease or discomfort with thesecomments, this falls far short of any serious challenge.Haywood cites Segal’s argument that it is the performance of public masculinitywhich is so important to many men’s masculine identities, thus, should there be anypossibility of the convergence of the private and the public the same men will feel theneed to dislocate themselves from the private through ‘domestic refusal’.561 In otherwords, argues Haywood and Mac an Ghaill:As workers their flight from fatherhood was mediated by their paypacket: men’s quest to purge women from the world of work, and theirstruggle to gain privilege for their own pay packet, at the expense ofwomen, was expressed symbolically in the notions of ‘breadwinner’and the ‘family wage’.562 Dancer delights in his freedom as he runs like a boy past the tenements, down thesteps, and launches himself into the off licence. However, this sense of freedom, aself-declared holiday from work, wife, and family, is immediately undercut. As thesales assistant suggests he should try milk instead of alcohol and he replies ‘I’ll stickwith what I’m used to’, it becomes apparent how ensnared he is by his560 The Late Show (1983).561 Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2003), p. 37.562 Ibid.151 circumstances, unable to change. Framed behind the counter grille, hands clingingto the metal bars, the visual metaphor is unambiguous. Dancer’s sense of freedomis one which is both fleeting and illusory ,and, without alcohol, of little substance.As he attempts to persuade Jake to take the day off with him, to embark on a day’sdrinking, his remarks are at once pathetic yet poignant. ‘Let’s tan this ball and jumpthe wall into the other garden’, he says, suggesting a barely acknowledged yearningfor something different. Thus, while McDougall is not suggesting that Dancerrepresents any sort of genuine alternative to dominant discourses of masculinity, hisactions being ultimately futile and unrewarding, and in many ways conforming tothose dominant discourses, he does allow him a degree of limited awareness of hiscircumstances. However, the narrative simultaneously denies him the ability to fullygrasp the consequences of those circumstances or articulate any clear alternativesother than evasion.Dancer, more than anyone, sees freedom in ‘managing the formal system’,constructing his own day through self-direction, ’the preservation of personalmobility’ and the ‘thwarting of formal organisational aims’.563 In this oppositionbetween the formal and the informal within working-class culture, antinomy isfrequently marked by a withdrawal into the informal and expressed in itscharacteristics mode as being just beyond the reach of ‘the rule’, what Willis hascalled ‘having a laff’.564 This then functions as a crucial means of overcomingboredom, problems and hardship, indeed almost anything.565 While fighting may563 Paul Willis, Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs (New York: ColumbiaPress, 1977), pp. 26; 27; 28.564 Ibid., p. 22; 23.565 Ibid., p. 29.152 valorise status, as it does for Jake, for Dancer, masculine presence may be affirmedby other practices such as ‘being funny or being good at ‘blagging’.566 Dancer,however, is not alone. McDougall shows us a world where most of the men areattempting to manage the formal system in some way, attempting to evade thepresence of authority and the perception of authority as an emasculating powerrelation. Several men have taken the day off work to visit Clatty Bella; younger menand boys congregate in gangs around the tenements; Jake’s foreman remarks onhow many men regularly make some excuse to take Fridays off; old John spends hisworking day reading in a toilet cubicle, getting his apprentice to bring him tea ratherthan teaching him his trade. Thus, like Dancer, while they may seek to escape fromwhat is expected of them as men, the alternative they construct fails to consist ofanything other than infantile, hedonistic, or destructive practices.It is in The Elephant’s Graveyard where ’the pressure to be a successfulbreadwinner’ becomes a ‘source of strain and conflict, not pride and motivation’.567 However, where Dancer is unable to reflect upon his position and circumstances,and why he makes particular choices with anything approaching real understanding,Jodie in The Elephant’s Graveyard has the prodigious cognitive ability to set himapart from other similar working-class men, and most saliently, have an affectiveinfluence upon Bunny. For Jodie and Bunny, while their escape into the surroundingcountryside is initially presented as a way of avoiding both their wives and work, itcautiously becomes something of a far more transformative nature.566 Willis (1977), p. 35.567 Kimmel, p. 265.153 On the surface this is a celebration of being irresponsible, about the guilt of lying totheir wives and the subsequent joyful release they achieve in each other’s company.But, as Farquhar suggests, ‘this is not about escaping your spouse; it’s about findingyourself again’.568 From the opening establishing shot with the camera slowlypanning across the tenements, set in relief against the hills and brooding skies withits cranes and shipyards, all Bunny can do is look back at this man-made blight onboth environment and people’s lives. The ensuing drink, cigarettes, physical games,games of the imagination, boyish unselfconscious companionship which Bunny andJodie subsequently indulge in, within the restorative setting of the country,understandably brings a lightness and sense of humanity to their mood.However, this flight from work, wives, and responsibility takes on qualities andmeaning which Jodie interprets as a way of buying time to think, time to question theresidual and dominant discourses which condition their lives and their constructionsof masculinity. Thus it becomes ‘a long cool tilt at the work ethic, family andeducation’.569 Jodie recognises the conflict between husbands and wives is born outof their frustrations and the limited options of their environment: ’You get neitherchance nor choice and spend your life using your wife or your work as an excuse fornever having done anything’. While Jodie is able to articulate their barely bearableexistence of habituated repetition, inactivity, and stasis, and alludes to alternativeand emergent discourses, without narrative closure, as the play ends with a tangiblesense of bathos, we are left merely to anticipate Bunny’s return to alienation fromboth his wife and his work.568 Razor Sharp (2006).569 Lane (1976).154 4.5 Clydesideism, the Hard Man, and DysfunctionalityMcDougall then, is particularly concerned with the ways existing, dominant andresidual working-class cultural practices impact on the construction and performanceof masculinities and how these are worked through in the spheres of work, leisure,and family. I would now like to examine how a number of more specific culturaltraditions which feature in McDougall’s work function within the narratives. While thethree plays would appear to inhabit a space within the general social realist traditionof British film and television, in stripping his stories back to raw, frequentlyunpleasant, everyday events and denying his characters strongly dramatic motivesfor their actions, McDougall’s bleak vision extinguishes the optimism, hope, agencyand ideological dimensions that feature in a number of other contemporaneoussocial realist works, notably those of Ken Loach and Jim Allen. As such, it is themore geographically and culturally specific literary tradition of Clydesideism and thenotion of the ‘hard man’ which furnishes McDougall’s work with much of its moredistinctive flavour, and this is particularly the case with Just a Boy’s Game.McDougall’s particular masculinities are at once oppressive, childish, selfish,destructive, self-destructive and deeply dysfunctional. Most of the older men aredissolute, lazy, bigoted, drunks and frequently infantilised, physically, emotionallyand intellectually, within his narratives. They are frequently shown to be obsessivelypartisan in terms of sectarianism, and where the ‘other’ is in evidence it is likely to bein the form of women, Protestants or Catholics, rival gangs, police or simply othermales not unlike themselves. They can exercise no real power in relationships atwork, but they can attempt to exercise power in their relationships and opposition to155 the ‘other’. Trapped and oppressed, they resort to a futile and pointless powerstruggle. Here then is working-class masculinity as defined not by job, itself asubservient role, but by the protagonists’ own self-created worlds. This masculinityis then worked out through power struggles within the social and the domesticsphere, and violence, and the threat of violence through both language and action,,permeates every aspect of these power struggles, creating an enduring image ofdysfunctionality.Whyte has traced the emergence and history of the dysfunctional working-classScottish male, colloquially known as the ‘hard man’, through a variety of literarysources going back to at least the 1930s in the work of Long and re-emerging in the1980s and 1990s with Kelman and Welsh. Whyte, however, also notes a certaincontradiction within the literature. In Long’s No Mean City for example representingthe male protagonist as having the status of ‘victim’, which lends a sense of pathosand tends to ‘feminise’ him, at odds with one who wants to be so resolutelymasculine.570 Whyte maintains that since the role of hard man is based so resolutelyon performance, it reflects a high degree of vanity, a characteristic more oftenassociated with, although not without considerable contention, women. 571 Whyte also recognises a rural-urban dichotomy, where ‘femininity’ has becomeassociated with closeness to the land.572 The city conversely ‘destroys men’sdreams of femininity. In an industrial environment women cannot be women. Allthey can be is a distorted, deformed version of the feminine role or an equally570 Christopher Whyte,’ Masculinities in Contemporary Scottish Fiction’, Forum for Modern LanguageStudies, 34.3 (1998), 274-285 (p. 274).571 Ibid., p. 276.572 Ibid., p. 274.156 unacceptable mimicking of the masculine’.573 The effect, according to Whyte, ‘is toproject the responsibility for comforting and nurturing into male companionship’.574 Consequently it is other men who come to fulfill the feminine function which wivesand partners have abandoned. This idea is perhaps most succinctly embodied inJust a Boy’s Game when Dancer’s wife acknowledges the pre-eminence of hisrelationship with Jake over that which he has with his wife. ‘You’re always withMcQuillan‘ she says, ‘you should have married him, he’s got a grip over you’. Byturn Dancer acknowledges the tenuousness and incompatibility of that relationship;‘we’re only related through drink’. Despite this, however, and the fact that much ofthe narrative is brutal, cruel, and lacking in finer emotion, there are some genuinelysurprising and tender exchanges between Dancer and Jake, reflecting the crucialimportance to the protagonists of male companionship in a comforting sense.However, as Petrie has argued, while the narratives may deal perceptively with malefriendships, they at once portray them ‘as an extension of the code of theplayground’.575 Whyte goes on to account for the re-emergence of urban Scotland and the hard manin particular, in more recent Scottish fiction as ‘an outpouring of the ‘hard man’ […],gripped by death throes, a terminal form of masculinity’.576 If, by the 1990s, he wasbecoming something of an anachronism, then his 1970s incarnation in McDougall’swork shows him at his ubiquitous height, operating within a working-classenvironment which tolerates or perhaps endorses his violent behaviour. Here the573 Whyte (1998), pp. 274-285 (p. 274).574 Ibid.575 Petrie (2004), p. 21.576 Whyte (1998), pp. 274-285 (p. 279).157 dominant and residual forms of culture embodied in the hard man appear to conflatewithin a deeply conservative and slow moving cultural milieu.Catherine Munroe in her examination of literature and recent film suggests that thestruggle for many urban Scottish males to become ‘real hard men’ is a directconsequence of ‘their inability to break free from the limitations of their community’,and ‘is part of the interplay between power and powerlessness’.577 She goes ontoargue that the notion of Clydesideism has become the most dominant discourse inlate twentieth-century Scottish film and literature.578 John Caughie has described thediscourse as ‘a modernised myth of male industrial labour […] pub and football fieldalive and in place, surfacing […] in the celebration of a real Glasgow’ beneath thelives of the middle-classes.579 Thus, the Clydesideism of film and literature focuseson the ‘working-classes or the underbelly of these cities, riddled with crime, violence,drugs, and alcoholism’ which is so vividly delineated by McDougall.580 Munroe defines Clydesideism thus:Taking its name from the Firth of Clyde, the river that was responsiblefor the transformation of Glasgow into a centre for internationalshipping during the age of industrialisation. Clydesideism isassociated with gritty realism and the urban working-class.581 Caughie argues, however, that through literature and film it has becomethe mythology of the Scottish twentieth-century, the discourse whichseems currently the most potent, and not yet universally acknowledgedas mythology.582 577 Catherine M. Munroe, ‘From Highlander to Hard Man: Representations of Scottish Masculinity in 1990sCinema’ (unpublished Master’s thesis, York University, Ontario, 2000), p. v.578 Ibid., p. 9.579 John Caughie, ‘Representing Scotland: New Questions for Scottish Cinema’, in From Limelight to Satellite:a Scottish Film Book, ed. by Eddie Dick (Edinburgh: Scottish Film Council and BFI, 1990), pp. 13-31 (p.16).580 Munroe (2000), p. 63.581 Ibid., p. 9.582 Caughie (1990), pp. 13-31 (p. 16).158 As Munroe has observed, Clydesideism is as witty as it is hard and often brutal, areal world antidote to the more ancient myths of Scotland. Central to theunderstanding of Clydesideism is the male hero, one who may, as in contemporaryliterature and film be engaged in a struggle around identity and loss.583 ‘Determinedby the harshness of their community and environment’, their masculinity is definedby their displays of power and is frequently characterised by the ‘perpetual cycle ofaddiction and hard luck’.584 The hard man identity reinforces a particular form of masculinity through aparticularly precise and exacting performance. In discussing the performative,Butler contends:Acts, gestures, enactments, generally construed, are performative inthe sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport toexpress are fabrications manufactured and sustained throughcorporeal signs and other discursive means. That the gendered bodyis performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from thevarious acts, which constitute its reality. This also suggests that if thereality is fabricated as an interior essence, that very interiority is aneffect and function of a decidedly public and social discourse.585 As a form of hegemonic gender identity, the hard man masculinity is performedconstantly and to a degree self-consciously until it becomes naturalised in particularplaces. Here the performance demands a high degree of self-reliance, eschewsfamilial obligations, and is crucially performed almost exclusively for other men.583 Munroe (2000), p. 11.584 Ibid., p. 50; 63.585 nd Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2 edn (New York, NY:Routledge, 1990, repr. 2007), p. 185.159 For Jake, the archetypal hard man, with his self-defining existential masculinism,subject to the values in which he is socialised, identity is located where violencebrings self-respect. Indeed, whileviolence may not be the last option to which he could resort, it mayactually be his first option. It becomes an activity that represents amasculine currency that is recognised by all he encounters, an activityin which participation brings no shame.586 This performance of masculinity is endowed with its authenticity partly because it hasbeen passed down, is a product of acculturation, and operates as a powerful residualdiscourse and partly because of its high degree of corporeality. As we have alreadyseen, the physical practices of work frequently determine working-class men’smasculine constructions and performances elsewhere.Jake himself is shown as brutal, hard and extremely violent. It is suggested thatwhat we see are but the vestiges of his even tougher more violent past. Yet he isalso shown to be someone who is deeply scarred, damaged, and capable of somedegree of sensitivity. As Wright has remarked ‘behind the tough façades there arefears, anxieties and the urge to be admired and stand out from the crowd’.587 Hisemotional inarticulacy is described perfectly by McDougall himself as ‘a mass ofemotion. Dealing with hot emotion, but you can’t get it out; an inability to grasp, I'mnot sure what I'm doing or why I'm here’.588 For Jake his experience is one ofblockage or a cognitive inability to successfully reflect on his own existence, halfopaque realisation that you do not belong, a realisation just beyond reach. Hencehis emotions are ‘shifted to a physical level where they can be contained and586 Winlow (2001), p. 52.587 Wright (1979).588 Razor Sharp (2006).160 tangibly balanced’ within violent conflict.589 Yet his motivations, like many ofMcDougall’s characters remain obscure and difficult to comprehend, in part as aconsequence of their ‘impassive blank demeanour and emotional inarticulacy’.590 AsMcDougall has said, even for the writer, Jake is an ‘enigma’, behind his façade thereis ‘not much there’.591 Nevertheless, while Jake’s masculine identity is entirely informed by residualdiscourses centered around violence and territoriality, those same discourses thatinformed his grandfather’s construction of masculinity, McDougall does suggest thathe has the propensity to exhibit ‘the compassion that’s trying to grow there likeflowers in the interstices of stone’.592 This, however, is only barely glimpsed withinthe narrative and as an alternative to residual and dominant discourses exists in astate of tension with them. Thus, Jake reveals his anxieties about expressing theseemotions while preventing them from undermining his identity as a ‘hard man’.Violence then is Jake’s only satisfactory outlet for physical and emotionalexpression. However, Donaldson, cited by both Connell and Winlow, argues thatwhile working men’s bodily capacities are their ‘economic asset’ this asset inevitablychanges.593 Bodies are used up through ‘fatigue, injury’ and, ‘wear and tear’,resulting in a decline in strength, vigour and vitality.594 The body is the corporealnexus between manual labour and physicality and this connection is further589 Joyce E. Canaan ‘One Thing Leads To Another: Fighting, Drinking, and Working Class Masculinities’, in Understanding Masculinities: Social Relations and Cultural Arenas, ed. by Mairtin Mac an Ghaill(Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996), pp. 114-125 (p. 121).590 Petrie (2004), p. 24.591 The Late Show (1983).592 McIIvanney (1979a).593 Connell (2005), p. 55.594 Ibid.161 emphasised by hard labour. However, this hard labour ‘literally used up workers’bodies, and by undergoing this destruction as proof of the toughness of the work andthe worker’, it may also be a ‘method of demonstrating masculinity’.595 For Jake,while his physical sacrifice in fighting, endurance of pain and wounds may indeed bean accepted way of substantiating his masculinity it may also be the only way he canhave a physical connection with others, the only way he can feel anything.4.6 Masculinity and ViolenceWhile the notion of the ‘hard man’, is central to understanding Jake in Just a Boy’sGame, violence and the social structures which underpin it operate as keydiscourses in the construction of masculinity for most of McDougall’s maleprotagonists. As such, his writing dissects violent behaviour, exploring how itfunctions socially, how it bestows masculine status, how it works to undermine andretard any emergent or alternative discourses, and how it both unites and dividesmen who practise it:On the one hand, men often seem to collaborate, co-operate andidentify with one another in ways that reinforce a shared unity betweenthem; but on the other hand, these same masculinities cansimultaneously be characterised by conflict, competition and self-differentiation in ways that intensify the differences and divisionsbetween men. Given these deep-seated tensions, ambiguities andcontradictions, the unities that exist between men should not beoverstated. They are often more precarious than superficial596 appearances suggest. In Just Another Saturday the precarious nature of the male bond is clearly andstarkly played out as the day unfolds. While there is plainly a significant femalepresence within the Orange Day Parade, it is the ubiquity of the men which595 Winlow (2001), p. 37.596 Michael Flood and others, International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities (Abingdon: Routledge,2007), p. 71.162 dominates and is highly privileged within the narrative, with the posturing of themarchers, the drinking and resultant bonhomie, and the masculine image of the malebody. The men have the uniforms, the men lead the marches, it is principally menand boys who are in the bands, and it is men who instigate and perpetrate theviolence. Although the parade, and indeed the whole day, may appear to be aunifying experience for the Protestant community, it comes to resemble somethingcloser to a celebration of homosocial bonding, and it is through their interactions witheach other that the men reveal that they define themselves collectively by who theyare not.Away from the sectarian focus of the parade, however, as they retire to the pub nowexclusively male, they encounter other men with shared interests and backgrounds.Yet almost immediately divisions and fissures arise, fuelled by alcohol. Theirhumour is both brutal and unpleasant; at once confrontational, aggressive, featuringriposte and ridicule, frequently lapsing into a series of obloquies. It is as if, at times,when they can identify the enemy, the ‘other’, whether women, Catholics or thepolice, they are united in their homosocial bond through drinking. Yet there is alwaysthe threat that someone may say something out of place or a remark may be willfullymisinterpreted. Anyone and everyone may become the recipient of thisconfrontational humour or ridicule. Consequently any real potential for feelings ofsolidarity is swiftly undermined. Drinking partners, treated initially with bonhomie,are told to ‘just shut up and drink’. Language is peppered with confrontationalremarks. However, execrations are curiously cold blooded and fail to reveal anygenuine animus. Indeed, even greetings to friends feature insults. Furthermore,when there is real and actual violent confrontation it is infused with dark humour. ‘A163 complex dialectics of knowledge’ allows for violence to be either confronted ornegotiated; ‘protective friendships can be cultivated […] (and) humour can beused’.597 For all the men there appears to be little distinction between their humourand their aggression. While the humour is aggressive, the aggressive threats arelaced with humour.While one reviewer noted that Just Another Saturday revealed ‘the arbitrary, illogicaland ironic nature of urban violence’, this is not to say that it is not deeply rooted inmen’s practices.598 In his study of working-class male violence, Winlow describes a‘world where male identity is expressed each day through physical strength andpower’.599 He goes on to examine how workshop camaraderie, hard physical labourand violent behaviour allow for changing reputations.While it may be true, as Clarke has argued, that violence was an accepted part ofthe life of most working men, the reasons for this violence appear to be both variedand complex.600 Men use violence ‘for a number of reasons: to save face, to resolvean argument, to defend personal territory, to cajole compliance, to enhance status’ orto have fun.601 Drawing upon the work of Katz, Stanko sees ‘the distinctive featuresof violence as strategic calculation, militaristic delight, symbolic representation ofenemies and melodramatic self-absorption’.602 Thus some men come to employviolence as a strategy to manoeuvre within and manipulate male power relations:597 Winlow (2001), p. 10.598 Shaun Usher, ‘Peeling the Orangemen Bare’, Daily Mail, 14 March 1975.599 Winlow (2001), back cover.600 John Clarke, Football Hooliganism and the Skinheads (Birmingham: Centre for Contemporary CulturalStudies & University of Birmingham, 1973), p. 2.601 Elizabeth E, Stanko, ‘Challenging the Problem of Men’s Individual Violence’, in Just Boys DoingBusiness?; Men, Masculinities and Crime (see Jefferson above), pp. 32-45 (p. 43).602 Ibid.164 Complex systems of identity and self-perception are at stake – honour,shame, status and a working appreciation of the seductions andrepellent aspects of violence.603 Inevitably, argues Stanko, it is ‘poor young men with dismal prospects for the futurewho have good reason to escalate their tactics of social competition and becomeviolent’.604 Consequently, it is here that violence for status is particularly prevalent.As Connell has argued the ‘agency of subordinated and marginalized groups […]conditioned by their specific location [...] may result in protest masculinity’.605 This,he says,embodies the claim to power typical of regional hegemonicmasculinities […] but which lacks the economic resources andinstitutional authority that underpins global patterns.606 Violence is an ‘immediate aggressive style of behaviour’ that Tolson argues emergesout of ‘memories of poverty and physical insecurity’.607 While Just a Boy’s Gameshows Jake’s environment to be marked by both poverty and deprivation, this couldbe seen as relative when compared with that of his grandfather’s youth or thepoverty of the 1880s when the razor gangs first emerged. Thus for Jake and otheryounger men and boys, memories of deprivation become culturally imposed andthese are bound up with memories of violent behaviour and achievement throughviolence. Jake’s grandfather is perceived to have ‘successfully’ asserted hismasculinity in the harshest of conditions and Jake must, in turn, do the same. Thisattachment to residual notions of violence and masculinity is for some men therecognition of, what Winlow has called, ‘their working-class cultural inheritance’.608 603 Stanko (1994), pp. 32-45 (p. 44); Winlow (2001), p. 9.604 Stanko (1994), pp. 32-45 (p. 44).605 R.W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept, Genderand Society, 19.6 (December 2005), 829-859 (p. 847).606 Ibid, p. 848.607 Tolson (1977), p. 28.608 Winlow (2001), p. 45.165 Polk has recognised a particularly strong link between the masculine image of malesand the social organisation of production: ‘The harsher the environment and thescarcer the resources the more manhood is stressed as inspiration and goal‘.609 While the positioning of working-class men as economically marginalised within apatriarchal society might be seen to destabilise patriarchy, it is because masculinepower is threatened that it must be fought for even more vigorously, thus reinforcingdominant discourses. For Jake’s grandfather verbally aggressive behaviour towardsboth his wife and Jake is a reassertion of his patriarchal position, even wheneverything around him signifies his lack of power. Similarly, the violent aggressivebehaviour of Jake’s usurpers is simply a mask, a veneer which disguises theirimpotency with the very absence of any ability to make some impact on the world.While the violence itself might be perceived as somewhat aberrant, it is the rules,reputations and practices which become embodied in the razor gangs and sectariangroupings and seek to bolster that behaviour, that maintain a more formal perceptionof masculine power. Thus the gangs and lodges emerge as a grotesque,impoverished mirror image of the patriarchal power regimes which operate in thewider world.Drawing together a number of cultural theorists, DeKeseredy and Schwartz haverecognised several factors which serve to influence the use of violence among men.While in accordance with Messerschmidt and Polk, they assert that there is no singleway of being a man that influences male behaviour and that includes violence, theyalso say, as suggested by Connell, that while in fact ‘society functions in many ways609 Kenneth Polk, ‘Masculinity, Honour and Confrontational Homicide’, in Just Boys Doing Business?: Men,Masculinities and Crime (see Stanko above), pp. 166-188 (p. 186).166 to promote male violence, there remain in many situations other means ofexpressing one’s masculinity’.610 However, for those who may lack the particularrelevant skills to do so, under intense pressure to ‘be a man’ they may resort to othermethods. Violence, they conclude, is a resource that some men can employ whenthey lack other resources for ‘accomplishing masculinity‘ and is thus simply a meansof expressing masculinity in a culturally specific way. 611 For those who may resort toviolent behaviour, their decision is most specifically affected by their class positionswithin a structure which denies them the appropriate resources to accomplish theiridentities in any other way. 612 As Polk has argued, for those disadvantaged in termsof economic resources, any attempt to reconcile this with a sense of masculinity maybe rendered problematic, consequently ‘for such males the expression and defenceof their masculinity may come through violence’.613 Resources are limited for McDougall’s protagonists, their jobs being generallymenial, or subservient. Apart from John with his mace throwing, they hold noimportant positions in society and they have minimal economic capital. However,where all his male characters are aware of and collude in some way, with this violentworld, not all feel the need to express their own masculinity through violence. WhileTanza and Dancer use aggressive behaviour they are ultimately forced into agenuinely violent confrontation. Similarly, John uses defiant aggressive behaviour inboth his performance as drum major and in caustic pub banter with other males, butrecoils from the actuality of violence. Others, like John’s Catholic friends areprepared to utilise it, since it is the backdrop although not the focus of their lives.610 Walter C. DeKeseredy and Martin D. Schwartz, ‘Masculinities and Interpersonal Violence’, in Handbook ofStudies on Men and Masculinities (see Messerschmidt above), pp. 353-366 (p. 356).611 DeKeseredy (2005), pp. 353-366 (p. 356).612 Ibid.613 Polk (1994), pp. 166-188 (p. 186).167 What McDougall appears to be suggesting is that all males will have to activelyparticipate in violent confrontations as an affirmation of their masculinity, whetherthey wish to or not. For his protagonists, while they remain within their deprived andmarginalised environment, they will be unable to escape engaging violently withother men. As Messerschmidt has argued:Some marginalised males adapt to their economic […] powerlessnessby engaging in, and hoping to succeed at, competition for personalpower with rivals of their own class […] and gender. For thesemarginalised males, the personal power struggle with othermarginalised males becomes a mechanism for exhibiting andconfirming masculinity.614 Here, according to Messerschmidt, masculinity is confirmed within a tough, collectiveperformance where violence becomes a major vehicle for the assertion of thatmasculinity.615 It would appear then that a sense of alienation and disempowerment as a directresult of their class positions within the social structure and the relative deprivation oftheir lived experiences, together with a celebration of physicality and toughnessgarnered from harsh and demanding working environments, conflate to become agendered strategy of action to accomplish masculine status through availablealternative resources. This is especially apparent in the final brutal, visceral, andbloody fight scene in Just a Boy’s Game as it is played out in the industrial setting ofcontainers, cranes, forklifts, and merchant ships. This is the very work place thatsome of the participants may occupy during the working day, frequently butmomentarily escape from, but where they can never exercise control or power. Thenarrative seems to suggest that violence and the work place are immutably614 James W. Messerschmidt, Capitalism, Patriarchy and Crime: Towards Socialist Feminist Criminology(Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986), p. 70.615 Ibid.168 connected and that the brutality of the men’s actions is a consequence, an inevitablecorollary, of their brutalised working conditions. However, while the automatedshipyard goes on about its business, regardless of the human drama taking place inits midst, these same men are exposed as anachronisms in a changing industrialworld. Their violent actions as marginalised actors appear irrelevant and ultimatelyself-defeating.While class may be seen as the unequal distribution of life chances, status isconcerned with the social distribution of honour and prestige, frequently within oneclass based strata.616 Winlow maintains that ‘men’s violence towards men involves amasculinity of status’.617 Class and status are both aspects of social stratification,but the distinctions can be frequently blurred.618 There are apparent tensionsbetween class and status and different ways of doing masculinity may themselvesconstitute status divisions:Violence operates as a common means by which men could riseabove other working-class males. A crucial signifier of self-image, areflection upon a culture that favourably judged those who maintaineda credible threat of violence.619 What is involved here is a complex combination which involves maintaining face,controlling individual space, preventing others from potentially invading that space,and being prepared to defend it.620 Thus, Winlow argues, a hierarchy emerges which reflects the individual’s‘perceptions of honour and shame’ which furnishes a structure for a ‘system of616 Morgan (2005), pp.165-177 (p. 167).617 Winlow (2001), p. 40.618 Morgan (2005), pp. 165-177 (p. 173).619 Winlow (2001), p. 40.620 Ibid., p. 43.169 symbols, values and definitions’ as well as ‘categories, rules and processes […]which may be specific to a given culture’.621 Hereviolence and the act of negotiating a route through life that maintainshonour and avoids cultural definitions of shame are of central concernto the masculinities of this domain.622 This is particularly the case for those who are actively involved as participants. InJust a Boy’s Game it is the young razor gangs, pretenders to Jake’s violentreputation. They may achieve some degree of honour in violent conflict but there isalways the threat of shame. At two points in the narrative Jake humiliates othergang members, reducing them to tears of both fear but also mortification. While oneconfrontation involves hitting a boy in front of his friends who bear witness to hishumiliation, the other consists of little more than a prolonged threatening stare, avisual challenge to either act honourably and suffer the inevitable violentconsequences or be humiliated. As Winlow has noted, citing Bourdieu, ‘perceptionsof honour are strongest in those who see themselves through the eyes of others’,which he sees as manifestly apparent with the cultural importance of violentreputations among hard men. 623 A number of cultural theorists have identified the pleasure to be gained by some menfrom the expressive and aesthetic qualities of violence. Tomsen for examplemaintains that violence, while being a key element in the construction of tough,working-class male identities, is also an expressive experience involving ‘heavygroup drinking’ and codes of social interaction associated with honour.624 Within thecontext of social constraint and its corollary, resistance through social disorder, while621 Winlow (2001), p. 44.622 Ibid.623 Ibid.624 Stephen Tomsen, ‘A Top Night: Social Protest, Masculinity and the Culture of Drinking Violence’, British Journal of Criminology, 37.1 (Winter 1997), 90-102 (pp. 90-94).170 destructive, it could be seen by its participants as something approaching a catharticsense of ‘pleasure and carnival’.625 This is not, however, ‘the romanticised carnivalof literary theory […] overturning prevailing social classifications with playful zest.There is not the merest hint of utopian impulse’.626 This is a much darker expressionof working-class cultural traditions. This is what Robson has described as the‘menacing sense of carnival’.627 As Tolson has noted, this kind of performance is itself the basis of a style whichincorporates being both physical and displaying one’s feelings.628 Thus, forMcDougall’s protagonists, violence has become something more than an expressionof class deprivation or an attempt to achieve status. It has transcended its initialfunctions to take on qualities ‘where everyday life becomes a place for symboliccreativity, a place where a nihilistic grounded aesthetic’ is experienced.629 4.7 Violence and the Public Affirmation of MasculinityWhile McDougall recognises violence as a residual discourse which retainsconsiderable currency in working-class communities, for his male protagonists itrequires public affirmation if it is to enhance masculine status. For a boy, this statusmust be achieved in the public domain, and masculinity must be tested in thepresence of, and gain the recognition of peers. 630 As Stanko has observed,masculine identity, is something that needs to be accomplished and which places625 Tomsen (1997), 90-102 (p. 90).626 Garry Robson, ‘Millwall Football Club: Masculinity, Race and Belonging’, in Cultural Studies and theWorking Class: Subject to Change (see Munt above), pp. 219-234 (p. 229).627 Ibid, p.228.628 Tolson (1977), p. 43.629 Paul Willis and others, Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990), p. 106.630 John Tosh, ‘What Should Historians Do About Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-Century Britain’,History Workshop Manual, 38.1 (1994), 179-202 (p. 185).171 considerable importance on practice: ‘Masculinity is not an essence, but simply away of living one type of relationship’.631 In Just Another Saturday John is shown to be naïve, idealistic, and alreadyimmersed in a culture of prejudice. Throughout the narrative his masculine bravadowaxes and wanes according to his circumstances. Initially he has a clear idea of hisidentity, the drum major, who hates Catholics, confident in the masculine world ofpubs and back streets, of drinking and posturing, of swearing and the exercising ofaggressive yet humorous confrontational behaviour. Long shots place John firmlyand comfortably within his environment. It is only with much tighter shots atmoments of stress, when he feels threatened or when he begins to have hisassumptions challenged, that he appears to have doubts about the particular versionof hegemonic masculinity that he aspires to. As he questions the dominantdiscourses of masculine aggression perceiving them as increasingly residual andbelonging to an older generation of men he is nevertheless unable to find anymeaningful emergent or alternative discourses to replace them.As he is faced with the stark reality of the situation, John becomes increasinglyuncomfortable. He is disgusted by an aggressive older man searching for hismissing false teeth; as more and more drunken men cross his path, his face, in tightclose up and shallow focus registers his growing distaste for this reality, at onceincredulous, concerned, disappointed. Each shot, of drinking men, a drummerplaying until his hand bleeds, men acting foolishly, builds to a disorienting effect. Yetwhen the band starts up again, John’s existential confusion swiftly evaporates as he631 Stanko (1994), pp. 32-45 (p. 44).172 again reclaims his sense of purpose and identity. The confident, swaggering,provocative, and confrontational manner is restored, and he readily colludes with themaverick Rab to leave the main march and enter ‘Fenian Alley’. It is from this keyscene that the inevitable reality of the threat of violence is realised and from whenceit escalates. As the indiscriminate nature of the violence shocks and disgusts him,with a bathing baby showered with broken glass and an old man cut in the face,John is almost moved to tears. He appears exhausted, stripped of his exuberantphysical strength, without the certainty to carry on like before. As the march comesto an end their brotherhood disbands with self-congratulatory platitudes andfarewells, John appears isolated.McDougall then, repeatedly critiques the men he portrays along with theirconstructions and performances of masculinity. As seen from the point of view ofJohn, they appear cruel and dysfunctional. Nevertheless, McDougall allows him tobe drawn back into the familiarity of the homosocial world where his masculineconfidence and certainty can be restored. Indeed, he appears genuinely comfortablewith the crude sectarian humour, excessive drinking, and confrontational behaviour.Even when he is threatened by a Catholic man whose brother was hospitalised afterthe violence earlier in the day, his drunken bravado, surrounded by his friends, is notdiminished. However, ‘masculinity demands action – even self-consciouslyperformative action – in the sphere of collective life’.632 As Hames has argued:Masculinity is meaningless as a mere act or as an inward conviction ofone’s virtue. Like all abstractions these ideas must be authenticatedby concrete experience, and tested against other competingmasculinities if they are to be affirmed in the sphere of collective life.633 632 Hames (2007), p. 73.633 Ibid., p. 83.173 Consequently John must perform adequately in the sight of others and have hismasculinity tested. Later, as he and his friends are involved in a machete fight,John, despite his heavy drinking, joking and posturing, is clearly struggling with thisfinal piece of the masculine jigsaw. As the fight ensues before him, he becomesincreasingly agitated and hysterical, breaking down in tears, needing to be calmeddown and comforted with emollient platitudes, almost like an infant.Polk has argued that the ‘settings for confrontational violence are inevitably public,with a large social audience of other males’.634 It is here, and only here, that malescan achieve masculine status and prove themselves worthy of approbation fromother males. However, conversely, humiliation and shame of defeat or cowardicemay also become exposed when played out in this arena. It is the final violentconfrontation, when he is hit by a stranger at the bus stop, which seals John’s lack ofreal understanding or place within his frequently hostile and volatile environment. AsJohn whistles along with the two men, as they sing and smile, it becomes clear thathis naïveté has led him to seriously misjudge the situation. ‘What the hell are yousmiling at?’ one of them demands, punching him in the face. As he staggers homehe is now simply scared, shocked, lachrymose, and chastened. His place within thismasculine hierarchy is now shown to be uncertain and far more precarious andfragile than he first thought. However, while his wounds may be readily visible, thecircumstances of how they occurred together with the concomitant implications ofshame have not been generally witnessed. Thus, while John’s experiencesthroughout the day have exposed the residual and dominant discourses ofmasculinity as pernicious, self-defeating, and pointless, by allowing him to escape634 Polk (1994), p.166-188 (p. 172).174 any public humiliation, McDougall shows John to be drawn back to those samediscourses the narrative had critiqued.4.8 Identity, Affective Localism, and the ‘Narcissism of Minor Differences’While McDougall dissects the role of intra-male violence as a key discourse in theconstruction of particular working-class identities, he also portrays the socialstructures which underpin, regulate, and legitimate this violence as too firmlyestablished, and men to be too entrenched within them, for there to be any chance ofmeaningful change. What these structures provide many men with, is a traditionwhich both unites and divides resulting in a firm sense of identity.Robson argues that the constructions and performances of many working-classmasculine identities are frequently informed by residual, even archaic, identificationswith locality and region. Their experiences of social identity he says ‘are grounded atthe deepest experiential levels in specific regions and cultural formations […] themaintenance of particular modes of regional masculine identity’.635 Robsonrecognises an historical link between this and lawlessness of localised territorial andlargely urban masculinity of the past. While hegemonic civilising processes havetended to restrict the range of particularly volatile activities for working-class males,football, with its close connection to local affinities and loyalties, has developed as a‘highly charged,’ public arena for what could be seen as customary and ‘historicalundercurrents in the development of modern social relations’.636 Here there is ‘aninsatiable need for physicality, competition and visceral collectivity and ludic635 Robson (2000), pp. 219-234 (p. 219).636 Ibid., p. 221.175 expression’, where ‘hardness, stamina, courage and loyalty’ are hugely valued.637 This then is a conception of masculinity which is manifested within a ‘volatile,unpacified and passionate interpretive community’.638 Robson has argued that within working-class communities there is the desire whichis ‘ultimately towards the confirmation of boundaries as opposed to their dissolution’,what he calls ‘affective localism’.639 This is characterised by an intense pride in thelocal area or territory which has come to represent their identity, their place in theworld. Thus the notion of territory functions as a means to distinguish betweensimilarly located working-class groups. Furthermore, according to Canaan, localterritory is particularly important to those ‘lacking the cultural capital to move far fromit both literally and figuratively’.640 Consequently, the ‘demarcation and affirmation ofplace […] becomes located’ on the bodies of young working-class men, with fightingbecoming its most visible manifestation.641 Just as individual identities could be acknowledged through fighting, so could groupidentities be emphasised in territory, especially evidenced through football andsectarianism.642 Robson has argued how the conflation of class, masculinity, andlocalism filtered into identity through football rather than sectarianism.643 He talksabout ‘the broad concept of the ‘blood tradition’, an extended metaphor for long637 Robson (2000), pp. 219-234 (p. 221); Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 173.638 Robson (2000), pp. 219-234 (p. 223).639 Ibid., p. 229.640 Canaan (1996), pp. 114-125 (p. 118).641 Ibid.642 Ibid, pp. 118-21.643 Robson (2000), pp. 219-234 (pp. 223-224).176 standing patterns of affiliation through place’, the concept of ‘blood’ conveyingauthenticity and belonging.644 Localism and territorialism are both key features in McDougall’s writing. The gangsin Just a Boy’s Game are keen to protect their housing schemes, policing the visibleboundaries that surround them.645 From this male tribalism they achieve a satisfyingsense of identity, male camaraderie and a means of expressing aggression.646 Indeed defence of locality provides a rationale for violent behaviour where it comesto represent something tangible. In building reputations, protecting boundaries, anddefending territories, the young boys inhabiting their estates are confident in theirability to challenge rivals and outsiders. However, as they confront Jake as hemoves through their defined territory they appear far more limited than he is,remaining largely locked within their immediate environment. In short they havebecome so closely identified with their immediate area that it is virtually impossiblefor them to venture out of it. Thus the corollary of affective localism and territorialismis a sense of confinement within that territory.647 Where particular public social spaces become identified with specific territorialgangs, both Jake and John pay little heed to these boundaries. However, while Jakeappears to be able to move freely across territories, he is at times compromisedparticularly with the confrontation at the housing estate and later at the snooker halland the quayside. Similarly John in Just Another Saturday moves casually from644 Robson (2000), pp. 219-234 (p. 224).645 Ross Deuchar and Chris Holligan, Territoriality and Sectarianism in Glasgow: A Qualitative Study(University of Strathclyde and University of West Scotland, June 2008) [accessed 18 May 2012] (p. 8).646 Ibid., p. 10.647 Ibid., pp. 8-9.177 Mary Hill to Fenian Alley, frequenting Catholic pubs, but ultimately this freedom isrevoked and moving away from his immediate locality is seen to be a dangerousenterprise. What McDougall appears to be suggesting here is that to ignore thefierce local rivalries and trespass into forbidden territories is both unwise andperilous. While there was a clear territorial basis for most Glasgow gangs thisbecame conflated to varying degrees with sectarianism.648 The territorial nature ofgangs frequently drew upon sectarianism as an increasingly residual resource formasculine aggression, while football related sectarianism from family influence andcontinuing traditions, with boys influenced by fathers to link their male identities toparticular allegiances, was a particular feature of Glasgow.649 Thus, while affective localism may be a significant contributing factor to working-class male violence in McDougall’s films, it is the more specific notion ofsectarianism which also underpins the narratives:I don't believe in the word (respect). I was brought up in the Protestantculture where respect was everything. We used to look down onCatholics as my family was the scruff of the scruff. There was no oneelse for us to look down on but Catholics. I'm not into respect.650 While Clarke has argued that in working-class life local identities have always beenof great importance, clearly these identities can operate as a divisive force as muchas they are forces for unity.651 In Glasgow and parts of Western Scotland, from the1830s Protestant Orange lodges flourished as a reaction against poor Irish Catholic648 Reg McKay, ‘Crimes that Rocked Scotland‘, Daily Record, 19 October 2007 [accessed 18 May 2012]649 Deuchar (2008), p. 9; 4.650 Mackay (2001).651 Clarke (1973), p. 3.178 immigration as well as a result of Protestant Ulster immigration.652 The working-class Orange groups that were formed a little later were made up almost entirelyfrom shipyard workers who moved between the Glasgow and Belfast shipyards.What emerged from these were the public processions intended as a demonstrationof solidarity and strength.653 As King has pointed out, ‘belonging to an ostensiblyancient order […] provided an anchor to the past’ together with a sense of stability,ritual and colour otherwise absent in daily life’.654 It also operated as an allegiance, apowerful and tangible signifier of identity within poor working-class environments.While the opening establishing shots of Just Another Saturday depict the asperity ofan environment that all its working-class inhabitants share, one which is bleak,harsh, deprived and impoverished, a world of industrial tenements, graffiti, andneglect, almost immediately these subtly suggestive static shots are succeeded bythe divisive motifs of sectarian history: Ulster marching music, the Orange sash, aportrait of King ‘Billy’, a sectarian tattoo. John shares a bedroom with his youngersister and brother (who share the same bed); his mother is hunched over an ironingboard in their cramped and shabby home. Each shot establishes a world of povertyand relative deprivation. Yet it is the barely understood legacy of John Knox, thestirring yet anachronistic Protestant music, the floats, the Orange lodge banners, thedespised Fenians, and the fighting lyrics of ‘To Hell or Connaught’, all emanatingfrom an entrenched nostalgic impulse, which defines and motivates John.652 I. G. C. Hutchison, ‘Glasgow Working Class Politics’, in The Working Class in Glasgow, 1750 -1914, ed.by R. A. Cage, (London: Croom Helm, 1987), pp. 98-141 (p. 127).653 Ibid.654 Elspeth King, ‘Popular Culture in Glasgow’, in The Working Class in Glasgow, 1750 -1914 (see Hutchisonabove), pp. 142-187 (p. 147).179 This is a divide where ‘instinctual passions are stronger than reasonable interests’.655 While everyday experience has shown him that he shares a similar background,outlook, lifestyle and both economic and cultural circumstances to his Catholicworkmates and drinking pals, it is his membership of the Maryhill Flute Band whichserves to control, establish and fix John’s own sense of self-identity against others.As Bourdieu writes in Distinction, social identity lies in difference, and difference isasserted against what is closest, which represents the greatest threat.656 Similarly,Freud has argued that it is precisely the small differences between people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of strangeness and hostility betweenthem. This he calls the ‘narcissism of minor differences’, and while it is a behaviourexhibited by individuals he also says that it can be applied to a ‘caste or stratum ofthe population’.657 While there may be some truth in Freud’s observation that thismay be relatively harmless behaviour, it is undoubtedly self-evident that it has thepropensity to be precisely the opposite.658 Here it is not harmless. It blights people’s lives and exacerbates their problems. Itfuels their already brutalised existence and actions and manifests itself in theinclination towards aggression. However, while this sectarian identity may have itsfoundations in a doctrinal fissure, McDougall makes it clear that for the majority ofthe participants the theological, ideological, and indeed historical foundations of thesectarian divide are barely comprehended. As the day progresses and the marchcomes closer we are shown children shouting Protestant slogans of ‘no surrender’,655 Sigmund Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents, trans. and ed. by James Strachey (New York: W. W.Norton, 1989), p. 69.656 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. by Richard Nice (Harvard:Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 172.657 Freud (1989), p. 49.658 Ibid., p. 72.180 while old men spit out sectarian profanities. The extreme long shots of street andcrowd scenes serve to establish how much of the community regardless of age andgender largely subscribe to sectarianism. This is a sectarianism that pervades everycorner of the collective consciousness. Yet, as the day unfolds it becomes clear thatfor many it is less about religious belief and more about identity. Here there is littleroom for debate between two ideological discourses. It is far more aboutestablishing, through differing degrees of confrontation, a sense of identity. As theOrange officials and Protestant clergy make pronouncements, hectoring the crowdabout mixed marriages, the Act of Settlement and the royal family, few are listening,fewer care. As the men play football, sleep, drink, and fight it is clear that theirexperience of sectarian existence is simply one of establishment of identity in theface of everyday confrontation and conflict. What McDougall is suggesting is that,regardless of any emergent discourses of the period it is those that are residual,archaic, barely understood but deeply embedded, which define and bolstermasculine identities.4.9 Transformation and EscapeNeil MacKay has claimed that what lies at the heart of McDougall is ‘his obsessionwith morality - what makes a man a man, and more importantly what makes a man agood man?’.659 As his writing explores how his protagonists and their individualsubjective experiences are played out within a social sphere, McDougall seems to besuggesting that John, Jake, Bunny, and Jodie are all capable of being good men. Ifthey can break free from the constrictions of their environment and abandon theresidual and dominant discourses which largely inform the prevailing constructions of659 Mackay (2001).181 masculinity then they may be able to realise this. However, by providing little morethan barely articulated insights into alternative or emergent discourses ofmasculinity, McDougall abandons his male protagonists’ anxieties leaving them toflounder in troubling and troubled residual and dominant constructions. Each film isnothing short of a battle, a struggle for the protagonist’s soul, but while there aremoments of insight, there is nothing approaching true epiphany. Where TheElephant’s Graveyard sees the possibility of a more optimistic future, Just AnotherSaturday is far more circumspect and equivocal about escape and progression, andJust a Boy’s Game dismisses any sense of transcendence and self-realisation as animpossible chimera.Physically moving out appears to be barely an option. There are few cars on thestreets, travel is by foot or bus, and the further you venture, the greater the threat ofreal and tangible danger. Even for those who do leave, like John’s father, Dan, inJust Another Saturday and the old drunk on the bus who once sailed with him, thereis the inevitability that they will return, unchanged. It is the final scene of JustAnother Saturday which plays out this dichotomy between change, progression, andindividual agency versus stasis, repetition and the magnetic pull of social structure insuccinct exegesis. Dan is aware of the appalling nature of this violent environment,‘either you laugh or you do something about it, or it will sap your ability to feel’ hesays. But as he attempts to focus John’s confused misgivings about sectarianismand male violence into something positive he acknowledges his own shortcomings.While he has always known that there was something better and encourages Johnnot to get trapped, he admits ‘I’m weak and frightened like everyone else. It’s a bigplace out there. You gotta make it yourself, most don’t because they’re afraid. I’m182 one of them’. However, without any meaningful alternatives being articulated John ispositioned where he has no other option but to continue his construction andperformance of masculinity based on the same residual and dominant discourseswhich were available to his father and most of the other men within his milieu.Finally, as John lies in his bed, it is clear that his chances of ever escaping hisenvironment and background are negligible. As his mother tells him ‘there is no onelike your own’, adding how proud she was of him in the parade, John smiles tohimself, mouthing ‘We are the people’, and, as he remembers the parade, ‘Magic’.This then is him, his identity. This is what he has become; this is what he will largelyremain.Throughout the narrative McDougall and Mackenzie take care to underscore John’spredicament with potent images of men who have been destroyed by years ofhabitual drink and brutalisation, visually portrayed as unfocusing gargoyles,grotesque and incoherent. They are part of a recurrent pattern that has beengenerationally reproduced. For John’s father this pattern is already clearlyestablished, but for John it is only just beginning. Thus, for McDougall’s working-class men, life is relatively static and slow moving, punctuated by more immediatephysical pleasures within a cycle of drink, violence and poverty is one that neverends.660 Even commentators such as Creeber with a relatively positive viewacknowledge that while ‘change is possible, multigenerational dysfunction and the660 Aytul Ozum, ‘The Representation of the Working Class and Masculinity and Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Nightand Sunday Morning’, Journal of English Language and Literature, 3 (December 1995) [accessed 15 January 2012] (para 28 of 28).183 material conditions of these peoples’ lives cannot be swept away or resolvedovernight’.661 McDougall’s protagonists are far removed from the ‘purposive agent’ suggested byGiddens, lacking the reflexivity that may engender change ‘across space andtime’.662 In defining his theory of structuration as the ‘conditions governing thecontinuity and transformation of structures’, Giddens allows for a degree ofmodification through human agency. 663 While he acknowledges that ‘for individualactors […] social structure and social constraint can be extremely powerful’, hisemphasis is upon agency and transformation.664 However, as Stjepan Mestrovic hasargued, this places far too much belief in people’s own capabilities, people asrational agents, in control of their lives, who have the ability to evaluate receivedideas and creatively bring shape to those lives.665 What McDougall suggestshowever, is that his protagonists’ social lives are principally characterised by theirirrational, ill considered, and frequently prejudiced actions.Where Williams has identified residual, dominant and emergent cultures competingwith each other, each gradually coming to supersede the other, Terry Eagleton hasimplied that in recent times there 'is an increasingly close interweaving of all three ofWilliams’s categories’.666 Within McDougall’s work, however, the distinction betweenthe dominant and the residual cultural elements is particularly blurred. Where661 Glen Creeber, ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man: Social Class and the Female Voice in Nil by Mouth’, in Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change (see Munt above), pp. 193-205 (p. 196).662 Anthony Giddens The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1984), p. 3.663 Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in SocialAnalysis (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 66.664 Anthony Giddens and Christopher Pierson, Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making Sense ofModernity (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998), p. 87.665 Stjepan Gabriel Mestrovic, Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 77-81.666 Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 126; TerryEagleton, The Idea of Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 123.184 sometimes there may be apparent tension between the two, here they coexist,almost melding into each other, barely distinguishable from each other. Where thedominant culture includes the values, practices and experiences which belong to theessence of the community and are shared by the majority, these cultures are infusedwith residual ones as well. Where Williams sees organised religion for example as apredominantly residual concept, here it is still strong and pervasive.667 While somemembers of the community participate in and endorse it, or merely accept it, veryfew question it. Similarly the boys in the razor gangs are following in the establishedpractices of their grandfathers. While their actions, to some, might appear aberrantand residual, to many they are part of the status quo, one specific manifestation ofthe dominant culture within this particular social milieu. Thus, McDougall shows us aworld where the dominant and residual discourses have become both deeply rootedand potent while emergent ones have limited impact.Winlow has suggested that the conservative tendencies within working-classcommunities have led to a certain conditioning where ‘roles are learned throughcultural transmission’ of ‘robust physicality […] group loyalty’ and displays oftoughness.668 Thus, young working-class males in an attempt to acquire status butwith limited ways of doing so will use cultural precedents established by adult males,only somewhat remodeled to suit prevailing circumstances.669 They have been‘socialised in accordance with a fatalism that led them to believe their lot wasbasically to follow their father into one of the dominant local industries’, and it is this‘cultural transmission between generations of males’ which is likely to be an667 Williams (1977), p. 122.668 Winlow,(2001), p. 40.669 Ibid.185 ‘influential predicator of life course’.670 Jake is a fighter; both his father andgrandfather were in razor gangs; a new generation of young boys compete violentlyto take on his reputation. As Farquhar has observed, Just a Boy’s Game is ‘a roadmovie, but at gutter level, going nowhere and shameless about the fact. A storywhich leads in every sense to a dead end’.671 What McDougall’s films reveal are masculine working-class cultures which reinforcethe status quo. With its ‘emphasis on private struggles for autonomy’, there is nopossibility of ‘salvation through political or economic transformation’. 672 Lives arenot characterised by ‘struggle, development, liberation, but stasis, failure andresignation: no ‘future’ is possible which is not merely a dilation of the present’.673 For McDougall’s protagonists this dullness, fatalism, inherent conservatism, what hehimself has described as ‘malaise’ and ‘ennui’ is further compounded by the principalmale protagonists’ own cognitive limitations.674 Nevertheless, while McDougall never fully articulates the meanings and implicationsof the emergent discourses he alludes to, he does show his characters to be anxiousand uncertain about their constructions and performances of masculinity. For Jakethis is about reconciling his finer emotions about his grandparents with his brutal andviolent reputation. For John it is about whether the disgust he experiences for theugly expressions of masculinity which he witnesses can eclipse the lure and comfortof homosocial activity and relations.670 Winlow,(2001), p. 41; 8.671 Razor Sharp (2006).672 Hames (2007), p. 67; Cairns Craig, ‘Resisting Arrest: James Kelman’, in The Scottish Novel Since theSeventies: New Visions, Old Dreams, ed. by Gavin Wallace and Randall Stevenson (Edinburgh: EdinburghUniversity Press, 1993), pp. 99-114 (p. 101).673 Hames (2007), p. 67.674 Razor Sharp (2006).186 It is in The Elephant’s Graveyard however, that McDougall abstracts this discoursearound class, gender and transformative agentic action and distils it into adisputation without distraction or context. Jodie is fully aware of the stifling class-bound environment which conditions the rigid adherence to hegemonic masculinityand established gender relations, and that the options for any genuine form ofmobility are severely circumscribed. However, what he attempts to do is open up thepossibility of Bunny’s imagination and mental and emotional life through allusion andmetaphor, things that have atrophied through impoverishment, brutalisation, andviolence:Jodie has given Bunny the opportunity to rise from the dead, to cometo life. Bunny’s experience while he has been unconscious isn’t adream play but a wake up call.675 Thus, Bunny articulates emergent discourses of masculinity and gender relations asalternatives to the destructive dominant and residual ones which so ensnareMcDougall’s protagonists. He suggests a masculinity that is gentler, morethoughtful, kinder, and less selfish, and gender relations which are more equal andopen rather than the brutal, selfish, antagonistic, cruel masculinities portrayed inMcDougall’s other films. As the narrative unfolds, rather than the dark dead ends ofJust a Boy’s Game and Just Another Saturday, McDougall presents us with a storywhich is light, optimistic, and driven by the possibilities of change and progression.However, he then proceeds to close these possibilities down, suggesting they are animpossible chimera and that men in the world he presents, particularly on a collectivelevel, cannot change. They will, he suggests, resist or dismiss emergent discourses,ultimately adhering to those they already know and understand. This, however, may675 Razor Sharp (2006).187 not be an overtly conscious decision his protagonists make, it is simply that they cansee little further than, and feel more comfortable with, ‘the rules of the game’.4.10 ConclusionThis chapter has argued that the films of Peter McDougall reveal a structure offeeling expressing male anxieties around the construction and performance ofmasculinity. It has maintained that while his work offers a critique of residual anddominant discourses presenting them as profoundly problematic, it also suggeststhat for many men there is minimal possibility for meaningful change or engagementwith emergent discourses.Initially this chapter opened up the association between individual masculinesubjectivities and a specific social structure, one configured around class andworking-class practices in particular. Class, it argued, provides a principalframework from which masculine experiences can be examined and, for working-class masculinity this ‘is most apparent within the experience of manual labour’,together with its attendant institutions, structures and practices.676 It has gone on toargue that in certain societies a sense of working-class masculinity can becamehabituated and conditioned within specific social structures that this sets the limits tothe capabilities of reflexive transformation. In examining specific structures thischapter has revealed how they work to both establish and confine working-classmasculine identity.By drawing on a number of theoretical positions which focus on the place ofviolence, drinking, territoriality and group identity, and their importance to the676 Tolson (1977), p. 58.188 construction and performance of working-class masculine identity I havedemonstrated how specific cultural traditions help to reinforce specific kinds ofworking-class masculinity. I have argued that the work of Peter McDougall offers upa particularly potent and poignant articulation of the experience of this for working-class men presenting a masculinity which is both troubled and troubling. However,the narratives articulate a pessimism which, while expressing a profound need forchange, offer no solutions, suggesting that any possible transformation is renderedbeyond the reach and understanding of their protagonists.In attempting an analysis of the work of McDougall this chapter has drawn upon thetheories of masculinity of Connell and Messerschmidt. Both are concerned with therelationship between practice and structure. Messerschmidt argues that gendermust be viewed as something which emerges from specific social practices andsettings. He is particularly interested in the ways that social structural patterns cometo influence, enable, and constrain behaviour over time, where they come to ‘exist asthe reproduced conduct of situated actors’.677 Thus specific social structuralconditions may serve to limit the many ways gender can be performed.Similarly Connell states that ‘social structure’ refers to ‘the constraints that lie in agiven form of social organization’.678 This, Messerschmidt argues, leads to a‘culturally idealised form of masculinity in a given historical and social setting. It isculturally honoured, glorified, and extolled situationally and is constructed in relationto subordinated masculinities and women’.679 However, both also suggest thatsocial structures are not simply forms of external constraint and that generally, while677 Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 197).678 Connell (1987), p. 92.679 Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 198).189 subjects may tend to reproduce gendered behaviours they may also alter socialstructures. Thus, both argue that change can occur within specific historicalcontexts.This chapter, however, has argued that while Connell and Messerschmidtemphasise ‘both the meaningful actions of individual agents and the structuralfeatures of social settings’, in certain circumstances the extant social structuresremain so potent and subjects so deeply embedded within them that this prohibitsany such possibility.680 Indeed, as this chapter has argued, while the narratives mayallude to the possibilities of emergent discourses emanating from outside of theirown immediate culture, for McDougall’s protagonists, stitched into residual anddominant discourses, there is minimal opportunity or willingness to engage withthem. Thus, as this chapter has demonstrated, through the work of Peter McDougallwe can see both ‘the limits of discursive flexibility’ and the ‘unreflective dimensions ofgender’.681 680 Messerschmidt (2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 197).681 Connell and Messerschmidt, (2005) 829-859 (pp. 842-843).190 5 North and South: Trevor Preston and Alan Bleasdale5.1 IntroductionThis chapter aims to consider the ways social and cultural changes of the late 1970sand early 1980s impacted upon working-class masculinities examining the reactionsand strategies engaged in attempting to confront them. Through the analysis of BBCdrama series Boys from the Black Stuff (UK, 1982) and the earlier The Blackstuff(UK, 1980) both written by Alan Bleasdale, and the Euston Films’ production ofTrevor Preston’s Fox (UK, 1980) this chapter will explore how changes in Britain hada profound effect upon two very different working-class communities. It will go on toshow how both writers expressed a structure of feeling concerned with anxietiesaround the erosion of patriarchal positions, and dominant and residual discourses ofgender, through the examination of the way changes are negotiated by the principalmale protagonists. Thus, while the previous chapter examined the way existingsocial structures worked to inhibit emergent discourses of gender, this chapter isprincipally concerned with identifying strategies employed to manage and resist newand emergent discourses.Opening with Trevor Preston’s Fox the chapter will look at the productionbackground, noting Preston’s reflections on the series as an elegy for change andloss of community and family at a particular historical moment, and document thecritical reception of Fox particularly in relation to realism. Through an examination ofpress coverage for the series, it will reveal a general critical antipathy to themelodramatic representation of working-class masculine experience, while furtherevidence will be considered which suggests far greater enthusiasm from its widerworking-class audience.191 The chapter will then go on to examine the principal theme of the series – familialpatriarchy. It will assess how the narrative engages with a conflation of dominantand residual masculinities particularly in the key character of patriarch Billy Fox. Asthe narrative arc explores the gradual decline of a patriarchal family (and byextension community) the perceived certainties about family life and gender identityare opened up to question. Drawing upon a number of critical perspectives thischapter will show how themes of continuity, tradition, stasis, and individual andcollective nostalgia are played out in the narrative and how they serve to constructand confine identities.I will then go on to explore the ways Preston deals with emergent discourses ongender and gender relations. Particular focus will be on the interactions between theprincipal male characters together with their relationships with a number of keyfemale protagonists who represent new emergent discourses. I will argue that thenarrative allows hegemonic masculinity to adapt by absorbing or largely rejectingthese emergent discourses particularity with regard to the sexuality andindependence of women, treating them as either aberrant, marginal or, to a far lesserdegree, accomodatable.The second part of this chapter will deal with Boys from the Black Stuff providinganalysis of the production background, Bleasdale’s own reflections on the series andits critical reception, again with particular regard to realism. Press coverage of theseries will reveal a wider structure of feeling around anxieties about working-classmasculine experience and the economic condition of Britain, as will further evidence192 of the affect on its wider audience. As with the previous chapter on McDougall I willgo on to interrogate the centrality of work to working-class masculine identity,however, in the case of Boys from the Black Stuff it is the trope of absence whichconstitutes the central theme.I will then look at the implications of this absence for the apparent collapse ofpatriarchal identities through its key male characters. Drawing on Beatrix Campbell Iwill argue from a feminist perspective that they represent a conflation of residual anddominant masculinities every bit as flawed as those in Fox, and that the disruption ofthe established norms expose the problematic assumptions on which the maleprotagonists have based their masculinity. The narrative’s treatment of their ‘crises’leaves little room for the exploration of female perspective, opening up one soleopportunity for female discourse, before, as with Fox, closing it down. Thus, I willargue that Bleasdale fails to adequately address the inequities within genderrelations within a much wider socialist discourse.The chapter will then go onto address the function of nostalgic feeling in thenarrative. As the perceived stability of the present recedes, nostalgia, I will argue,provides an illusory sense of permanence for what are manifestly fragileconstructions of masculine identities. However, as this chapter will demonstrate, thechief problem with the use of nostalgia within the narrative is that, while it ispredictably highly selective, it functions almost exclusively as a memory of maleexperience and values, lamenting the loss of solidarity and power of working-classmen, marginalising the experiences of women.193 The chapter will then go on to bring both narratives together in a lengthier discussionabout their treatment of women, arguing that in presenting gender and powerrelations as largely unproblematic with any changes viewed as pernicious andneeding to be resisted, this represents a deeply conservative and entrenchedviewpoint. While both series introduce significant female characters who questionand problematise masculine practices revealing male anxieties about women movinginto the workplace or having aspirations outside of the family, most of the others areeither marginalised, directly critiqued or dismissed in passing.Finally, I will examine how themes of change and entrapment are played out in boththe narratives. I will argue that masculine adaptation and change prove highlyproblematic for Preston and Bleasdale, and that while the narratives suggest tovarying degrees that their male protagonists are trapped by circumstances, they alsoshow them to be resistant to emergent discourses which might alter thosecircumstances and endanger their patriarchal positions.5.2 Tales of Two Cities: Fox and Boys from the Black StuffArthur Marwick sees the question of class as one that is key to the radical changesin economic and social life in the 1980s. What emerged, Marwick says, was agreater division between a deprived North and a relatively prosperous South as theNorth lost much of its heavy industry.682 While it could be argued that this declinemay have been inevitable, it was clearly accelerated in a way that left some of the682 th Arthur Marwick, British Society Since 1945: The Penguin Social History of Britain, 4 rev. edn. (London:Penguin, 2003), pp. 163-164.194 country in a state of shock and resentfulness. At the root of this North-South divide,however, was class.In a sense the old communities of the working-class were on the verge ofdisappearing. As the roots which meshed them together became even moretenuous and fragile, the institutions which supported them and had grown up aroundthem were becoming irrelevant and anachronistic. For the working-class there wereonly two choices, either join what Marr has termed ‘The British Revolution’ or persistwith something which was going to have very little meaning in the years to come. 683 Monaghan has argued that ‘Margaret Thatcher challenged much of what had cometo be considered ‘natural’ in the long period of consensus politics into which Britainentered after World War II’.684 Widely accepted and prevailing notions about class,equality, industry, and ownership were confronted directly in her effort to ‘transformsociety’.685 ‘By so doing she inevitably lent a new sense of urgency and even crisisto perennial debates about national identity, class relationships, and the economicorder’.686 However, while both Fox and Boys from the Black Stuff may operate asvaledictories for class, place, and community, they also function as devices whichquestion accepted notions around the stability of identity. Ultimately both narrativesare concerned with the erosion of established working-class masculine identities andhow the male protagonists attempt to preserve them and foster a sense of continuity.By articulating the experiences of ordinary men they are concerned with how the683 Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (London: Macmillan, 2007), p. 379.684 David Monaghan, ‘Margaret Thatcher, Alan Bleasdale and the Struggle for Working Class Identity’,Journal of Popular Film and Television, 29.1 (Spring 2001), 2-13 (p. 2).685 Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left (London: Verso, 1988),pp.103-4.686 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 2).195 understanding of an era’s emotional relations may rub up against its institutional andsocial structures.687 Here the ‘confident assertions of the social character’ contendwith the practical world in which things are not that simple.688 Foucault has argued that the subject is determined by circulating discourses, and‘are defined by the positions that it is possible for […] (them) to occupy’ and what willbe acceptable.689 However, while these discourses may enable subject positionsthey are also subject to constraints, limits, and ‘regularities’.690 Additionally, whilethere may be a number of discursive possibilities circulating at any one time, thesubject is also self-regulating. Fox as a narrative conforms to this notion of genderidentity with its high degree of self-regulating and normative behaviour with restrictedagency providing limited variations within a tightly knit working-class community.This is one which is both conservative and resistant to the emergent and reluctant toembrace the new (gender) discourses with which Preston confronts his protagonists.The narrative presents a world where Bourdieu’s notion of ‘social divisions becomethe principles of division organising the limits of the social world. Objective limitsbecome a sense of limits, a sense of one’s place’.691 Consequently, Fox articulatesa world with limited taste for change or alteration, particularly on the part of itsprivileged male protagonists.687 Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 1961 repr. 2001), p. 82.688 Ibid.689 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, trans. Colin Gordon and others (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 73-74: Michel Foucault, The Archaeology ofKnowledge, (New York: Pantheon, 1972), p. 197.690 Ibid., pp. 231-232.691 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. by Richard Nice(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984), p. 471.196 With Boys from the Black Stuff it is the conflation of localisation and constraint whichis continually emphasised within the narrative. Foucault, argues Whitehead, hassuggested that while the masculine subject may be discursively enabled he is alsobounded within a political category not directly of his own making. He is not free andis subject to the disciplining conditions of discourse:The question is, not whether men take up masculine discourses aspractices, but rather which masculine discourses to engage in.Whatever choice is available is heavily localised and thus constrainedby numerous variables such as age, cultural capital, body, health,ethnicity, geography, nationality and not least the unique history of thatsubject as an individual.692 While Bleasdale takes a particularly bleak and sombre view to the new prevailingconditions, acknowledging defeat and subsequent lapse into madness wheremeaningful change is impossible for those men who have become marginalised, Foxrecognises change as something that can be adapted to, but very much on one’sown terms. However, by focusing on men’s experiences of this change both do littleto question the ‘rights’ of men’s positions and their privilege within gender relations.If anything, the narratives are reticent in any acknowledgement of the need forchange and since men’s position and privilege were reliant on the status quo thenany change that undermines this may be seen as particularly deleterious to them.Nevertheless, while highly sympathetic to men’s predicament, both also, at times,address the inconsistencies and ambiguities which that predicament unearthed.Crucially, rather than completely marginalising women within the narrative, or simplymaking them scapegoats, active participants or even agents for perceived masculinedecline, something which can be traced in some of the writing of Clement and La692 Stephen M. Whitehead, Men and Masculinities: Key Themes and New Directions (Cambridge: Polity Press,2002), p. 110.197 Frenais, both writers have indeed written some significant and trenchant parts forwomen which serve to open up new discourses about masculine (and indeedfeminine) identity and practices.Despite their different approaches and subject matter, and the fact that genericallythey inhabit different spaces, what resonates throughout both narratives is theirconcern for the ‘gradual erosion of class consciousness and individual worth’together with the ‘spectre of negation which threatens to replace the presence ofcommunity and identity’.693 This then throws up questions particularly aroundmasculine identity, experience and change as both narratives are founded upon thenormative assumptions of patriarchy.With Fox, Preston establishes a mode of traditional South London working-classmasculinity and then rubs it up against all manner of contrasting abrasives whichserve to either undermine or reinforce a sense of unity and permanence. Prestonintroduces questions of class and regional mobility; homosexuality; higher education;the middle-classes; race; and disability to varying degrees within the narrative.While any ‘direct feminist of radical address is outside its remit’ argues Cook, ‘it isdramatically putting under scrutiny a range of conservative values’.694 Consequently,the heterogeneity of the emerging London of the late Seventies and early Eightiesconstantly threatens to puncture the hegemonic homogeneity of Preston’s cockneyworld. As O’Sullivan has noted,693 Sean O’Sullivan, ‘No Such Thing as Society: Television and the Apocalypse’, in Fires Were Started:British Cinema and Thatcherism, ed. by Lester D. Friedman, 2nd . edn (London: Wallflower Press, 2006),pp. 223-42 (p. 224).694 Jim Cook, ‘Out and Fox: Better Popular Television Than We Deserve?’, in Made for Television: Euston Films Limited, ed. by Manuel Alvarado and John Stewart (London: Methuen, 1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144).198 by the 1980s the South looked more like transient territory where classbarriers and neighbourhood identity might seem to matter less thancapital and freedom of movement.695 This then is a story about adaptation, but specifically male adaptation, where existingelements and practices of masculinity are impugned, but residual vestiges andstructures remain relatively intact.Bleasdale on the other hand with his Liverpool based drama Boys from the BlackStuff, deals exclusively with unemployment and its consequences for its maleprotagonists. He presents the North as a location ‘defined by its obsessiveregionalism and sense of local identity and history’ and perhaps a more entrenchedview of working-class masculinity.696 Furthermore the immediate consequences ofeconomic and subsequent social change were to have a far more negative anddetrimental effect on many aspects of Northern life than of that in the South. Here,however, there is little if any room for adaptation. Thus, Boys from the Black Stuff isa cataclysmic and conclusive tale where the protagonist’s ultimate destiny is infusedwith a desperate and largely redundant nostalgia for a time when they consideredmasculine identities and men’s patriarchal positions to be more stable.Ultimately both Preston and Bleasdale express a structure of feeling which conveyshow individual experience and emotion are connected to wider social and economicstructures. These are social experiences which exist outside of officialconsciousness or the dominant ideology. As such they seek to describe ‘emotionalas well as cognitive frameworks’ describing the anxieties, impulses, and blindnesses695 O’Sullivan (2006), pp. 223-42 (p.224).696 Ibid.199 of the period, those which were experienced by men. 697 By the early 1980s changesin economic, social, and cultural circumstances demanded concomitant changes inmasculine practices and gender relations. Whether shifts in working patterns or theposition of women, these were to have important consequences for thereconfigurations of masculinity. However, while Preston and Bleasdale acknowledgethese pressures upon traditional, established working-class masculinities it issomething which both feel uncomfortable with. Ultimately, as this chapter will show,theirs is a disavowal of new discourses of gender relations and masculinity as theirprotagonists retreat further into residual discourses.5.3 Fox: IntroductionFox emerged from Thames’ subsidiary Euston Films which had been set up in 1971to produce dramas entirely on film and largely eschewed studio locations, ensuringlower production costs and greater verisimilitude.698 Preston’s lineage had been towork on many of these including Special Branch (UK, 1969-74) and ‘the stylisedfictional realism’ of The Sweeney (UK, 1975-78), as well as other ‘tough’ genericallysituated ABC/Thames drama series such as Callan (UK, 1967-72) and Public Eye(UK, 1965-75).699 Brought up in South London, this milieu has, according toWilliams, informed much of his writing. By his own admission he was ‘a bit of atearaway when young and, for a time, he had considered a career as a boxer’.700 AsPreston himself has claimed, much of his writing was biographical, about ‘people I697 Morag Shiach, ‘A Gendered History of Cultural Categories’, in Cultural Materialism: On RaymondWilliams, ed. by Christopher Prendergast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp 51-70 (p.58).698 Roddy Buxton, ‘Behind the Screens: Cinema for Television’, Transdiffusion Broadcasting System [accessed 2 December 2011]699 Ibid..700 John Williams, ‘Preston, Trevor’, Screenonline (BFI, [n.d.]) [accessed 5 December 2011]200 have known or heard about’.701 Thus, Fox, while a melodrama, emerges from livedexperience, one which Preston himself had witnessed. The series was directed byJim Goddard who had previously worked with Preston on its smaller scale and moregenerically precise maquette, Out (UK, 1978) and indeed with Bleasdale on TheBlackstuff, and had similar, although not exclusive, experience in crime genres. Withcomparable working-class backgrounds they developed a particularly close workingrelationship.702 Lez Cooke maintains that Fox conforms to Preston’s ethos of ‘presenting asympathetic portrayal of a working-class fraternity in South London’.703 As JimGoddard has explained, ‘it was about loyalty, working-class loyalty, working-classvillain loyalty’.704 With Fox, Preston endeavours to establish the demise of theworking-class as something to lament, honest, hardworking, family based, with itsown traditions, structures and ethics, but not without its faults. If, as Peter Ackroydhas suggested, London ‘has always provoked sensations of loss’ as well ascontinuity, then what is explored here are those sensations for a specific strata of itsinhabitants.705 However, with its emphasis on the fraternal, the narrative necessarilyprivileges those sensations experienced by men.Generically Fox is an epic serial, a dynastical melodrama concerned with familialdisputes and conflict but where the protagonists are invariably united against outsideforces. It is heavily infused with elements of traditionally regarded ‘male’ genres701 King Billy with Audio Commentary Featuring Trevor Preston and Jim Goddard, [included in Fox: TheComplete Series DVD, Network, 2007].702 Ibid.703 Lez Cooke, British Television Drama: A History (London: BFI, 2003), p. 150.704 Ibid.705 Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography (London: Vintage, 2001), p. 121.201 including the gangster film, boxing drama, film noir, and action thriller and exploresostensibly masculine narrative themes such as revenge, duty and honour. It alsofeatures, however, strong elements of the traditionally regarded ‘female’ genre, thesoap opera with its open-ended, cliffhanger episodes and multi-stranded narrativesdealing with personal disclosure, feelings and emotions, and set as much indomestic settings as public spaces. However, while Fox incorporates a number offeatures from a variety of genres, it also has elements of what Jim Cook calls ‘socialdrama’.706 As Cook has argued, it is this combination of realism, social drama, andthriller which makes it so distinctive.707 While its realism emerges from its locationsand its ’recognisably working-class idiom’, the ‘circumscribed society, the family, theflawed characters, the external pressures, the violent conflicts’ provides itsmelodrama:The narrative takes place within a London that’s rapidly changing, verysymbolical of the wider changes in society under the narrative ofThatcherism and keys into Trevor Preston’s own reaction to this andhis upbringing as a working-class Londoner.708 Indeed, it is these changes which both Goddard and Preston have explicitlylamented, as Preston has said: ‘We were very passionate about London and whatwas happening to it’.709 Preston has described Fox as ‘a love song to London andthe London people’ and while he recognises what was happening to London washappening in other cities, he demurs the ‘decline of life in London’ and thedisappearance of certain ‘types of families’.710 He saw the drama as a response to706 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 139).707 Ibid, p. 140.708 Ibid, pp. 140 -141; Williams, ‘Preston, Trevor’, [n.d.].709 King Billy (2007).710 Peter Keating, ‘South London Slick’, Times Literary Supplement, 28 March 1980; Kenneth Hughes, ‘NewFamily Blockbuster: The Fox Saga’, Daily Mirror , 8 March 1980; Baz Bamigboye, ‘King Bill’s SouthsideStory’, Evening Standard, 10 March 1980; Hughes (1980).202 the destruction of a way of life, a ‘warm loving look’ at a family, but nonetheless afamily pitted pugnaciously against London itself.711 Like Boys From the Black Stuff, Fox is concerned with place and time, portraying akind of fin de siècle emphasising change, loss, and portent, exploring how theworking-class inhabitants of South London can adapt to what is essentially thedemise of their post-war working-class community and milieu. The closing aerialshot of the entire series almost self-consciously emphasises the city as one about toundergo considerable change not dissimilar to the London landscape depicted inThe Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, UK, 1980). The opening titles of eachepisode similarly essay the Thames, Battersea Power Station (which closed in1983), and Chelsea Bridge, establishing an indelible sense of place. This is thenunderscored by an epic, portentous, orchestral sweep before finally moving into amore contemporary variant, signifying the encroachment of new, outside influences.This is a London whose landscape and demographic will soon be profoundly alteredwhether through the formation of the London Dockland Development Corporation in1981 and the subsequent re-development of the Docklands and Canary Wharf or thede-regulation of the City in 1986, both heralding the demise of traditional heavyindustries requiring both physical labour and a highly localised labour force. It is thisvery moment that witnessed the ‘end of the industrial economy and the start of thebland virtual economy and the new masculinity of the deregulated City’.712 Throughout the narrative the dialogue engaged in by its characters reiterates andemphasises that this is a London that no longer belongs to them, and more generally711 Anon, ‘Fox’, Evening Standard, 10 March 1980; Bamigboye (1980).712 A History of Modern Britain: Revolution 1979-90, BBC2, 12 June 2007, 21.00.203 that no longer belongs to the working-class, if indeed it ever did.713 Perhaps themost revealing comments are made by Rene, patriarch Billy Fox’s daughter-in-law.In a relatively straightforward commentary on changing times, not dissimilar to theopening scene in Preston’s previous drama series Out, she opines:I’m beginning to hate London – it’s changed – not like it was when wewere kids, its dying slowly, bit by bit, nobody laughs, nobody whistles,it’s all grab, grab, grab, money, money, money, too many cars, toomany drunks, too many foreigners, filth everywhere, not a place toraise kids,pausing only to express the reality of her situation with ‘the family, the firm, thehouse, we’re tied to London’. While these are changes which might be felt to affectworking-class (white) Londoners generally, the perceived threat to working-classmasculinity is subsequently articulated more precisely through the character of Billy’sson Phil, particularly in a drunken but no less trenchant diatribe about the perceivedemasculation of the changing Covent Garden. What, then, the narrative presents uswith are the vestiges of a recent, once ostensibly secure, and mythically elevatedpast.While I will go on to argue that Fox represents a deeply conservative tendency in thework of Goddard and Preston, they nevertheless opened up a ‘rare televisual spaceto address itself uncondescendingly and pleasurably to working-class values and toproblematise them by dramatising a whole range of questions about socialidentity’.714 Indeed, as Cook has argued, while their address was ‘uncompromisinglypopular’ they also offered a range of representations ‘of equal complexity andcommitment to those of social drama’.715 713 Norman Collins, London Belongs to Me, 1st Published 1945 (London: Penguin Classics, 2008).714 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 145).715 Ibid.204 While it is not within the scope of this project to examine the debate around realismwhich prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s it might be useful to reflect upon someaspects which have a bearing here upon critical reception. Within the climate ofgrowing freedom for dramas to emerge out of studio bound production, Millingtonhas recognised that some felt that ‘taken to its logical conclusion’ the quest fornaturalism would lead to the photographing of a ‘slice of life’, an achievement atodds with the artists desire to transcend or comment upon actuality.716 This also haspolitical implications, since what is presented as objective, unmediated reality isnevertheless still mediated. Looking towards Williams’s account of naturalism andrealism, Millington argues that television naturalism is seen by its critics to depictpeople as ‘stuck in their environment and unable to change it’.717 Realism incontrast:reveals interaction between character and environment which is notrigidly determinist but which affords the possibility of social changethrough the inevitable working out of dynamic and conflicting elementsin the social structure.718 Into this debate is added non-naturalistic modes of representation aimed atdisrupting realism, questioning its authenticity, and engaging the audience in thisquestion.719 Undoubtedly, what Millington calls ‘Northern realism’ contributed considerably to thesuccess of Boys From the Black Stuff and the surreal experimental distancingtechniques invited critical approval.720 However, while Millington has critiqued the716 Bob Millington and Robin Nelson, Boys From the Blackstuff: The Making of a TV Drama (London:Comedia, 1986), p. 14.717 Ibid., p. 15.718 Ibid.719 Ibid., p. 16.720 Bob Millington, ‘Boys From the Blackstuff (Alan Bleasdale)’, in British Television Drama in the 1980s, ed.by George Brandt (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 119-139 (p. 125).205 ‘current dominance of the thirteen part drama series‘ governed more by establishedconventions than the single play, Fox was only partly a product of theseconventions.721 Cook argued that it was the combination of melodrama, realism, andexperimentation which mitigated critical success. For Cook neither realism nor anti-realism is ‘the best model for understanding’ Fox.722 While it does conform tonotions of realism/naturalism in certain ways, in that it deals with ‘ordinary peoples’lives’ which have a ‘representative quality’ and ‘provide insights into the nature of thewhole society, its attitudes and values’, and Preston is writing from a working-classpoint of view, it also employs the techniques and forms of thriller and melodrama.723 However, while Cook sees this as a positive advantage preventing it from ‘falling intothe miserabilist variant of social drama’ he also argues that this may well have leadto a certain confusion in its reception together with academic dismissal.724 It was this blend of melodrama and realism then, which attracted considerable criticalattention at the time. While some more middle-class commentators dismissed theimpact of its melodramatic treatment of working-class life as false and sentimental,preferring the realist depictions of Play for Today, it was this that others found soaffective. Dunkley with his antipathy to social realism, which he had expressed in hisreview of Just Another Saturday praised Fox for its authentic dialogue and imageswhich practically exude ‘the very scent of the city’.725 With its ‘affection andpedigree’ he said. ‘I believe that when we look back we shall identify Fox as one ofthe best items in a larger body of work which will by then be seen to have the same721 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 18.722 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 139).723 Ibid., p. 140.724 Ibid.; Ibid., p. 136.725 Chris Dunkley, ‘London Pride’, Financial Times, 12 March 1980.206 coherence and distinctiveness’.726 This body was principally the output of LWT,Thames, Euston, and in particular Verity Lambert. Others recognised the ‘actionpacked’ and ‘poignant’ storylines as ‘better than realism’.727 ‘The Foxes have bloodin their veins’, wrote Patrick Stoddart ‘not sham kitchen sinkery’, this being ‘ananswer to the many family sagas of the gritty North’.728 This combination ofmelodrama and realism, however, also invited some criticism. It was ‘deranged’ and‘wildly uneven in style’; the ‘cardboard characters of cockneyland’ were merely ‘onedimensional’; it had ‘lost touch with reality’; it was a ‘voyeuristic look at SouthLondon’; it was without ‘the bleak authenticity of Law and Order (UK, 1978) whichhad been recently repeated and served to expose Fox as a soap. 729 Indeed somecritics compared it to Dallas (US, 1978-1991).730 It was the subject matter, however, that was decisive in dividing the critics. Some,particularly in the popular press, received it unproblematically as ‘lively, street smart,mean, evocative’ or ‘heartwarming and bawdy’, evoking the ‘spirit of those rowdygood old days’; others saw it as simply enjoyable and ‘watchable’.731 Far moretypical, however, was Andrew Davies’ response that he was ‘morally affronted not bycontent but by the ambivalent attitude towards it’.732 While most critics praised Foxfor its visual style and dialogue, they also described it as ‘virtuosity over virtue […]overdramatised, oversentimental’, ‘maudlin, overemotional’ and a ‘popular fantasy726 Ibid.727 Martin Jackson, ‘Menace’, Daily Mail, 11 March 1980a.728 Patrick Stoddard, ‘Did You See?’, Evening News, 11 March 1980.729 William McIIvanney, ‘Fox’, Glasgow Herald, 3 May 1980; Sean Day-Lewis, ‘The Cardboard Characters ofCockneyland’, Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1980a; Martin Jackson, ‘Tearaways’, Daily Mail ,15 April1980b; Peter Dunn, ‘The Tribe has its Reasons’, Sunday Times, 16 March 1980; Elkan Allen, ‘Fox’, Newsof the World, 7 March 1980; Keating (1980).730 Kevin Cully, ‘Fox’, Tribune, 25 April 1980; Martin Jackson (1980b).731 Julian Barnes, ‘Fox’, New Statesman, 18 April 1980; Margaret Forward, ‘The Fox Has to Win’, Sun, 11March 1980; Hughes (1980); Sean Day-Lewis, ‘Passing the Time’, Daily Telegraph, 20 May 1980b.732 Andrew Davies, ‘Fox’, Times Educational Supplement, 21 March 1980.207 about family solidarity’.733 Russell Davies expressed ‘the suspicion that writer anddirector would like us to approve of these people’, who he felt ‘cheap and nasty’,others describing them as a ‘charmless London tribe’.734 Ultimately for Davies itcombined ‘the slush and the horror’.735 Nonetheless, many recognised the considerable popular appeal of Fox: ‘In a societywith fewer and fewer genuine outlets for self-advancement, the Foxes combine astreet-wise grittiness with a fighting spirit reminiscent of the dark days of 1940’.736 Indeed, the working-class audience which Preston sought to address reactedfavourably to seeing ‘themselves, their fears and concerns […] in dramatised form’with ordinary characters taking on heroic qualities and the working-class communityportrayed as largely ‘solid in a changing world’.737 While it was suggested that its audience might attract middle-class voyeurs ofworking-class life offering a voyeuristic look at South London it was itself not aimedat the middle-class audiences targeted by many one off plays about working-classlife.738 Unlike the work of McDougall or Bleasdale it does not share the ‘tendency toconfront the symptoms/effects of decay with a fairly blank, predominantly naturalisticstare’.739 While its ‘display of social attitudes to family, relationships, sexuality, andwork’ does retain a considerable degree of realism it is melodrama which provides its733 Roy Shaw, ‘Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer’, Times Educational Supplement, 30 May 1980; Anon,‘Fox’, Glasgow Herald, 29 March 1980; Stewart Lane, ‘Fox’, Morning Star, 11 June 1980a; RussellDavies, ‘The Family Business’, Sunday Times, 22 June 1980.734 Russell Davies (1980); Cully (1980).735 Russell Davies (1980).736 Cully (1980).737 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 140); Cully (1980).738 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 138); Peter Dunn, ‘The Tribe has its Reasons’, Sunday Times, 16 March 1980; Cook, (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 139).739 Steve Jenkins, ‘Ghost Dance’, Monthly Film Bulletin, 51.601 (February 1984), p. 197.208 ‘emotional dynamic’.740 In this sense it is the combination of poignancy with ‘flawedcharacters, […] external pressures, […] violent conflicts’ which proved more affectivethan realism or bleak authenticity for the audience.741 While it may have beenmaudlin and sentimental ‘wearing emotions on its sleeve rather more than would beacceptable to working class families’ much of its considerable audience of severalmillions was made up that same constituency.742 Thus, the ‘centrality of relations of feeling and intimacy in the pleasures of television’seems to lie at the heart of Fox.743 If, as Smit has argued, television can be ‘definedby its affective capacity to forge a sense of connection between off-screen viewers,on screen characters’and what Kavka has called an ‘imagined community’, then Foxitself evoked strong feelings of intimacy and proximity to this community for itsaudience.744 With regard to the affect that the series had on a specifically male audience, whilethere is only limited evidence to support an assessment of this, it should be notedthat while it featured a considerable amount of emotional interaction expressed by itsmale protagonists, it was also recognisably traditionally masculine in itsrepresentations of those characters.745 Thus, while it was able to explore maleanxieties as the principal characters fended off challenges to their masculineidentities and previously regarded gender certainties, it retained enough traditionally740 Cook, (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144; 141).741 Ibid., p. 144; 141.742 Lane (1980); Cook, (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 137).743 Misha Kavka, Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy: Reality Matters (Basingstoke and New York, NY:Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 20.744 Alexia Smit, ‘Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion’, Screen, 51.1 (Spring 2010), 92-95 (p.93); Kavka, (2008), p. 17.745 Max Sexton, Urban Imaginaries and Euston Films [accessed 7 May 2014}.209 masculine narrative and character tropes not to alienate its target audience. AsGauntlett and Miller’s research into male audiences has suggested there was ‘littleenthusiasm for introspective men’s programmes’ of an overt or explicit kind, with‘emotional analysis perceived as unnecessary’.746 Thus, while it revealed men to beopen to emotional engagement this was still couched within other traditionallymasculine elements.Nevertheless, one male viewer, a London taxi driver, expressed his appreciation forthe way Fox was able to deal with the dilemmas for many men attempting tonegotiate traditional working-class values of family, loyalty and comradeship in aLondon were those values were being rapidly eroded.747 Indeed, he went on to say,the show represented a London, with its male haunts of pubs, boxing clubs andcafes, which he was beginning to no longer recognise. Another viewer, whilelamenting a perceived decline in contemporary society, expressed his delight in thereturn to working-class male pride he found in the series.748 This idea of the passingof time as an affective experience was reflected in a number of other commentators,stressing the appeal of its poignant nostalgia as well as its action, recognising it asboth touchingly plaintive and earthy.749 5.4 Fox, Patriarchy, and MasculinityFox is essentially the story of the Fox family, dominated by their patriarch Billy Fox, aretired Covent Garden market porter who is regarded with something approaching746 David Gauntlett and Annette Hill, TV Living: Television, Culture and Everyday Life (London: BFI, 1999),p. 238.747 Glenn Mathews, ‘Your View’, Evening News, 11 June 1980.748 Bob Stafford, ‘Your View’, Evening News, 17 June 1980.749 Cook, (1985), pp. 136-146; Forward (1980).210 reverence by the residents of Clapham where much of the drama takes place. ‘Hehas five sons by two marriages and, although he is a family man, the sons struggleto form their own identity under his shadow’.750 Billy Fox then could be seen as,what Simone de Beauvoir, cited by Ursula Owen, has described as, the father asGod:It is through him that the family communicates with the rest of theworld: he incarnates that immense, difficult and marvelous world ofadventure; he personifies transcendence, he is God.751 The overall arc of the ‘saga’, as Preston has described it,focuses on the construction of the family and the internal, often verytense, relationships between a father and sons. The series is as muchabout male identity, ideas of masculinity, working-class pride andcommon sense versus intellectual and political idealism, as it is aboutthe erosion of what are regarded as sacred family ties.752 Throughout the series there is a strong element of ambivalence in the writing, atonce celebratory of tough working-class masculinity, lamenting its passing, and itsdifficulty in changing, but also acknowledging the different possibilities for genderidentity construction. However, while the narrative explores issues around malesexuality and father and son relationships opening up possibilities of newreformulated masculine identities, those possibilities are both constrained andultimately revoked.Building upon Foucault’s notion of socially constructed and unstable genders withthe subject as a result of discursive possibilities, Butler sees gender identity as aperformance which becomes reified through repetition ‘of meanings already socially750 John Williams, ‘Fox’, Screenonline (BFI, [n.d.]) [accessed 1 December 2011]751 Ursula Owen, Fathers: Reflections by Daughters (London, Virago,1984), p.32.752 It Must be the Suit with Audio Commentary featuring Trevor Preston, Jim Goddard and Barry Hanson,[included in Out, Network, 2007]; Anon, ‘Fox’, Television Heaven[accessed 12 October 2011]211 established’ and as such can be altered and changed.753 While Butler’s work ongender identity has highlighted performativity as a means of gender construction andchallenged the normalisation of gender roles, it has also tended to focus upon self-consciously marginal and often confidently transgressive expressions of genderrather than those experienced within particularly restrictive social structures andparticularly liable to be constrained by existing dominant discourses. Here normativepractices and existing structures may propel, if not compel, people to ‘act’ in certainways.For Preston’s male protagonists, acculturated into existing discourses of masculinity,there is little possibility of genuinely transgressive performances. As Beynon hasargued ’most men are still culturally propelled to incorporate dominance, whetherphysical or rational competence, into their presentation of self’.754 Although this hasbeen increasingly undermined, there may remain residual cultural constraints andthis was undoubtedly the case in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore humanbehaviour appears to lean towards the maintenance of a relatively stable identity andmay be extremely resistant to change, something which has been made apparent invarious analyses of the relationship of nostalgia and identity: ‘The reality for manypeople much of the time is that their sexualities remain remarkably constant andstable over time even when lived experience may contradict this’.755 If identity is753 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge,1999), p. 178.754 John Beynon, Masculinities and Culture (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002), p. 11.755 See Fred Davis, Yearning For Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia (New York: Free Press, 1979);Constatine Sedikides, Tim Wildschut and Denise Baden, ‘Nostalgia: Conceptual Issues and ExistentialFunctions’, in Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology, ed. by Jeff Greenberg, Sander L. Koole,and Tom Pyszczynski (New York: Guilford Press, 2004),pp. 200-214; Stuart Tannock, ‘Nostalgia Critique’,Cultural Studies, 9.3 (October 1995), pp. 453-464; Tim Edwards, ‘Queer Fears: Against the Cultural Turn’,Sexualities,1.4 (1998), 471-484 (p. 472).212 achieved through the repetition of discourses then is it not likely that to some degreethat subjects may become comfortable within what may be simply a set of ‘habits’?Gender may be performative but, as Edwards has argued, it may not necessarilyresult in ‘endless possibilities and unlimited potential’.756 Circumstances such asrace, class, education, physicality, and social grouping may mitigate against theseendless possibilities and, of course, the existing social structures and dominantdiscourses may themselves be resistant to change. While Edwards has critiquedButler’s ‘idealism’ which he says may offer ‘much potential’ but has ‘limited purchase’in the context of the real world, it is perhaps in this tension that much may berevealed about actual experience, in the gap between the rhetoric and the reality.757 Thus, while Preston opens up a number of new and emergent discourses he alsosuggests that they do not, or should not apply, to working-class experience,stressing both stability and tradition.Fox offers up a narrative which accords with Bourdieu's notion of doxa and‘adherence to relations of order which, because they structure both the real worldand the thought world, are accepted as self-evident’.758 Bourdieu states that:Dominated agents who assess the value of their position and theircharacteristics by applying a system of schemes of perception andappreciation which is the embodiment of the objective laws wherebytheir value is objectively constituted, tend to attribute to themselveswhat the distribution attributes to them, refusing what they are refused(‘that’s not for the likes of us’).759 Consequently for these agents, possibility becomes subsumed to probability, wherethey define ‘themselves as the established order defines them reproducing in their756 Edwards (1998), 471-484 (p. 472).757 Tim Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), p. 4.758 Bourdieu (1984), p. 471.759 Ibid.213 verdict upon themselves the verdict the economy pronounces on them’.760 Thus, theestablished order of the social world is bolstered and sustained. In other words ‘theorchestration of categories or perception of the social world, which, being adjusted tothe divisions of the established order’ and ‘present every appearance of objectivenecessity’.761 Consequently Preston presents us with a world where ultimately hisprotagonists and indeed the narrative conform to the existing social order, one wherethe patriarchal order established by Billy Fox is accepted as ‘common sense’. Thus,the characters develop a considerable investment, or what Giddens has describedas ’faith’, in the ‘coherence of everyday life’ which is continually reiterated in socialinteraction.762 While exposed to greater freedoms from emergent discourses, it istheir emotion and sentiment which draws them back to more residual discourses.763 Affect, therefore, ‘identifies the strength of investment which anchors people inparticular experiences, practices, identities, meanings and pleasures’.764 5.5 King Billy the PatriarchKing Billy Fox is the capacious, larger than life, repository of traditional working-classmasculine values, his presence at the epicentre of the community. While heepitomises a rather sagacious, benevolent, paternalistic patriarch there arenonetheless clues within the narrative to his more dogmatic and fierce reputationbuilt in the past. He is, as Philip Purser has described him, a ‘patriarch full of energy760 Bourdieu (1984), p. 471.761 Ibid.762 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford:Stanford UP, 1991), p. 38.763 Stjepan Gabriel Mestrovic, Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 77-81.764 Lawrence Grossberg, We Gotta Get Out of this Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture(Routledge, 1992), p. 82.214 with hints of a combative’ history.765 The opening scenes show Billy striding alongthe South London streets establishing his ‘manor’ and his esteemed place within thecommunity. He is greeted warmly, but deferentially, by his neighbours, flirting with amuch younger woman. The music is upbeat and sanguine, redolent of the long goneworld of London music halls, and the accompanying lyrics, sung in the cockneyvernacular, set out the myth of King Billy. With the final line of the introductory verse’you better remember, it’s still Rule Britannia!’, the narrative establishes anunambiguous celebration of Billy’s Britannia, one which is pugnaciously all white, allworking-class. These scenes of apparent blissful harmony are, however, predicatedupon a lifetime of protracted dissonance.As the succession of opening scenes gather momentum, the seventy year old Billyemphasises his physicality, which he clearly sees as a crucial part of being a man.By jogging and mock sparring with his son Kenny, a professional boxer, he is able toaffirm with his son the importance of the body and particularly the strong, tough,unflinching body as a key site of genuine masculinity. In short, the body and itsvarious physical expressions retain the power to convey masculine identity.As Bourdieu has argued, there exists ‘the practical philosophy of the male body as asort of power, big and strong, with enormous imperative brutal needs’.766 ‘Strictlybiological differences are (subsequently) underlined and symbolically accentuated’through a process of signification.767 With its attendant ’valorization of virility’ the765 Philip Purser, ‘Fox’, Sunday Telegraph, 16 March 1980.766 Bourdieu (1984), pp. 192.767 Ibid.215 male body may then become the signifier of social differences between masculinitiesand accrue physical capital.768 As Edwards has argued:The body is a metaphor or the bearer of symbolic meaning and values,and a key site through which social differences are created,perpetuated and reinforced.769 For Billy, such capital as strength and fitness has been produced, learned anddeveloped within ‘particular social fields’, particularly in the workplace in CoventGarden and the community around Clapham, and this has already been successfullyconverted into other forms of capital including material and economic, status andsocial standing.770 Thus ‘individual bodily management’ has been and ‘remainsprofoundly important’ for both Billy and the other male characters for, as Bourdieuargues, working-class men have a different, perhaps more intricate relationship totheir body than middle-class men, particularly in terms of strength.771 However, while corporeality as a form of capital has already been converted by Billyinto other forms of capital, physicality nevertheless remains a residual but no lessimportant marker of masculinity in a rather more symbolic sense. Thus, the toughphysical body is a recurring motif within the narrative of Fox, emphasisingmasculinity at both the core of family and community. This can be seen, forexample, in Billy’s physically dominant presence in a number of scenes, which allowhim to dominate the frame; Kenny stripped to the waist, placed within the boxingring; Vinny fearlessly adept at sliding down a scaffolding pole; or all five brothers768 Bourdieu (1984), pp. 192.769 Edwards (2006), p. 145.770 Ibid.771 Ibid.; Bourdieu (1984), p. 190.216 united and appropriately attired for pugnacious confrontations with rivals, in whatMorgan has called the ‘conflation of body and masculinity in practices of fraternity’.772 The importance of the body then raises significant issues about its control.773 Giddens has argued, ‘society is premised on patterns of reflexivity in a state ofturning inwards. Here there is a situation of heightened anxiety, self-absorption anda desire for control’.774 Thus, in an attempt to affirm identity and the concern for self-image, ‘the body becomes a reflexive project to be moulded and adapted’.775 Whilethis may be particularly pertinent to what Giddens calls late modernity, it nonethelesshas relevance here. Consequently, if bodily management is crucial, then any lapsein that control becomes highly problematic.776 An example of this is when Kennyallows himself to be seduced by a stranger whilst incapacitated by alcohol. As sheand her accomplice steal his car and belongings and strip him of his clothes, histough hard body, previously celebrated and admired in the ring, has been renderedweak and dependent. His naked vulnerable torso is revealed as both fragile andless than acceptably masculine.As we have seen with the work of McDougall, violence can operate within thenarratives as either an expression of masculinity where other avenues are closed off,as a tool to establish masculine status and as an expressive carnivalesque772 David Morgan, ‘You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine’, in Body Matters: Essays on the Sociology of theBody, ed. by David Morgan and Sue Scott (London: Falmer Press, 1993; repr. 1996), pp. 69-88 (p. 86).773 Edwards (2006), p. 129.774 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity in the Late Modern Age (Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 1991), pp.56-58.775 Edwards (2006), p. 129.776 Giddens (1991), pp. 56-58.217 enactment.777 With Fox, however, violence, like tough physicality, appears to be afar more residual expression of masculinity, since it is invoked only when deemedentirely necessary. While status is at the root of violent action it is less about thegaining of that status than the maintenance of it. Indeed, violence is almost alwaysused as a means to rein in those who have transgressed and upset the status quo.As such, while it is an important signifier of masculinity, as with Kenny’s boxing andin the practices of all the men of the Fox family, it is less central to masculineidentity, contained within the boxing ring or used as a final resort. However, asPreston has observed, within many working-class communities there is always ‘theinevitable aggression between two groups of men’.778 While Billy himself is clearly still capable of violent action, he is nonetheless anelderly man. Whitehead has suggested that as men grow older they ‘internalise newsubjectivities and sense of self’, while physical decline is frequently accompanied bya ‘deep and lasting existential crisis’ as ‘their place in the world shifts’.779 However,although Billy is approaching his seventieth birthday there is little explicit physicalevidence of this. As Lane has suggested ‘he is denying his old age as he mixes itwith his sons’.780 If, as Whitehead continues, ‘masculinity is seen as being aboutoccupation, vigour, activity, mastery’ then both Billy and those around him continueto recognise those attributes as part of Billy’s ‘essence’.781 Here there appears to be777 See Simon Winlow, Badfellas: Crime, Tradition and New Masculinities (Oxford: Berg, 2001), p. 20; p.171; Elizabeth E, Stanko, ‘Challenging the Problem of Men’s Individual Violence’, in Just Boys Doing Business?: Men, Masculinities and Crime ed. by Tim Newburn and Elizabeth A. Stanko (New York:Routledge, 1994, repr. 1996), pp. 32-45, p. 43; Stephen Tomsen, ‘A Top Night: Social Protest, Masculinityand the Culture of Drinking Violence’, British Journal of Criminology, 37.1 (Winter 1997), pp. 90-102;Chris Haywood and Mairtin Mac an Ghaill, Men and Masculinities: Theory, Research and Social Practice(Buckingham: Open University Press, 2003), pp. 38-39.778 King Billy (2007).779 Whitehead (2002), p.199.780 Stewart Lane, ‘Fox’, Morning Star, 19 March 1980b.781 Whitehead (2002), p. 200.218 a collective disavowal of any recognition of physical decline, perpetuating a mythwhich may mask the reality, a myth which is subsequently shaken by his collapseand death.Billy's world then, has become one of control, stability, tradition, respect, codes ofhonour, all of which have been long established, and at the centre of this world is themale and, in particular, Billy himself. While he is content with the ‘comfortablestandard of living’ he has achieved, he also retains ‘a sentimental attachment to lessaffluent days’.782 However, as Lowenthal has argued, few who are 'guilty' of thenostalgic impulse, would truly wish to return to the past, realising that their position inthe present is actually preferable.783 His deep sense of nostalgia and certainty abouthis own masculine identity emerges particularly strongly at the family gathering forhis seventieth birthday as Billy publicly reflects on his personal history: ‘Forty yearsworking in the Garden, that was when Covent Garden was a real place with realpeople not like this new one’ (Covent Garden wholesale fruit and vegetable marketclosed in 1974 and reopened as a shopping mall in 1980). His speech then, revealsone of the emerging cracks in his world. His work as a market porter is, of course,not his sole achievement as a man: ‘Five sons that any man would be proud of’ hecontinues, ‘if I had it over again, I wouldn’t change a thing’, and why would he wantto? His immediate world has become exactly the way he wants it and hissententious rhetoric is designed to preserve that state. Like Frank Ross in Preston’sOut, Billy Fox has become a mythical construction and as Horrocks has observed‘patriarchal society has demanded and constructed a fearsome male narcissism’.784 782 Keating (1980).783 David Lowenthal, ‘Nostalgia Tells it Like it wasn’t’, in The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, ed. byChristopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989), pp. 18-32 (pp. 25-27).784 Roger Horrocks, Male Myths and Icons: Masculinity in Popular Culture (London: Macmillan, 1995), p. 20.219 The birthday gifts he receives from his family are further testament to the man heand they see him as, and crucially form motifs of his own masculine identity: amusical fob watch which plays Oranges and Lemons, evoking his authentic Londonroots; cufflinks in the shape of boxing gloves, evidence of his tough youth (thenarrative later reveals that he could have been a boxer); and a ‘willy warmer’accompanied by coarse humour, ‘You gonna put it on then Billy?’; give us a flash!’,humour rooted in his sometimes brash expression of his sexuality.Some critics took great exception to Billy’s character and this depiction of the family.Andrew Davies saw it as ‘the real horror of family life’ with Billy presiding over ‘thesickening, overpowering sentimentality’ with ‘the madness leaking through themohair suit’.785 Other critics saw his character as a ‘maudlin, vainglorious old bully’and deeply ‘uninviting’.786 While Billy possesses, what Goddard has called, a highlevel of intelligence and integrity, he also displays an astonishing degree ofunyielding hubris.787 Indeed, as Horrocks has argued:The strenuousness of masculine identities is a pointer, not to theirsolidity but their fragility. As an accomplishment won and maintainedwith pain and difficulty and tested against a ferocious set of myths andrituals, it is hardly likely that once accomplished it would be readilyrelinquished.788 5.6 Fox and NostalgiaCentral to Billy's sense of both self and collective identity is the notion of nostalgia.This is linked to the continuity of identity, male identity to privilege and ultimately tothe mythic constructions of his own masculinity, which nostalgia serves to solidify785 Andrew Davies (1980).786 Nancy Banks-Smith, ‘Fox‘ , Guardian, 11 March 1980.787 It Must be the Suit (2007).788 Horrocks (1995), p. 18.220 and augment.789 Davis has examined some of the general dimensions of nostalgicexperience as they pertain to identity formation, maintenance, and reconstruction.790 The main thrust of his argument is centred around the continuities and discontinuitieswe experience in our sense of self. The dilemma for the individual is ‘one ofeffecting change while simultaneously ensuring a modicum of order and stability’.791 While survival may be threatened by the failure to adapt, there is also the need toretain integrity.However, while Billy is subject to what Davis defines as the first order or a simplenostalgia, essentially a celebration of lost values, a yearning for return, together withthe ambivalent recognition that this is not possible, where he sentimentalises thepast and censures the present, much of the conflict within the narrative is centredaround his son Phil’s second order of nostalgia, which is what Davis describes asreflexive.792 In some way, albeit only implicitly, the truth, accuracy and completenessof the nostalgic claim are questioned by Phil. Here there is a challenge to thehistorical accuracy of Billy’s nostalgic construction. Phil is thus far more acutelyaware of the negative aspects of the nostalgic past, and is wary of dismissing newand emergent discourses.In the affirmation of his identity, Billy's recourse to nostalgia allows past biographicaldetail to be selected and presented so that he may think well of himself in both pastand present incarnations. It is, as Davis says, a ‘rhetorical formula’ which tells theindividual through their nostalgic evocation, that they were of considerable worth in789 Sedikides (2004), pp. 200-214 (p. 206).790 Davis (1979), p. 31.791 Ibid., p. 32.792 Ibid., p. 17; 21.221 the past (often in adverse conditions) and are still of considerable worth despite theanxieties and uncertainties of the present.793 In this sense, it is highly self-referentialand provides a range of existential functions.794 Billy's is a nostalgia which, as anemotion, it is more likely to sentimentalise rather than rationalise, but also involves,in this case, only minimal or implicit comparison of the past and present.795 While much of what Davis says is concerned with the individual, he does take time tolook at how it may affect society generally. He sees collective nostalgia as aresponse to major historic events and abrupt social changes which are experiencedby the collective simultaneously.796 The sense that there is a degree of collectivenostalgic reaction within the narrative, ‘may allow enough time for changes to beassimilated into the institutional machinery of society’, in a way that they could not beat first.797 Davis points to the acceptance of practices such as cohabitation,homosexuality, female assertiveness, nudity, and so forth and the 'concomitantnostalgic binge', particularly in the 1970s.798 He goes on to make a convincingargument for the collective nostalgia in the seventies becoming the means forholding onto and reaffirming identities in the face of radical social changes. It is thisvery balance between the nostalgia for an ostensibly stable past and the clearlyflagged up social changes of the present which sets up the dialectic which is socentral to the narrative of Fox.793 Davis (1979), p. 36.794 Sedikides (2004), pp. 200-214 (p. 202).795 Davis (1979), p. 21; Sedikides (2004), pp. 200-215 (p.203).796 Davis (1979), p. 113-114.797 Ibid., p. 104.798 Ibid.222 Nostalgia does of course have its own political implications. The left has generallyseen it as ‘collective self-indulgence’ or even a deliberately created and ‘exploitedobstacle’ to ‘reform or revolution’.799 These collective manifestations of nostalgiaappear at least conservative, if not reactionary, turning attention away from the keycontemporary issues while looking back to 'obsolete societal arrangements’.800 It isperhaps the conservative expression of nostalgia by the Fox family as a whole whichserves to reveal their anxieties around the changing values occurring incontemporary Britain and particularly within London.This unbearable weight of nostalgia, carefully constructed around the presence ofBilly, pervades both the family and the wider community. This is invoked eitherthrough what could be described as the sentimental or the ethical. One of the mostpronounced examples of the sentimental is particularly apparent once again at thecentral narrative event of Billy’s seventieth birthday party. With the upright piano, theensemble celebration resembles a traditional cockney, ‘knees up’. As the pianistlaunches into Albert Chevalier's ‘Knocked ‘Em in the Old Kent Road’, a popularmusic hall tune written in 1901, it is clear that all are cognoscente with the words,regardless of age. As they all join in, the scene closely echoes the communitysinging of Millions Like Us (Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, UK, 1943) or, moreaccurately, Holiday Camp (Ken Annakin, UK, 1947). Following on from Billy’s ownrendition of ‘They’re Moving Father’s Grave’, as they all dance the ‘Hokey Cokey’through the house, the close communal and familial spirit of 1940’s domestic marketfilms like Here Come the Huggetts (Ken Annakin, UK, 1948) is once again evoked.What we are witnessing then is nostalgia operating as an emotional experience on799 Davis (1979), p. 108.800 Ibid., p. 109.223 both individual and collective levels. Here, emotions are working towards theproduction and reproduction of cultures as well as ‘individual and collectiveidentities’.801 For some critics this ‘regret (for) the passing of old ways and customs,tending to ignore all that was brutal and squalid’ was highly suspect, serving to offerthe ‘feeling of satisfied well being to millions of Londoners’.802 Billy’s ethical values similarly suggest a nostalgic world of ‘working-class integrity’,what Goddard has called ‘good cockney morals’.803 When a young newspaper boyattempts to steal from his employer, Billy’s homily to the boy is: ‘if you gotta thieve,thieve from them that can afford it’. This ethical code of Billy’s also stretches toothers sexual transgressions, however while ‘promiscuity is severely critiqued’ it isdone so from the ‘position of authoritarian patriarchy’.804 As he slaps his errant sonJoey because of his affair with a married woman, he reproves him thus: ‘You've hadyour feet under some poor bastard’s table, and that ain’t right, if you’d come to meearlier, we could have sorted something out’. However, as one critic maintained,Billy’s treatment of Joey might have less to do with ethics than with Joey’s ‘sexualcarelessness’.805 Billy’s ethical attitude is further undermined in a later episode,where, following his death, his widow Connie visits a married woman with whom Billyhad had an affair and fathered a child. While Preston could have used this as acritique of Billy’s hypocritical values and philandering, what he actually does is imbueit with a sense of dignity suggested by the stoical, understanding attitude of the two801 Jennifer Harding and E. Diedre Pribram, Losing Your Cool? Following Williams and Grossberg onEmotions, Cultural Studies, 18.6 (November 2004), 863-883 (p. 864).802 Cully (1980).803 King Billy (2007).804 Sean Day-Lewis, ‘Fox’, Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1980c.805 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144).224 women. It is as if Billy’s foibles must be indulged at all costs, his patriarchy andmemory must ultimately be protected.Davis has argued that men and, in particular, older men tend to be particularly proneto nostalgic emotions.806 He looks to early studies, principally by Americanpsychologists in 1930s through to the 1960s, which appeared to establish throughtheir particular approach to behavioural phenomena, that men were the morenostalgic.807 It is here that Davis's model of nostalgia as a way of restoring a senseof continuity becomes particularly pertinent. In America and the West in general, hesays, men tend to experience sharper transitional discontinuities of status, role andoften geographical location, than women. 808 The fixing of a sexual identity, thechoice of occupation, the attainment of a secure place therein, military service, theassumption of husband and father roles, unemployment and other breaks in workcareer, retirement and old age, these, Davis maintains, add up to a more disruptiveand discontinuous life cycle experience than the equivalent status transitions in awoman’s lifecycle. Women’s status passages tend to occur in the reassuring contextof home, family, and friends, whereas men may experience abrupt shifts in locale,peer groups and life style. Davis does, however, go on to qualify this, saying thatchanging employment patterns, greater freedom of choice and shifting culturalexpectations may lead to many women experiencing the same discontinuity in theirlives, as men. 809 However, while the situation has undoubtedly been attenuated overthe last three decades, if, as Butler has argued, since masculinity has been soindelibly linked to dominant value systems, then men are likely to be particularly806 Davis (1979), pp. 55-57.807 Ibid., p. 55.808 Ibid., p. 56.809 Ibid., pp. 56-57.225 resistant to change and less flexible than women with regard to identity construction,and thus more disposed to seek recourse to nostalgia when those systems arechallenged.810 Additionally Davis sees the last decades of life as the mostproblematic life transition with skills becoming obsolete, previously defined rolesbecoming increasingly inapplicable and a decline in physical wellbeing.811 For Billy,while he is still ostensibly generally in possession of all of these attributes, these arepartially fabricated and bolstered by the residual mythology of his past invokedthrough nostalgia.Nostalgia then is a key discourse in Preston’s writing which operates as anaffirmation of working-class identity and traditions and one which is largely uncritical.While Campbell‘s critique of working-class ‘traditions’ highlights the unequalstructure of working-class gender relations, the very invocation of nostalgic feeling ingeneral is something which has attracted considerable criticism from feministscholars.812 Greene, for example, recognises feminist memory as both progressiveand liberating, being diametrically opposed to nostalgia which is regressive andreactionary.813 Feminist memory, she argues, can function as an examination andcritique of the dominant assumptions of the past, whereas nostalgia in its backwardsearch for authenticity and cohesion works to achieve a sense of closure.814 Doane and Hodges similarly argue that nostalgia can be both pernicious anddamaging for women. Their principal aim is to highlight the nostalgic retreat to the810 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990), pp.25-34.811 Davis (1979), pp. 64-71.812 Beatrix Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited: Poverty and Politics in the Eighties (London: Virago, 1984), p.102.813 Gayle Greene, ‘Feminist Fiction and the Uses of Memory’, Signs, 16.2 (1991), 290-321 (p. 305).814 Ibid.226 past (by male writers) in the face of what they regard as feminist authority. In thisway nostalgia is not merely ‘sentiment’, but becomes, more forcefully, a 'rhetoricalpractice' attempting to retrieve ‘reality’ and 'natural' sexual identity.815 Here nostalgiais seen as a male discourse intended to defy reality and construct a vision of the pastwhich ignores or challenges feminist criticisms. In championing the values of thepast, the male nostalgic discourse, with its greater sense of heterogeneity, is seen tothreaten the advances made by feminism.816 While this is not made explicit in eitherFox or Boys from the Black Stuff, according to Doane, implicit in any form of malenostalgic feeling is a discourse which ignores the place of women in the past.817 5.7 Billy’s SonsIt is against this pervasive sense of an anachronistic, nostalgic masculinity that Billy’sfive sons each have to struggle as they attempt to construct their own discursiveidentities. It is here, argues Cook, that the narrative is able to explore a ‘range ofcontradictory attitudes’ which is both ‘working-class based and wider than mostrealist TV representations’.818 While all five have immense respect and awe for theirfather, the narrative strips this away to reveal characters who in Billy’s eyes havemasculine identities which are to some degree flawed or fall short of Billy’s own.What they lack is the apparent certainty of his personal sense of masculinity, withoutthe strength of character, exuberant style, and unquestioning confidence whichmarks this out as the benchmark.815 Janice Doane and Devon L. Hodges, Nostalgia and Sexual Difference (New York: Methuen, 1987), p. 3.816 Ibid., pp. 3-4.817 Ibid., pp. 3-7.818 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144).227 It is Billy’s sons who, in some way and to varying degrees, each transgress anddestabilise Billy’s construct of patriarchy, family, and ethical codes, moving it in newdirections. While most of them, in themselves, do not represent emergentdiscourses of gender and gender relations, they are, to varying degrees, willing toengage with those discourses in ways which Billy is unable. Vinny, his eldest son,conservative and traditional, disrupts the familial unity when he almost escapes itsspatial strictures, planning to move away on the insistence of his wife Rene, from thecloying confines of both family and London. Thus, his position within the narrativeallows for an examination of ‘divided responsibilities and loyalties’ along with theimportant influence on him of Rene.819 Ray, the second eldest, trapped in aconstruction of masculinity which privileges a degree of criminality, operates underan ethical code antithetical to that of Billy’s. Here, while underworld friendships andloyalties are positioned diametrically against the law, they are also placed inopposition to the well being of the family unit. However, while both bring intoquestion Billy’s sense of patriarchy, stasis and unity, both disruptions are resolvedwithin the narrative. Vinny, financially entrapped, unable to leave family, London andhis scaffolding business behind; Ray, more literally entrapped and imprisoned for anumber of crimes.In the youngest son, Kenny, the idea of a tough, uncomplicated, heroic masculinity isseen to be embodied from the opening scenes which confirm his link to Billy’s ownmasculinity. The first relatively static shot of King Billy is infused with a gentle senseof melancholia as he picks a button hole from his own garden, something he mayhave done in his time working in Covent Garden. This sense of the past is819 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144).228 immediately juxtaposed with a tracking shot which picks up with Kenny in training,jogging on Clapham Common. As the music becomes more buoyant, it is clear thatKenny represents the future, he will be the keeper of the tradition. With a career inboxing, itself emblematic of working-class masculinity and the quest for heroicsuccess, Kenny is undoubtedly the most likely candidate to exceed Billy’s reputationbuilt upon a powerful masculine identity, carrying it onto another level, while ensuringa familiar degree of continuity.Ultimately, however, even Kenny is unable to live up to his father’s expectations.After accidentally killing an opponent in the ring he retreats from this most violent ofpursuits initially into self-doubt, remorse and then some form of breakdown, whichCook interprets as ‘adolescent uncertainty’.820 While his actions and state of mindare readily accommodated by Billy, his subsequent abandonment of boxing stillbrings into question his masculinity on a psychological level if not a physical level.It is the characters of Billy’s two other sons Phil and Joey however, that are pivotal tothe narrative’s examination of accepted notions of masculine identity and change.Joey embodies a loose, confident, irresponsible, and highly sexualised masculinity.He displays a degree of arrogance with his sexual conquests while entertaining themin an apartment which principally serves that purpose. In one episode he arrives athis father’s birthday party in full drag, much to the delight of all, indulges in Mae Weststyle innuendoes and dances with his own father. He ends the evening, however, inretreat from a suicidal spurned ex-lover by dancing with his mother. Despite his820 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144).229 apparent irrepressible sexual confidence he reveals himself to be spoilt and selfishand ultimately infantile, turning to others to extricate him from trouble.While, as with working-class East End culture, drag is accommodated here in aplayful, humorous, coarse way, confined principally to the sphere of entertainment,evident in for example The Sweeney and the working-class East End associations ofRon Storme or Paula La Dare, any notion of genuine sexual or gender transgressionfrom normative standards is treated with suspicion and aggression, particularly byJoey. Thus, while Joey’s, performance in dragging up at Billy’s party, is acceptedand enjoyed, what emerges later in the narrative as open bisexuality is not.It is here that Preston rather schematically introduces two female characters whobring into question Joey’s construction of masculinity and attitude to women. Thefirst and most striking of these two characters is Bette. On their first encounter it isapparent that Bette is undoubtedly very different from any woman Joey has metbefore, something which Bette acknowledges as she remarks, ‘I’m not one of yourSouth London scrubbers’. Tall with a deep rasping voice, dressed like a fortiesHollywood star in silk, pillbox hat and veil, with a parakeet named after the SamuelBeckett character Krapp, Bette is both striking and strident. Edited in juxtapositionagainst Kenny’s raw, brutal, and basic aggression in the gym, her environs arecharacterised by the exotic mise-en-scene of her apartment, with its erotic murals,stained glass, ferns, and pot plants, screeching parrots, and stuffed exotic animals.Once again juxtaposed against Kenny’s crude masculine behaviour in the showerwith his trainer, Bette, now naked, serves jasmine tea in her sauna to an astonishedJoey. Rather than expose his insecurity at being usurped from his usual position as230 sexual predator, he disguises it by invoking humour about his class position ‘I’m aworking-class hero love, tin bath in front of the fire on Fridays’. In this way his senseof masculinity may be seen to remain relatively intact.It could certainly be argued that Bette is unique as a feminist representation withinthe narrative. She is financially independent, indeed financially more successful thanany member of the Fox family. With a professional career, her attitudes andpractices in both gender norms and sexual norms of the time, are both confident andchallenging and while she might not be wholly acceptable to the family as a ‘normal’woman, she can, through both her achievements and a number of traits, certainlygain the respect and admiration of both male and female family members.Cook has argued that ‘given its overall masculine address it is difficult to imagine adramatic context better able to problematise macho sexuality than the‘realist/melodramatic’ one in which Bette explains the nature of her sexuality to Joey’,exposing Joey’s inadequacies in dealing with the situation.821 The narrative,however, while generally treating Bette with sympathy, ultimately presents her asbeyond the pale, and it is her sexuality which presents the biggest problem. Whenher bisexuality is revealed, Joey initially reacts predictably with shock, outrage,disgust, and humiliation but later, at the point of reconciliation with Bette, he seeksthe confidence of his brother Phil. Phil’s advice and, by extension that of thenarrative, is unambiguous, ‘don’t move too far away from what you know’. Bette isindeed too far and Joey subsequently retreats into something far more comfortableand far less challenging. Thus, while emergent discourses around gender and821 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 145).231 sexuality are given a voice within the narrative, it is the ‘common sense’ of dominantdiscourses which Preston ultimately privileges.While Preston sees Joey as taking a circuitous route to becoming another person,this transition is rather more conservative than Preston imagines.822 While he mayhave been a disruptive character, to the family as well as others, Joey’s eventualmarriage to Peg, an older, conventional, middle-class widow, shows him asconforming rather than transgressing. Crucially, while Bette has earned her ownliving and made her own wealth and has never been dependent on a man, Peg’sbusiness was set up by her husband. Thus, while Joey is marrying a woman who isfinancially independent, that wealth has come from her actually having once beendependent on another man. Hence the narrative closes down both discoursesaround what it sees as Bette’s transgressive sexuality and her financialindependence. In this sense, once again, Preston could be accused of a resistanceto contemporary feminism through nostalgia. Doane and Hodges have argued thatsome male writers have, in a response to the destabilisation of sexual identity andthe proliferation of discourses suggesting increased heterogeneity, ‘attempted toreinstate the notion of natural, fixed sexual difference’.823 With the character ofBette, while giving a limited voice to these destabilising tendencies, Preston goes onto dismiss her from the narrative, so that a nostalgic equilibrium is once againrestored.While Joey’s response to changing gender roles and sexual politics is largelyintuitive and reactive, Phil’s is far more self-conscious, overtly ideological and822 The Family…and the Future with Audio Commentary Featuring Trevor Preston and Jim Goddard,[included in Fox: The Complete Series DVD, Network, 2007]823 Doane and Hodges (1987), p. 7.232 proactive. However, while Phil, a left-wing intellectual firebrand student, appears toconfront and reject the rigid and stifling world of Billy’s patriarchy, with the blinkeredlocalism of his upbringing, and his physical definition of masculinity, the finalnarrative resolution shows him as ultimately embracing his own new role as familialpatriarch.While Phil’s story examines both ‘the allure and limitations of family’, rather thancelebrating the possibility of emergent discourses which Phil has articulatedthroughout the narrative, the series concludes with a lingering sense of ambivalentcompromise.824 Ultimately, while the narrative allows him to transgress normativebehaviour it closes down any possibility of permanent transcendence, exposing hisattitudes and actions as merely provisional. In this way, argues Cook, he remains a‘profoundly ambiguous figure’.825 Through the character of Phil, Preston seeks toquestion Billy’s patriarchy as potentially problematic, while simultaneouslyacknowledging the ‘common sense’ validity of it. Rather than positing a progressivediscourse however, much more in keeping with the times, Fox resorts to a deeplyconservative residual discourse articulated decades before by South London familialmelodrama This Happy Breed (David Lean, UK, 1944), where the transgressivepromiscuous daughter and revolutionary son-in-law are brought back into the fold,having seen the error of their ways.As Phil is cast against particularly repressive masculine regimes, his self-consciousand politically aware attempts to challenge the status quo are undermined as thenarrative repeatedly draws him back to the basic tenets of working-class masculinity.824 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 144).825 Ibid., p. 145.233 He is acutely aware of his background, what is expected from him and by whom, andthe parameters he is expected to operate within as a working-class male. As hisgirlfriend, the upper-class Anna recalls at their first meeting, he was performing his‘last of the working-class heroes act’. On another occasion, he encounters two ofher male friends, both drunk, and irritatingly obnoxious. They act as signifiers ofeffete upper-class masculinity while he resorts to his own tough, streetwise past inorder to manhandle, ridicule and humiliate them. Here he retains the ‘Fox ability toconduct a successful and acrobatic street fight’.826 Despite his intellectual approachto life, when required he is still able to exercise what the narrative treats as hisauthentic working-class masculinity. It is not, as with Hoggart’s scholarship boy, that‘he has lost some of the resilience and some of the vitality of his cousins stillknocking around the streets’, but rather that he retains those qualities and attemptsto channel them into his ongoing class war. 827 Thus, Phil is allowed to exhibit enough traits not to bring his masculinity intoquestion, in accordance with Clarke’s notion that while physical work may be oneprincipal way of establishing one’s masculinity a more general working-classmasculine culture which has grown up around it is equally important. Thus, whilePhil performs no physical work as such, he does exhibit ‘toughness’ and is ‘one ofthe boys’.828 On several other occasions the narrative allows Phil to express this masculinitywithout critique or comment, and allows it to stand once again as ‘common sense’.826 Sean Day-Lewis (1980c).827 rd Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, 3 edn. (London: Penguin, 2009), p. 267.828 John Clarke, ‘Capital and Culture: The Post-War Working Class Revisited’, in Working Class Culture:Studies in History and Theory, ed. by John Clarke, Chris Critcher and Richard Johnson (London:Hutchinson, 1979), pp. 238-253 (p. 250).234 When the morning of Billy’s funeral has been disrupted by a rival family, heparticipates with his brothers in a show of violent revenge against them; on anotheroccasion he colludes with brother Ray in some casual misogyny, smiling as Raydescribes how he once gave an ex-girlfriend ‘a slap’. Perhaps his most explicitexpression of the weight of his working-class masculine identity occurs when lateone night, in a newly regenerated Covent Garden, Phil launches into a drunkeninvective berating the new consumer values which have accompanied thisregeneration at the expense of the authentic working-class masculine ones of the oldfruit and vegetable market, those same values expounded by Billy. Thus, Prestonappears to endorse the idea that for many men physical work, no matter howalienating, may take on, what Haywood and Mac an Ghaill have termed, ‘heroic’qualities.829 The ‘hard, physically demanding labour of manual work’, they argue, ‘isunderstood and reinterpreted by working-class men as being heroic’ requiring‘strength and endurance’.830 Consequently ‘manual workers perceive white collarworkers as possessing a lower masculine status’.831 As Winlow has argued, menborn into working-class areas ‘were socialised into believing that hard physicallabour was a manly pursuit’.832 Thus Phil, in spite of his education and pursuit of thecerebral, retains a belief in residual discourses of masculinity where authenticityresides in work where the body is involved.833 In The Uses of Literacy Hoggart has described his own feelings as a student comingfrom a working-class background and entering into the academic world. He statesthat in order to succeed, the scholarship boy will have ’to oppose the ethos of the829 Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2003), p. 29.830 Ibid.831 Ibid., p. 30.832 Winlow, p. 36.833 Haywood and Mac an Ghaill (2003), p. 30.235 hearth the intense gregariousness of the working-class family group’ and will havelearned how to separate himself from his working-class peer groups. 834 Phil hasthus ‘cut himself off mentally’ from his family in order to participate in the academicworld.835 Yet there remains a palpable tension in his relations with both academiaand family. Indeed he would appear to possess a ‘particular combination of affinityand distance’ for both.836 Vacillating between assimilation and resistance, heembraces the academic but rebels against the class it predominantly represents. Heretains his commitment to the ‘ethos of the hearth’, but principally when he is notactually in physical contact with it.While the narrative sometimes works through Phil's ongoing dilemma in a somewhatmaladroit way, for example through unsubtle, contrived lyrics to songs whichcounterpoint the drama:Father and son, drifting apart,Close to the edgeThe times are changing, not the past but the futureHead against heart,this conflict remains both powerful and highly pertinent to the times, articulating morewidespread discourses regarding changes in masculinity, class, and family.However, while Phil is the most open to change and changing definitions ofmasculinity, indeed seeing the need to instigate, to become an active agent for thesechanges, the narrative eventually turns this around. While the melancholic lyricswhich accompany Phil's decision making process reflect on ‘those we have leftbehind’, Phil manages to change nothing and leaves nothing behind. As with Joey,Preston is communicating a deeply conservative message which ultimately reaffirms834 Hoggart (2009), p. 264.835 Ibid., p. 263.836 th Richard Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2006, 5 imprint), p. xiv.236 the values of Billy's patriarchy. Here then the hegemonic project retains much of itsdominant position within the family, largely through its ability to adapt andappropriate.837 What Phil has previously described as his feelings of guilt have now transmuted intosomething approaching remorseful reconciliation. Describing his brother’s criminalactivities and consequent arrest he asserts that ‘Ray made the wrong decision, Iknow I did...I let pop (Billy) down’; and as his mother Connie reflects, ‘the more Iremember what Billy said to me the more I realise it was right’, Phil reaches hisepiphany as he agrees, ‘well he wasn't wrong about much’. If, as Probyn hasargued, experience may work just as well to obscure as to reveal social relations,through, for example, ‘common sense’ feelings, then this is illustrated here as theultimate sapience of Billy’s patriarchy is thus reaffirmed.838 In the final scene, as the family gather for that most conservative and traditionalcelebrations of both stasis and nostalgia, Christmas, Phil has symbolicallyabandoned his jeans and leather jacket for a cardigan and shirt and is now firmlyplaced at the centre of the familial mise-en-scene rather than on its peripheries. Ashe is called upon to address the gathering, his rhetoric is both confused andambiguous, refraining from any true resolution: ‘Times change, we change withthem, we have to, but the more things change the more they are the same’. Changehas been accommodated within a wider framework, yet the bedrock remains thesame, the patriarchy, however benign, remains in place, although arguably837 Demetrakis Z. Demetriou, ‘Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique’, Theory and Society,30 (2001), 337-61 (p. 355).838 Elspeth Probyn, Sexing the Self: Gendered Positions in Cultural Studies, repr. (Oxford: Routledge, 1993),p. 21.237 attenuated. Here there has been what Mandy Merck has called a shift in the style ofgender rather than a change in gender relations.839 From her perspective of the early 1990s, Segal has argued that while thereundoubtedly was change, it was ‘not on a scale or character that […] seriouslyaltered dominant perceptions of gender’.840 While recognising that certain changesdid occur in men’s lives she questions their ‘precise significance for underminingmen’s power’.841 Change, she suggests, ‘has occurred where the social as well asthe individual possibilities for it have been greatest, and in particular where women’spower to demand it has been strongest’.842 With Fox, however, these possibilitiestogether with the influence of women are heavily circumscribed.The narrative ends with a sense of continuity rather than fracture and dislocation,and as the lyrics played out over the final shots juxtapose clichés about both old andnew London, it becomes clear that Preston is suggesting, or perhaps more modestlyhoping, that any apparent changes have been nothing but superficial. This is thenunderscored by the use of the same orchestral theme music which had opened thesaga, played out over the end credits, only now performed on contemporaryinstruments.Demetriou, drawing upon both Gramsci’s notion of hegemony and Connell’shegemonic masculinity, has suggested that ruling orders perpetuate their existence839 Swinging Britain: 1965 – 1966: The 60s - The Beatles Decade, Yesterday Channel, 12 February 2011,20.30hrs.840 rd Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men, 3 imprint (London: Virago, 1990), p.xxxiv.841 Ibid., p. xxxvi.842 Ibid., p. xxxvii.238 precisely through a process of appropriation, which he calls dialectical pragmatism:‘Here the fundamental class is in constant mutual dialectical interaction’ withsubordinated groups and ‘appropriates pragmatically useful and constructiveelements’ for a continued hegemonic project.843 Useless or harmful elements areeliminated: ‘It is this constant hybridisation that makes the hegemonic bloc capableof configuring itself and adapting to the specifities of new historical conjunctures’.844 This might be regarded as a process of ‘negotiation’ rather than ‘negation’.845 Thus,thehegemonic bloc changes in a very deceptive and unrecognisable way.It changes through negotiation, appropriation and translation, throughthe transformation of what appears counter hegemonic andprogressive into an instrument of backwardness and patriarchalreproduction.846 However, while Preston appears to close down many of the more progressivepossibilities within the narrative, the consequences might not be as pessimistic asDemetriou’s model suggests. Inevitably with appropriation there may be somedegree of absorption or leakage, where the new values have positive effects uponthe hegemonic ones. Thus, as Shail has suggested, Butler’s description ofpatriarchy as adapting within historical specifics allows for a degree of ‘elasticity’,where it can be subverted, adapted, and influenced by the individual.847 Preston’s tough working-class stories then emerge at a time when, as Beynon hasargued, the ‘conception of a uniform masculinity’ was ‘exploded’ by both feminismand the gay movement resulting in masculinity becoming increasingly characterised843 Demetriou (2001), pp. 337-361 (p. 345).844 Ibid., p. 348.845 Homi K. Bhabha, ‘The Commitment to Theory’, New Formations, 5 (Summer 1988), 5-23 (p. 8).846 Demetriou (2001), pp. 337-361 (p. 355).847 Robert Shail, ‘Constructions of Masculinity in 1960s British Cinema’ (unpublished doctoral thesis,University of Exeter, 2002), p. 24.239 by ‘variety and fragmentation’.848 However, any move towards a general expressionof a plurality of masculinities may be slow and difficult precisely because men held aprivileged position in the dominant gender structure or system. Consequently, whilesome men may embrace change, it may be likely that some or indeed many menmay be actively resistant to any form of adaption or any reorganisation of genderrelations and their own gender identity. Ultimately, in Phil, Preston has created acharacter who articulates this dichotomy as personal dilemma. As Aitchley hasargued:In making adaptive choices […] subjects will attempt to preserve andmaintain existing internal and external structures; and they prefer toaccomplish this objective by using strategies tied to their pastexperiences of themselves and their social world. Change is linked tothe person's perceived past, producing continuity in inner psychologicalcharacteristics as well as in social behaviour and in socialcircumstances. Continuity is thus a grand adaptive strategy that ispromoted by both individual preference and social approval.849 What Preston has done then is to articulate the inconsistencies that many working-class men would have experienced together with the strategies they employed inaccommodating and adapting to these changes.5.8 Boys From the Black Stuff: IntroductionDescribed by Melvyn Bragg in 1985 as ‘the best British drama written in the last 25years’, Boys from the Blackstuff emerged out of Bleasdale’s previous television playThe Blackstuff and both share somewhat unusual and fragmented developments.850 The Blackstuff was originally written as a BBC1 Play for Today (UK, 1970-84) in1978 but was not screened until 1980. Thus, while it was made in the penultimateyear of Callaghan’s Labour Government, it was not transmitted until eight months848 Beynon (2002), pp. 1-2.849 R. Atchley, ‘A Continuity Theory of Normal Ageing’, Gerontologist, 29.2 (1989), 183-190 (p. 183).850 The South Bank Show: Alan Bleasdale, LWT, 13 January 1985, 22.30 hrs.240 after the Conservatives had come to power. 851 Similarly, much of Boys from theBlackstuff had been written by Bleasdale in 1978 but due to budgetary, productionand scheduling delays emerged onto British screens as a critique of the monetaristpolicies of Thatcherism four years later, thus allowing the scripts to adapt to theprevailing economic and social changes, not least the ‘highest level ofunemployment in fifty years’.852 However, while the series is without doubt making aseries of trenchant political points, it is far more about the experience of those whoselives were destroyed by the events of the period rather than being overtly politicallypartisan.853 As Bleasdale has stated about his own political motivations, ‘I have notendencies to be Marxist’.854 Bleasdale himself was becoming established, according to Cooke, as a writer whosework was firmly rooted in the city of his birth and celebrated the lives and culture ofthe disenfranchised working-class, on both Early to Bed (BBC, 1975) and Scully’sNew Year’s Eve (BBC, 1978).855 While Bleasdale had previously been a teacher, hisintimate understanding of the milieu is undeniable, with his ‘knowledge of Liverpool’being ‘vital to his work’.856 As he has remarked about his family ‘a huge number ofthem were asphalters’ providing ‘amazing stories about the boys from the blackstuff’while many others worked in the docks.857 This then echoes Preston’s claims toauthenticity emerging from those people and situations he had known or heard851 Cooke (2003), p.129.852 Ibid, p.131.853 Peter Goddard, ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’ in The Museum of Broadcast Communications [accessed 22 October 2011]854 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 21.855 Lez Cooke, ‘Bleasdale, Alan’, Screenonline (BFI, [n.d.]) [accessed 12 November 2011]856 The South Bank Show (1985).857 Gareth Roberts, ‘Alan Bleasdale’, Knowsley News, Spring 2005, p.9; Adam Ford, ‘Interview with Alan Bleasdale’, Nerve, [accessed 29 September2011]241 about.858 Thus, Boys From the Blackstuff reveals a structure of feeling whichemerges from lived experience. This is an experience felt acutely by Bleasdalehimself, one that is disturbed by changes that have occurred and their implicationsfor working-class masculine identities.Unlike McDougall, Bleasdale thus appears to be once removed from his writing,however, in several ways they share a considerable amount of common ground.While Bleasdale says that there is little of his own past in his writing, there is a greatdeal of those around him as he grew up. 859 He has described his work as ‘miserylaced with laughter’ with the ‘blackest humour’, an examination of the ‘humancondition’ which looks at ‘the quality of our lives or lack of it’.860 Like McDougall hisview is, he says, ‘jaundiced and despairing’ as he observes the world at large and its‘lunacy’.861 ‘I never give answers’ he says ‘I just ask a few questions’.862 Similarly,they share a distaste for organised religion, Bleasdale stating of his encounters withthe Catholic Church that he ‘didn’t want to join those games and be told what todo’.863 His poor school experiences also motivated him to a point where he had ‘gotto do something’, later being mentored by a teacher from his own background.864 Healso recognises that while many in working-class communities are deniedopportunities, there are ‘also arseholes’ and, no matter how unpalatable, there is noachievement without being truthful.865 Indeed, Bragg’s comment that Boys From the858 King Billy (2007).859 The South Bank Show (1985).860 Ibid.861 Ibid.862 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 21.863 The South Bank Show (1985).864 Ibid.865 Ibid.242 Blackstuff depicts a world of unhappiness and waste, could be equally applied toMcDougall.While there were reservations in some quarters, critical reception for the series washugely positive. Most commentators recognised not only its ability to reflect themood of the times but also its potential to have widespread social impact. ChrisDunkley, for example, appreciated the ‘love and compassion’ Bleasdale had for itscharacters, while maintaining a ‘slight distancing […] a small isolated space to writefrom’.866 While Bill Grundy had previously compared The Blackstuff unfavourably toDickens, seeing its ‘depressing authenticity’ as unable to provide insight or transcendthe subject matter, a not too dissimilar criticism made by Dunkley of McDougall, hereDunkley sees ‘the minute observations of social mores’ as entirely in keeping withDickens.867 In terms of its political stance, criticism was, inevitably varied. While some saw thecharacters as mostly apolitical, and others saw it as ‘subtly partisan’ and henceeffective, Philip Purser felt it was ‘an unstable mix of truth and propaganda and PeterAckroyd maintained that ‘Bleasdale’s feelings about the social situation haveoutstripped his ability to represent them in an imaginative manner’.868 More generally, however, the enthusiastic response eclipsed criticism, with TEScalling its repeat a ‘triumphant return’, Sunday Times declaring it a ‘masterpiece ofdramatic realism’ and David Self describing it as ‘passionate, compassionate writing866 Chris Dunkley, ‘Boys From the Blackstuff’, Financial Times, 17 November 1982.867 Bill Grundy, ‘Dirty Work on the Pitch’, Evening Standard , 31 January 1980; Dunkley (1982).868 Anon, ‘Boys From the Blackstuff’, Evening Standard, 11 October 1982; William Boyd, ‘The Liver Blokes’,New Statesman,15 October 1982; Philip Purser, ‘Boys From the Blackstuff’, Sunday Telegraph, 7 November 1982; Peter Ackroyd, ‘Television’, Times, 11 October 1982.243 […] a black comedy of despair and gloom […] a play which has found its time andstruck an emotional chord’.869 Indeed across the political divide there emerged aconsensus that the plays, in ‘making the unimaginable horribly real’, were presenting‘the ugly reality of dole life’.870 While the press were generally favourable to its representation of social and politicalconcerns, its accuracy or ‘realism’ and its use of dark humour, this of courseconstitutes something of a specialist view.871 The affect on wider audiences is moreproblematic to assess. However, while there has been, if any, minimal research intothe audiences of the other programmes dealt with in this thesis, there is considerablymore research evidence for Boys from the Blackstuff. This is partly because it hasreceived more academic attention than the others, but also because the ‘writtenresponse to Bleasdale was exceptional’ and tended to represent very strongfeelings, responses being particularly ‘emotional and passionate’.872 Initially attracting audiences of 4 million, itself considerably higher than most latenight BBC2 serious ‘arts’ television, early repeats took this figure to 8 million turningthe series into a television event.873 If, as Hobson has argued, ’mass audiences arepleased that issues which affect their lives are explored on television’ then Boys fromthe Blackstuff appears to have attracted its mass audience largely on the basis ofthis.874 869 Hannah Charlton, ‘Bleasdale and the Quality of Mersey’, Times Educational Supplement, 9 January 1983;Boyd (1982); David Self, ‘Black Comedy Stuff’, Times Educational Supplement, 14 January 1983.870 Sean Day-Lewis, ‘Boys From the Blacsktuff’, Daily Telegraph, 2 November 1982; Stewart Lane, ‘UglyReality of Dole Life’, Morning Star, 30 October 1982.871 Millington and Nelson (1986), pp. 156-161.872 Ibid., p. 162; 167; Charlton (1983).873 Cooke (2003), p. 131.874 Dorothy Hobson, Brookside Conference, Burton Manor, Wirral 8-10 March 1985.244 While any interpretation of realism is necessarily culturally determined, many viewerssaid they were particularly affected by the realism, seeing the series as representing‘the true facts of working-class life’.875 Indeed, some read it as so true to life thatthey interpreted it as being unmediated.876 Viewers letters to Bleasdale stressedhow they had been affected to the point of both ‘love and anger’, this beingparticularly from a regional response. 877 Thus, Boys from the Blackstuff appears tohave struck an especially strong emotional chord with part of its audience.878 Others stressed the combination of ’realism, sensitivity, affect’ which showed ‘ourhopes, our aspirations, our frailties, our contradictions’ and expressed ‘the feelings ofus who are not articulate enough to put these feelings into words’.879 However, whileaudience identification tended to centre more around class than region, in depicting‘the life of the ordinary working-class’ it actually appealed across professionalgroups, the unemployed and the traditional working-class.880 This, it was argued,was ‘because it presented insights into a perceived reality thought to be obscured bymiddle-class mores’, revealing things that the audience had previously consideredtaboo for television.881 Many male viewers were particularly affected by the plight of the male charactersand their struggles with eroding masculine identities. Some revealed that they hadcried at the hopelessness and despair of Yosser; others, including inmates in HMP875 Millington and Nelson, (1986), p. 162.876 Ibid.877 Ibid.878 Self (1983).879 Millington and Nelson, (1986), p. 164.880 Ibid., p. 163.881 Ibid., p. 163-164.245 Liverpool identified most strongly with Chrissie’s circumstances and impotentgestures.882 However, as Lusted has argued, in the character of Yosser, for all hisweaknesses and inadequacies, for a working-class male audience ‘signs ofmasculine power, loyalty, and swift justice’ were equally affective.883 Ruth Smith has argued that Boys from the Blackstuff was far less affective for afemale audience. As an unemployed woman she recognised how close it was to herreality, with its struggles, temptations, fears, and hatreds, stating that she wasmoved to ‘crying with relief that it was on screen’.884 However, she also felt‘disappointed and angry’ when she ‘discovered (that) she was excluded from allthis’.885 With its lack of affecting female representations of unemployment, she sawonly stereotypes which allowed for a sentimental affection from male viewersrecognising their own plight but nothing to affect a female audience experiencingsomething similar things.886 However, while feminist critique of the series was entirely valid, in actuality viewersresponses to Boys from the Blackstuff appear to suggest the considerable affect ithad on its audience regardless of gender. Issues such as marital problems and thesuffering of children, only touched on in the series, resonated with many women’sown experiences far more than the principal thrust of unemployment and masculineidentity.887 Nonetheless, the most profound affect was inevitably experienced bymany men through sympathy and identification with the male characters rather than882 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 164.883 David Lusted’, What’s Left of Blackstuff? Political Meaning for a Popular Audience’, in Boys From theBlackstuff: BFI Dossier Number 20, ed. by Richard Paterson (London: BFI, 1984), p. 41.884 Ruth Smith, Leveller, February 1983, p. 35.885 Ibid.886 Ibid.887 Millington and Nelson, (1986), p. 164.246 through any direct ideological meanings.888 However, these might not necessarily beseen as opposites. Gorton, for example, in arguing against the critical orthodoxy insome areas that champions emotional distance, believes that emotional engagementdoes not necessarily preclude intellectual engagement, and that the former can infact lead on to the latter.889 5.9 Identity and WorkWhile Boys from the Blackstuff, like Fox, articulates the considerable discomfort thatmany working-class men felt about social, cultural and economic changes in theearly 1980s ‘the underlying discourse is concerned with the effect of unemploymenton men and with the male role in the family’ while ‘the secondary discourse’ is thedestruction of ‘community cohesion’.890 This consequently exposes male anxietiesaround the ‘undermining of established and traditional notions of masculinity’.891 Sharing with Fox a structure that was character based rather than plot driven, Boysfrom the Blackstuff is principally a realist drama combining melodrama with tragedyand comedy.892 The series interrogates notions of both masculinity and femininity,as the ostensible stability of these is threatened by unemployment. This is thendramatically played outwithin the domains […] of the family, workplace and community usingparticular representations of gender and class in narratives set uparound an opposition of power and powerlessness at a particularhistorical conjuncture.893 888 Millington and Nelson, (1986), pp. 169-170.889 Kristyn Gorton, Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2009), pp. 72-88.890 Richard Paterson, ‘Restyling Masculinity: The Impact of Boys from the Blackstuff’, in Impacts andInfluences: Essays on Media Power in the Twentieth-Century, ed. by James Curran, Anthony Smith andPauline Wingate (London: Methuen, 1987), pp. 218-230 (p.222).891 Ibid, p. 218.892 Cooke (2003), p. 132.893 Paterson (1987), pp. 218-230 (p. 219).247 As a melodrama about men, the emphasis is on the male protagonists’ home life,which has transformed radically due to unemployment.894 This is the very home thatmen had traditionally tried to escape from, where they had attempted to establish‘their right not to be there’.895 Thus Bleasdale manages to explore on one level adiscourse concerned with history, memory, struggle and achievement of labourepitomised in George Malone together with the problems for working-class family lifeand masculinity in the narratives of Chrissie, Dixie, and Yosser.896 The central ‘crisis’, within the narrative, unemployment ‘speaks to both the tangibleand metaphorical deterioration of the materials that organise the world’ and ’thecollapse of infrastructure’, an infrastructure which underpins a variety of secondarystructures.897 The corollary of this is the collapse of family and the ‘unravelling ofwhat manhood and personhood connote’, portraying the ‘internal entropy’ of its malecharacters.898 Throughout the narrative the central emphasis is on the search forpersonal identity for its male protagonists and, as Lusted argues, the emphasis is onthe ’crucially formative role of work in the combination of individual and socialidentity’.899 While physical work acts as a key signifier of working-class masculine identity in Foxit is far more central to the narrative of Boys from the Blackstuff. As Winlow hasargued, citing both Ford and Rose, ‘work was the primary place in which working-class men attempted to prove themselves and legitimate their image and self-image894 Paterson (1987), p. 221.895 Campbell (1984), p. l70.896 Paterson (1987), pp. 218-230 (p. 226).897 O’Sullivan (2006), pp. 223-42 (p. 225).898 Ibid.899 Lusted (1984), p.44.248 as men’ and this, together with ‘working-class self-respect and concepts ofmanliness, were constructed in response to class deprivation and the paternalism ofcapitalism’.900 One consequence of this then was to render the failure to work as particularlydamaging to self-identities by undermining the importance of independence inworking-class male masculinity and facilitating a sense of humiliation anddishonour.901 Work then was essential in defining working-class man while notworking challenged his social identity.902 As a crucial factor in the construction ofmasculine identities it can providean important arena through which the discursive subject can achieve asense of identity, the accomplishment of being; it is a primary vehiclefor the otherwise contingent and unstable subject to achieve a sense ofself, to become grounded and located in the social world.903 When this breaks down or is taken away it leaves several of the protagonists withwhat can only be described as a crisis within their sense of identity. The temporaland spatial structures, once so important and ostensibly permanent, no longerfunction as signifiers of identity, nor do the knowledges, values and codes whichhave now become largely redundant.904 Without the distinct and explicit markerwhich work provides, identity has become less than verifiable.905 900 Winlow (2001), p. 36.901 Mary Ingham, Men: The Male Myth Exposed (London: Century Publishing, 1984), p. 27; Joanna Bourke,Working Class Cultures in Britain, 1890-1960: Gender, Class and Ethnicity (London: Routledge, 1994),pp.130-133.902 Ying S. Lee, Masculinity and the English Working Class : Studies in Victorian Autobiography and Fiction (New York ; Abingdon : Routledge, 2007), p.14.903 Whitehead (2002), p. 24.904 Ibid.905 Ibid.249 Campbell has talked about ‘the cult of masculinity where elemental work is believedto confer ‘essential’ masculinity […] where work can make men both victim andhero’.906 However, as Monaghan has argued:Bleasdale's central proposition that paid employment is the cure for allworking-class ills is a dangerously simplistic one […] most jobs in anage of mass production, particularly for unskilled workers, offer littlepersonal satisfaction of the kind that Snowy gets from plastering andChrissie from laying tarmac.907 Nevertheless, for Bleasdale, masculine identity is immanent within and inextricablylinked with paid work. George Malone continues to work or seek work even whenhospitalised with a terminal illness; Jimmy, a peripheral character in the first episode,when asked what he used to be answers ‘I used to be a machine fitter’ and thenadds emphatically ‘and I still am!’; and George’s son, the militant Snowy, arguespersuasively for the achievement of dignity and pride through both his craft and skill.However, the nexus between identity and work is most extensively articulatedthrough the narratives of its three central characters, Dixie, Chrissie, and Yosser.As Paterson has argued, Boys from the Blackstuff shows a world where ‘the statusof the man and the male order are in crisis’ and ‘masculinity is undermined’.908 Inthis sense each member of ‘the male group is shown as broken by unemployment,unable to obtain (self) respect through work and unable to interpret his owncircumstances’.909 As Monaghan has argued:While the individual situations and personality of […] (Bleasdale’sprotagonists) differ as do their conceptions of themselves, they shareseveral things in common, all of which are directly connected to theirfailure to find work. These are a loss of identity, of a clear sense ofdirection and of an ultimate goal.910 906 Campbell (1984), p. l97.907 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 5).908 Paterson (1987), pp. 218-230 (p. 221).909 Ibid.910 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 5).250 5.10 Chrissie and YosserBleasdale sees Chrissie as:The pivot of the series. He’s the most important because he is yourcommon man. He’s the bloke […] who has a few pints, comes home,plays with the kids, has a reasonably solid relationship with his wife.And everything’s gonna be OK, until forces he has no control over takehim over, and he’s shipwrecked; his reference points are lost.911 In this way he epitomises lack of change and contentment with the status quo, but astatus quo which leaves little room for any expression of his wife Angie’s identityoutside of what is expected of her as a wife and mother. Paterson has rightlyasserted that Chrissie’s episode constitutes a particularly powerful femininediscourse which is largely absent elsewhere, but this nevertheless remains as part ofthe story’s wider discourse concerned with the damage to masculinity inflicted byunemployment.912 Here everything remains subordinated to the malepredicament.913 Chrissie’s identity appears to rest upon a number of facets. His ostensiblyphlegmatic personality, his traditionally male hobby of keeping geese and rabbitsand, inevitably, his work. It is these last two which crucially provide him with anidentity outside of the family, something which he has not considered that his wifemay also want. However, it is work that ultimately provides him with his masculineidentity and when this is withdrawn he believes his masculinity to have beencompromised.911 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 170.912 Paterson (1987), pp. 218-230 (p. 221).913 Millington (1993), pp. 119-139 (p. 131).251 It is this very disruption of the established norms which exposes the problematicassumptions on which Chrissie has based his masculinity. His solipsistic view of hisfamily’s situation, leads him to act in increasingly selfish ways which reveal hisunderlying belief in the fabric of patriarchy, with himself at the centre. Arriving homelate one night he takes the last slices of bread which Angie had kept for theirdaughters; following an intense confrontation between them, he finds money downthe back of the sofa and spends it on himself; the ensuing drunken reverie where hesings, both loud and confrontationally through the night, brings into question histhoughts for the wellbeing of his children.It is during a particularly protracted and bitter argument with Angie which exposesChrissie’s residual construction of masculinity. As Angie begins to falteringlyarticulate emergent discourses around the expectations and desires of women,Chrissie reveals himself to be entrenched and backward looking. ‘All I want is a job!’Chrissie declares, but what this serves to highlight is the question, what does Angiewant? As he launches into his modest self –mythologising:I had a job Angie, it wasn’t a bad job, and I was good at it. I laid theroads girl, I laid the roads! I could tamper and grit like nobody you eversaw, nobody put the black stuff down quite like me,Chrissie is creating a myth of a kind of golden age when he ‘had a job’. ‘Once youcould get away with it‘, he says, ‘but not now, that’s the problem’. However, that isnot the sole problem, but it is, according to Chrissie, his sole problem.Campbell has talked about ‘mass unemployment for men evoking a sense of massmartyrdom, a kind of death’ and this is worked through in further exchanges between252 Chrissie and Angie.914 As she tries to make her feelings known: ‘I am 28 years old,Chrissie’, he immediately dismisses her with ‘what’s that got to do with it?’ Heclearly feels that the expression of his own circumstances and experiences isparamount, to the virtual exclusion of Angie’s. Nevertheless Angie continues toexplain her own experiences:I married you when I was 17; I was a mother at 18. I’m not blamingyou for that, but I’m a person, I live, breathe and fart after five lagerand limes. I have a mind up here and its screaming.Unlike Chrissie, she does not recognise the past as a golden age: ‘It was nevermuch fun early on, babies, sick, nappies, no sleep. It’s not how you imagine it to be’.As the camera dollys in, momentarily privileging Angie with a tight close-up, shecontinues: ‘But I loved you, I love the kids’. Chrissie then interjects: ‘I like the pasttense with me’. Thus, if he can no longer be the subject, he can neverthelessemphasise his importance as the object.Angie continues:No! No! No! You never listen to me! I’ve never had a life outside of youJustine and Claire. I was going to do a lot, back to college, job of meown, out in the world, hi Angie.What she is expressing here is her need to ‘take pride in her work, pleasure in herskills, skills that are valued by others, and pleasure in her workmates’, the verythings that until now, Chrissie has taken for granted.915 Here she is attempting toassert her subjectivity outside of her relationship with her husband. ‘This was gonnabe my time’ she says, ‘not even living hand to mouth’, but once again Chrissiecommandeers the conversation, turning it back to himself as victim: ‘All down to me914 Campbell (1984), p. 189.915 Ibid.253 eh, good old Chrissie done it again. Don’t look at me cos you’re not going to college,if you’ve got no life’.Frustrated, Angie pleads again: ’You never listen to me’; but it is too late, this isabout the experience of men, not women. ‘What is there to listen to?’ asks Chrissie,‘what do you think its like for me eh? A second class citizen, a second class man,with no money, no job and no place!’ Here he is able to turn the argument around,back to himself, his place as a man, while any route for Angie’s self-expression andsearch for identity is closed off. ‘How much guilt can I take, where do you go frombread? How about breadwinner – bread winner!’.Chrissie’s final, futile gesture, killing his pet geese ostensibly for food, is an act ofanger and violence intended to punish himself, for it is this act which crystallises hissacrifices. He wants to show that his sacrifice is greater than hers and as he breaksdown in tears, he wants her sympathy, as he is incapable of giving her his. AsBeatrix Campbell has argued:Most men grieve for the loss of their skills, but they don’t notice the de-skilling of women in their own communities through marriage tothemselves and then motherhood.916 She describes this as men’s ‘mass narcissism’ which is supported by the socialstructures in which they work and play.917 Thus, for Chrissie, as those structuresbegin to disintegrate he perceives himself increasingly as a victim while ignoring theperceptions and feelings of those around him.916 Campbell (1984), p. 205.917 Ibid., p. 98.254 While Chrissie as the everyman should have been ostensibly the character thatmany men would have identified with, it was actually Yosser who appeared tocapture the (male) public’s imagination. Indeed with both Boys from the Blackstuffand the relatively contemporaneous Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (UK, 1983-1986), the twomost dysfunctional and aggressively masculine characters, Yosser and Oz, provedto be the two most popular. Dick Clement was made all too aware of the culturalpenetration and indeed rivalry between the two characters when he attended aNewcastle v Liverpool FA Cup match where Newcastle fans taunted their opponentswith chants of ‘Oz is harder than Yosser!’.918 This then, might serve as someindication of how they were adopted as icons of masculinity. Rather than identifywith the everyman Chrissie, or indeed his equivalent, Dennis in Auf Wiedersehen,Pet, the violent maverick, embodying a particularly residual construction ofmasculinity, would appear to have been a far more attractive option for manyworking-class men.Perhaps then the role of ordinary everyman was considered to lack the ‘heroic’qualities deemed necessary to be a representative idol for certain groups of men.Bleasdale has himself expressed astonishment at the popularity of Yosser and whilethe entrepreneurial spirit of the time produced records and T-shirts celebratingYosser’s aggression and violent inclinations, it is perhaps his chauvinist yetnevertheless emblematic white working-class character which touched a collectivenerve. 919 As Bleasdale has remarked, ‘Chrissie is the true hero’, he ‘says more to918 BBC, Press Release for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (BBC, [n.d.]) [accessed 5 December 2011]919 The Reunion: Boys From The Blackstuff, BBC Radio 4, 20 August 2011, 09.00 hrs.255 me than Yosser’.920 However, while Yosser may be uncomfortable, there was also a‘sense of release for some people’ in that it resonated with their own experiences.921 It is in the character of Yosser that the notion of a crisis of identity is most explicitlyaddressed. Throughout the series, as he declares ‘I’m Yosser Hughes’ his identityappears increasingly submerged, aspects of the mise-en-scene suggesting that it isalmost physically being drained out of him. However, there is evidence that hisidentity has been extremely fragile and his mental state volatile for someconsiderable time. Thus the notion of crisis is itself questionable, since it implies apreviously coherent system.Yosser fantasises about what could have been, ‘I could have been a footballer’ heclaims or ‘when I’m rich I’ll have a harem’. In his dream sequence, at the beginningof the episode ‘Yosser’s Story’ he envisages a world he has been excluded from,probably having only encountered it through the images in advertising. This is aworld inhabited by happy, successful, contented middle-class families. Thisuncertainty is further emphasised by him constantly feeling the need to asserthimself, stating who he is: ‘Everywhere I get noticed, that’s me, everybody knowsme, I’m Yosser Hughes’. Like McDougall’s hard men protagonists and Preston’spatriarch King Billy, for Yosser being noticed and respected is a way of affirmingidentity. Unlike the others, however, what is suggested in the initial play The BlackStuff is that he is profoundly uncertain about who he is: ‘I wanna be noticed,Chrissie. I wanna be somebody. I wanna be seen’. Thus, as Monaghan has920 The South Bank Show (1985).921 Ibid.256 argued, ‘he has never had more than a fragile sense of who he is’.922 Yosservacillates between projecting forward to the mythic hero he wants to become andretreating into the apparent certainty of the childhood he has left behind. WhenGeorge tells him to grow up he replies, ‘Why should I? What’s there to grow up for?’Elsewhere he reflects, ‘When I was little there was so much to look forward to.When I was little I built sandcastles. Sometimes I think that’s all I've ever done’, thussuggesting a growing realisation that nothing he has achieved has any sense ofpermanence. While Paterson argues that Yosser’s loss of self-esteem and identity isa direct consequence of his diminished circumstances, his catatonic state in the finalscene of The Blackstuff suggests that his identity was already profoundlyuncertain.923 Where work had been the foundation of Chrissie’s identity its importance for Yosserwas in its potential to secure wealth and with that wealth a newly constructedidentity. His working life had been predicated upon getting better paid jobs, to live ina bigger house and to gain the status which would allow him to transcend his presentidentity:The need to complete the triangle work-money-identity also inspiredYosser to come up with the entrepreneurial scheme that ruined notonly himself but also his workmates.924 Thus for Yosser, unemployment and poverty prove even more damaging than for theothers, since he already has no firm sense of identity beyond wanting to ‘besomeone’. In the absence of any alternative route toward his goal, of becoming thehero of his narrative, ‘Yosser increasingly loses his grip on reality’.925 922 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 7).923 Paterson (1987), pp. 218-230 (p. 222).924 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 6).925 Ibid., p. 7.257 5.11 Boys from the Black Stuff and NostalgiaWhile I have argued that nostalgia operates as a key discourse in Fox, in Boys fromthe Blackstuff its role is far more desperate and astringent, highlighting the direpresent circumstances of its characters. O’Sullivan maintains that Boys from theBlackstuff swings between reportage and nostalgia, and while the former featurespredominantly in the stories of Chrissie, Dixie and Yosser, the latter manifests itselfmost explicitly with the character of George Malone.926 Davis identifies what he calls the special past of nostalgia as distinct from the merepast. Looking at a number of other ‘subjective states’ that are past oriented, ‘history,remembrance, recollection, reminiscence’ for example, he maintains that none ofthese can convey the same feeling or tone as nostalgia.927 Merely to remember isnot the same as feeling nostalgic for it is a past imbued with special qualities:Nostalgic feeling is infused with imputations of past beauty, joy,satisfaction, happiness, in short, the positive affects of being. Even ifnostalgia is often experienced with an element of sadness, or a kind ofmelancholy, this only serves to heighten the quality of recaptured joy orcontentment. Nostalgic mood allows what may have been painful orunattractive about the past to become bathed in a benign aura. 928 While both George Malone and Billy Fox express feelings of nostalgia whichcertainly sentimentalise a past which in many ways is highly problematic, for Georgethere is a yearning for a world where ‘his class’ (that is working-class men) was farmore active and engaged, when faced with one where they have been largelydisenfranchised.926 O’Sullivan (2006), pp. 223-42 (p. 233).927 Davis (1979), p. 13.928 Ibid., p. 14.258 Davis has suggested that while nostalgic feeling may be a response to subjective,personal experiences of changes, these changes, in ‘their timing, social substance,and trajectory’ are also informed by ‘values, expectations […] and institutionalarrangements of the social order in which they occur‘.929 Hence historic events,personalities, and occurrences collectivise the ‘essential individuality of ourbiographies’.930 Indeed Sedikides maintains that while nostalgic feeling is to do withindividual experience it is often connected to something far wider, perhaps anorganisation to which one is affiliated, a generational cohort, a historical period in aculture, or perhaps something even more specific within a wider culture.931 ThusGeorge’s nostalgic feeling is one which emanates from a collective, class-basedfraternity.As Tannock has argued, nostalgia is a response to a 'diversity of personal needs andpolitical desires'.932 Nostalgic narratives may embody a number of different valuesand ideals, and may be used, as a cultural strategy, in a number of different ways. Itis only by recognising such heterogeneity, that ‘critique can then focus on both theopenings and the limitations that nostalgia, as a general structure of feeling, maycreate for effective historical interpretation'.933 Much criticism of nostalgia, Tannock maintains, has tended to dismiss it asconservative and sentimental, often being used by dominant forces and socialgroups in an effort to distort historical truth.934 Although Tannock concedes that929 Davis (1979), p. 52.930 Ibid., p. 53.931 Sedikides (2004), pp. 200-214 (p. 203).932 Stuart Tannock, ‘Nostalgia Critique’, Cultural Studies, 9.3 (October 1995), 453-464 (p. 454).933 Ibid., p. 454.934 Ibid., p. 453.259 nostalgia, as a general structure of feeling, has indeed been appropriated byreactionary politics, he goes on to point out that it has equally been invoked by liberaland radical voices.935 Raymond Williams points out nostalgia may conjure up 'the happier past […] as animpulse to change rather than to ratify the actual inheritance’.936 While some, in theface of change and instability, may long for a stable past where ‘everything is held inits 'proper' place', others may equally, in the face of a present that appears ‘fixed,static and monolithic, long for a past where things could be opened up’ and ‘put intoplay’.937 As Tannock has argued, while some, usually dominant, nostalgic narrativesneed to be questioned, challenged, and put into place, others we may wish to view ina positive light as being progressive and enabling.938 For George, his nostalgicreverie is linked to greater political engagement, struggle, and activism. This isparticularly evident when,in a valedictory moment (he) impugns the weaker new generation (hisless radical sons, his doctor who has forsaken his socialist roots for theS.D.P.) while he still keeps a postcard of Marx on his parlour wall.939 Thus George’s departing threnody differs from Billy’s wistful and acerbic lament atthe passing of old ways in that it is far more expansive and far more passionate.Indeed, George’s sentiments are in accord with Strauth and Turner’s assertion thatnostalgic feeling is frequently a response to a perception of a ‘loss of simplicity,authenticity and spontaneity’ with the consequence that ‘genuine feeling and emotion935 Tannock (1995), pp. 453-464 (pp. 455).936 Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New York: Oxford UP, 1973), p. 43.937 Tannock (1995), pp. 453-464 (pp. 455-6).938 Ibid.939 O’Sullivan (2006), pp. 223-242 (p. 232).260 is prohibited’.940 Bather goes on to develop this argument, suggesting that withincontemporary Western society there remain no ‘dominant systems’ to replace the oldstructures which have broken down leading to a loss of a true ‘sense of identity’.941 Furthermore, he argues, ‘individuality and social relationships that were built onpeople working together for common cause’ are ‘replaced by bureaucracy’ where theindividual becomes a ‘cog in the machine’; new ‘transnational bureaucracies’become ‘increasingly remote’; the ‘logic of the market’ forces discontinuity in labour;there are no more boundaries around nation states, ‘let alone home'; and genuineemotion is ‘constrained by lifestyles’ and ‘pressures of consumerism’ in increasingly‘global patterns’.942 While I would certainly not suggest that Britain had already fullyentered into these conditions it would appear that Bleasdale is certainly aware of thenascent state of a number of these discourses.While George’s nostalgia is largely redundant as a potent political tool, what it doesoffer is an explanation of the feelings around the collective past and acts as anemollient as that past disintegrates. Examining how nostalgia is frequently linked tonationalistic and patriotic sentiment, Davis seems to suggest that at the societal levelnostalgia functions as a kind of 'safety valve for disappointment and frustrationsuffered for the loss of prized values'.943 For George nostalgia operates ‘throughkinship or through a broader feeling of identity‘, in this case class affiliation: 'thesewere in some way my people, and my present therefore was bound up in their940 Georg Strauth and Bryan S.Turner, ‘Nostalgia, Postmodernism and the Critique of Mass Culture’, Theory,Culture and Society, 5.2 (1988), 509-526 (p. 513).941 Neil Edward Bather, ‘’There is Evil there that does not Sleep’’: The Construction of Evil in American Popular Cinema from 1989 to 2002’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Waikato, 2007), p. 261. [accessed 21 September 2012]942 Ibid.943 Davis (1979), p. 110.261 past'.944 However, while collective nostalgia acts to restore, at least temporarily, asense of 'socio-historic continuity' which had verged on being discontinuous, Georgeappears to be virtually alone in his nostalgic visions, which closes down any notion ofa positive collective future.Even the last shot of the derelict industrial landscape emphasising loss and changeis one which nostalgically, becomes talismanic in the process, possessing an 'auraticpatina' for the past.945 This feeling for the past, however, is highly contradictory asthe camera essays the Tate and Lyle factory taking in its lettering, almost as if weare invited to admire this deeply ambiguous structure of capitalism and working-classidentity.946 What this serves to highlight is the very struggle of labour and the ideathat a working-class could not exist without the presence of capitalism. This then isa deeply ambivalent vision of the past hence the ambivalence of nostalgic yearning.Perhaps the structure of feeling works to ‘mystify […] the extent to which decline’ iscaused by 'pressures and forces internal to the past'.947 Indeed, it would be difficultnot to conclude that the seeds for any lapse between past and present are likely tolie in the very past that one is nostalgic for, one with its foundations in capitalism.While George’s feelings of nostalgia are highly contradictory and may be bothappreciated and critiqued on a number of levels, perhaps the most pertinent criticismand indication of their highly selective nature is that they function exclusively as amemory of male experience and values. However, as Beatrix Campbell has argued:944 Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase, ‘The Dimensions of Nostalgia’, in The Imagined Past: History andNostalgia, ed. by Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989), pp. 1-17 (p.2).945 Shaw and Chase (1989), p. 4.946 O’Sullivan (2006), pp. 223-42 (p. 233).947 Tannock (1995), pp. 543-64 (pp. 460-1).262 Many of those good old values rested on the weary labours of women,whose economic, social, sexual, cultural and political interests are notgiven any political primacy by any party.948 Furthermore, she says:Hoggart treats the tradition of men and women power relations in theworking-class as natural and that this hides the highly fabricated andrigid construction of that tradition.949 While George and Snowy represent activism and Yosser and Chrissie martyrdom,both are ‘contradictory and conservative forces evoking a world of committedcommunities [...] but not equal ones’.950 Consequently George is nostalgic for aworld where ‘solidarity in work and play is founded on the exclusion of women […]solidarity based on sex as much as it is ever based on class‘.951 Ultimately then, what George is lamenting is the passing of a period of labourstruggle and activism, but a period nevertheless infused with patriarchy and itsconcomitant structures, practices and institutions. George is unable to see thecontradictions inherent in this position, his being a somewhat myopic vision ofhistory, one that is both sentimental and largely uncritical.5.12 What about the Women?While we have seen in both Fox and Boys from the Blackstuff that the writers haveintroduced significant female characters who question and problematise masculinepractices, this does not necessarily apply to the other women within the narratives.Monaghan has argued that Bleasdale's version of working-class life is ’no less anideological construct than Margaret Thatcher's and, as such, is characterised by948 Campbell (1984), p. 225.949 Ibid.950 Ibid., p. 110.951 Ibid., p. 102.263 inconsistencies and omissions’, and ultimately the most significant of these isBleasdale’s treatment of women. 952 Director Phillip Saville’s request ‘for a slightly more feminine aspect to the music’ andthe fact that ‘he wanted, just in general terms, the idea of something softening theheavy political dialogue’, meant he was able to insert a stronger female presenceinto the series, which may have resulted in a degree of inflection away from theconcerns of the male characters.953 However, while the character of Angie providesthe one coherent female voice articulating an inchoate form of feminism, Bleasdalefalls short of following ‘Beatrix Campbell in exploring the advantages gained byworking-class women as a result of the weakening of patriarchal power that wentalong with male unemployment’, since this would inevitably have weakened anddissipated the principal thrust of Bleasdale’s narrative.954 When asked why he had written few significant parts for women, Bleasdale hascandidly revealed: ‘I was thirty before I would talk to a woman for any length of time ifI didn’t fancy them. I’m still trying to understand women’.955 He also cites, with adegree of humorous embarrassment, that the fact that he had only written two linesfor Angie before Saville asked him to write a woman’s part, proved that ‘I’m not afeminist’.956 952 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 13).953 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 146; John Tulloch, Television Drama: Agency, Audience and Myth(Oxford: Routledge, 1990), p. 184.954 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 13).955 The South Bank Show (1985).956 Ibid.264 It is hard not to agree then with feminists who were angered by Boys from theBlackstuff’s androcentric ‘male dependent representation of women‘.957 Ruth Smithfor example saw the series as never seriously challenging ’the oppressiverelationships the men have with women’.958 ‘What upset me’ she said ‘was not thatwomen only featured as wives and holders of jobs’ but that ‘these were presented sobadly’.959 George Malone’s wife, for example, while portrayed as a strong andpurposeful character in her own right, is largely reduced to reflecting his Marxistpolitics rather than expressing it herself (outside of personal exchanges).Consequently her narrative function is reduced to that of mother, grandmother andthe supportive wife of her husband. She shares George’s view of the past as onewhich needed to be fought for, one where the struggle was essential and positive forthe community, but always acquiesces to her husband’s authority and positiongarnered through his benevolent activism. Thus George has become the ‘patriarchof the community’.960 As Campbell argued at the time, ‘men move into politics likelearning to walk’ and the ‘structures are built for them and wives make space forthem’ thus ‘women live in the shadow of men's seizure of public life’.961 Oneconsequence of this was the degree of muscular masculinity which characterised theunions of the period. Indeed, while the narrative focuses on men’s loss of identity itallows little space for women’s search for identity which has been largely subsumedby their husbands. Nonetheless Bleasdale does hint at emergent discourses aroundmale/female power relations, but without giving them too much narrative space.957 Ruth Smith, ‘The Feminist’s View’, in Boys From the Blackstuff: BFI Dossier Number 20 (London: BFI1984), pp.39-40.958 Ibid.959 Ibid.960 Millington (1993), pp. 119-139 (p. 133).961 Campbell (1984), p. 191.265 Beatrix Campbell, in her account of early 1980s Britain, Wigan Pier Revisited,provides a counterbalance to Bleasdale's heavily biased discourse on maleexperiences, by foregrounding the experiences of women within the conditions of theworking-class. Campbell argues that socialism and the labour movement not onlyfailed to address problems like men’s violence against women but actuallysuppressed them by defining the real politics around the interests of waged males.962 Socialism in Britain she continues ‘has been swept off its feet by the magic ofmasculinity, muscle and machinery’ and created a solidarity which is founded on theexclusion of women. 963 It was only with the 1980s that men’s exclusionary politicalpractices revealed the penalties men themselves had now accrued through what shedescribes as their ‘narrow, short sighted, economism’.964 The problem in part, she argues, is that men had long stopped imagining theircontrol over work and had settled for a breadwinner’s wage which may give somemen a relative privilege within the wage system, but this has led working-classpolitics into deep conservatism.965 As the recession, mass unemployment, andThatcherism confronted men with the fact that wage bargaining was not a politicalstrategy and it had come to be of little more use to men than it had ever been towomen. This then, is a powerful argument highlighting feminist discourse and theinequities within gender relations within a much wider Socialist discourse. ForBleasdale, however, this particular discourse appears marginal, if not largelyirrelevant, within the principal trajectory of the narrative.962 Campbell (1984), p. 97.963 Ibid.964 Ibid.965 Ibid.266 Nevertheless, as Lusted has argued, Boys from the Blackstuff does attempt tointegrate ‘the political, social and cultural histories […] of the working-class’ which isusually separated across different genres. 966 Unlike the soap opera, the place of thehome in its relation to work (and unemployment) becomes an object of analysis.Thus the conventionally accepted connections or indeed oppositions between thetwo are upset, which may undermine ‘the dominant divisions along gender andwage-labour lines among men/women’.967 This, then, Lusted argues, ‘is a major shiftin the politics of working-class representation’.968 While this may indeed be true, the drama is nonetheless focused around the plight ofmen and, apart from their respective partners, the most notable presence of womenwithin the narrative are the clerks and principal officer at the Department ofEmployment. This can be read in a number of ways. First, where women come torepresent the enemy of unemployed working-class men, being the agents ofnegative change; second, a further perceived humiliation for the unemployed men,where they have to, perhaps for the first time in their adult lives, be answerable towomen; third, an acknowledgement that traditional masculine skills and physicalstrength are no longer required in the workplace. Indeed it may be seen to heraldthe greater value about to be placed upon what were traditionally regarded as‘feminine’ skills. These are the very skills that had been ignored, undervalued,trivialised and derided by a patriarchal society, the very skills, as Tim Lott hasdescribed in his novel Rumours of a Hurricane, that would provide women with a966 Lusted (1984), p. 44.967 Ibid.968 Ibid.267 way into the new economy, achieving a level of self-worth previously denied tothem.969 Nonetheless the male protagonists continue to regard women in generally dismissiveways, their sexism and misogyny operating as their ultimate recourse in increasinglydesperate attempts to maintain their entrenched and patriarchal informed identities.Dixie is particularly confrontational to the female clerk at the Department ofEmployment. He also treats his wife as foolish and naive while she appears to bemore stoical, if not exactly sanguine, about the changes in their circumstances,simply just ‘getting on with it’. Yosser’s invective litany of anger against womenincludes his dismissal of his female psychiatrist, ‘you won’t shrink me, she (his wife)tried that’ and jokes at the expense of women, ‘the Catholic Church has enoughproblems without women’. As Saville has pointed out, here ‘the tenor of a joke isbased on someone’s misery, someone’s bad luck and it’s often anti-women’.970 However, for a more dramatic indication of gender power relations we need to lookagain to The Black Stuff. Here the boys’ casual sexism is worked through in anumber of quotidian exchanges with each other; Chrissie justifying bringing his petson a job to Middlesbrough, ‘you know my tart, if I leave them at home she won’t lookafter them’; their attempts to embarrass or belittle women in ostensibly subservientpositions to themselves; and in a far more pointed fashion, the misogyny whichYosser expresses to women who have transcended, achieved, or have opportunitiesof which he is denied. How the narrative treats these women and the reaction of theboys differs from character to character. Where Chrissie's understanding of Angie’s969 Tim Lott, Rumours of a Hurricane, First Published 2002 (London: Penguin, 2003).970 Millington and Nelson (1986), p. 132.268 aspirations is an amalgam of incomprehension and solipsistic self-regard, for Yosserit is most frequently women who are the targets of his particularly minatoryexecrations.Janine Duvitski plays a particularly transgressive female student whose treatment bythe boys, and in particular Yosser’s greeting, ‘been raped lately love?’ has ledBleasdale to claim that this now makes him embarrassed.971 However, while heregards it as ‘typical male chauvinism of the seventies’ he suspects that very littlehas changed.972 As a harbinger of emergent discourses around gender she invites alitany of invective grounded in residual discourses. Yosser is provocativelyantagonistic towards her because she is a student, but principally because she is afemale student: ‘Bloody students. Bloody women!’. His exaggerated baiting of her,with a description of women when he worked in Saudi, ‘where women know theirplace […] they await a man’s pleasure’, progresses into a vitriolic invective whichproceeds to become more specific about his own situation:Tarts like you, you don’t know your position in life. Some things you’regood at, making the tea and having babies. You don’t need aneducation like yours to change nappies and cook chips.Some of the others actively participate in this provocation. Loggo humiliates her inreading aloud her love letters and stealing her personal items; when she learns thatKevin had wanted to go to college and suggests that he still can, she is clearlyregarded by Kevin’s father, Dixie, as a questioning and potentially harmful anddisruptive presence. While it is the boys that the narrative explicitly asks us toidentify with, this exchange highlights both their inadequacies and the alreadyanachronistic values which they have invested heavily in.971 The Black Stuff with Audio Commentary Featuring Alan Bleasdale and Jim Goddard, [included in Boysfrom the Blackstuff: The Complete Series DVD, BBC, 2003]972 Ibid.269 As she leaves the boys, her parting riposte shows her acute understanding ofYosser’s attitude; ‘Your wife must give you hell’ and indeed it could be argued thatthis is true. Even before Yosser became unemployed his relationship with Maureen,his wife, is shown to be fraught and antagonistic. As she returns home late from herjob at a casino (which the boys deride as a 'knocking shop') the humiliated Yosserconfronts her: ‘You bitch, at this time, in front of the lads as well’. ‘Oh yeah, you’reonly bothered about that aren’t you’ she ridicules, ‘the boys are waiting for you.Aren’t you going out to play today?’Throughout this visceral exchange the threat of violence is palpable. ‘I’m not scaredof you anymore’ asserts Maureen, and as Yosser grips her by the throat stoppingjust short of striking her, it is clear that the power relationship here has shifted.Maureen is now economically free from Yosser, she is no longer dependent uponhim, it is her chance now to assert herself and establish her own sense of identity.While she is of course a deeply unsympathetic character she is emblematic ofopportunities which many women could grasp in the 1980s and this is to somedegree a consequence of men losing those same opportunities throughunemployment. Furthermore, Maureen recognises the pleasures (and privileges)which men may gain from being engaged in work. As Campbell has argued,‘loneliness and relative poverty of economic dependence is common currency in theculture of women’.973 While this may not exonerate Maureen’s actions, such asabandoning her children, it certainly provides a cogent case for them.973 Campbell (1984), p. 171.270 While Bleasdale, with the encouragement of Saville, is able to offer in Angie a femalecharacter who articulates an explicit critique of the prevailing gender relations, thereare no women within Fox who are able to perform such a function.974 However, thatis not to say that there is no questioning of gender behaviours and relations. Whileaddressing the concerns of men within a narrative largely from the point of view ofmen, Preston allows for a degree of looseness within the narratives with severalfemale representations challenging the normative standards accepted within hisworking-class milieu. Thus, as we have seen, while most of the women tend toperform somewhat stereotypical roles of supportive wife, forgiving mother and soforth, he does allow room for some female characters to operate outside of familialand domestic confines. However, in doing so he appears to draw a distinctionbetween working-class and middle-class women,and it is the latter that tend to be farmore assertive and less understanding of masculine obsessiveness and foibles.Some critics recognised that Fox was ‘weak on feminism with the character of Liztreated as a piece of property passed between Joey and her husband’.975 WhilePhilip Keating lamented the portrayal of women as lacking authenticity, Daviesrecoiled at the narrative’s ‘warped idea of women as either Madonna or whore’ withthe female actors ‘markedly less convincing than the action as well they might begiven the archaically stylised roles they play’.976 In Fox, Billy’s wife, together with his former mistress represent women dominated bymen. They perform a role which is supportive and understanding but which leaves974 Cooke (2003), p. 131.975 Stewart Lane (1980b).976 Keating (1980); Andrew Davies (1980).271 them without any life away from men. While arguably this may have a generationalelement to it, Kenny’s young fiancé Nan is not dissimilar to them, vacillating betweenpassivity and something approaching a maternal attitude towards him. Even withVinny’s wife Rene who appears to share a more equal and, at times, combativerelationship with her husband, Preston still places her emphatically within the privatedomestic sphere. Ultimately then it is left to the rebellious middle-class Anna, theAmerican academic Stella, the strident Bette and independent Peg, to suggest thatwomen might be able to have their own internal lives and exist independently ratherthan as reactions to the male characters.However, Preston also frequently portrays women as neurotic and possessiveacross the classes, whether Joey’s suicidal jilted ex-lover or Frank Ross’s middle-class mistress in Out. Additionally several women are only briefly sketched as eitherobjects of sexual gratification, inconsequential presences or appendages to the maleprotagonists. Indeed, like Bleasdale, Preston has in hindsight expressed a degree ofregret of at least one scene which he says was ‘a bit sexist, I wish I had never put itin’.977 All this would appear to suggest that Preston may accept that while some degree ofchange in gender relations may be inevitable, the instigator of this is likely to comefrom outside of the community and class. He appears to place the idea ofindependent women as a class apart, something exotic, since most of the working-class women ‘know their place’. This would accord with the notion of working-classcommunity where everyone understands their position and role. There are977 It Must be the Suit (2007).272 exceptional women, but this does not fundamentally alter gender relations in theirwider sense. Thus, women who are seen as potentially harmful, such as Bette, areelided from the narrative, while others viewed as less disruptive, such as Peg, areaccommodated with a degree of appropriation which renders them no longer a threatto the maintenance of the continued hegemonic project.978 While bonding between the men inevitably finds its articulation with a degree ofpredictable sexism and misogyny, whether Joey’s sexually promiscuous use ofwomen, Ray’s more manipulative and subtle subjection of ex-wife, girlfriend orconquests, together with the occasional sexist ‘jokes’ male characters share atwomen’s expense, this falls short of any genuine or widespread aggression towardswomen. Rutherford has suggested that homosocial bonding is essentially adefensive mechanism to ward off the threat men perceive from women. Here malebonding ‘is collusion by men to resist the other’, something which is evident in theway Phil and Ray find humour in Ray’s description of slapping a former girlfriend.979 However, while several of the male characters articulate a degree of misogyny withinFox, it is never as explicitly expressed as it is in The Black Stuff.If, as Cooke has suggested, Preston’s ethos is a sympathetic portrayal of a working-class fraternity, then this is frequently achieved at the expense of women assignificant factors within the narratives.980 Indeed, as Linda Agran, Head of Scriptsand Development at Euston has noted, there was a degree of feminist criticism of a978 Demetriou (2001), 337-361 (p. 345).979 Jonathan Rutherford, ‘Who's That Man?’, in Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, ed. by RowenaChapman and Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988, repr. 1996), pp. 21-67 (p.52).980 Cooke (2003), p. 131.273 number of the production company’s male centred dramas. The male writers, sheexplained,found it difficult to write convincing female characters. They’re afraid ofgetting them wrong, so they leave them out or drop in a stereotype justin order to get a point across. 981 In this sense then the narrative’s negative treatment of women operates in a moresubtle fashion where the male characters dominate the narratives’ more central, andarguably important, issues and the women are excluded from and remain outside ofthe ‘real business’ of men’s lives. As Whitehead has observed:The public worlds of men are often very private, with men’s practicesoften obscured behind ritualised behaviour, bound by fraternities andfrequently embedded in misogynistic attitudes and sexual982 stereotypes. Thus, family conflict and problems with external forces are only allowed to behandled by men, frequently in a forceful and violent manner. When Vinny is facedwith losing his business and money he elects not to tell his wife Rene; Ray, arrestedby police will only confide in his male employee, refusing to use his one phone call totalk to his girlfriend; when Kenny is kidnapped the men go in search of him, thewomen remain at home. As Whitehead has argued:Woman is omnipresent, yet necessarily curtailed by the masculinemysteries invoked by the images of the man ‘doing his own thing’ andwoman is the other that necessarily exists in order to allow man toassume his central role.983 Thus, women are frequently marginalised in Fox, regarded by several of the malecharacters as being irrelevant to what is deemed to be men’s public business.Cook has argued that the problematic portrayals of women in Preston’s previousdrama Out contributed to its critical dismissal. While the ‘faithful sufferers […] can be981 James Saynor, ‘Minders Keepers’, Stills (Nov 1984), p. 42.982 Whitehead (2002), p. 116.983 Ibid., p. 119.274 rationalised as the staples of the thriller genre […] such representations whenoffered in a realist mode with a dominantly masculine working-class address’ wereopen to considerable criticism.984 However, in countering this criticism, Cook pointsto similar representations of women in the majority of social dramas including thoseof Loach and Bleasdale, which while recognised by critics, ‘were quickly passedover’.985 It would appear then that while Fox allows for a degree of limited feminist discourse itis Boys from the Blackstuff which provides a genuine voice for a female character.However, as I have already acknowledged, it was the influence of the rather moremiddle-class director Philip Saville, which resulted in that female voice emerging. AsBleasdale himself has commented ‘I didn’t have the courage to write that woman’spart’ and it was only after Saville’s intervention that Bleasdale created it, based uponhis own experiences.986 As he has expressed so ruefully, ‘I hadn’t given my wife anopportunity to fly as perhaps she should have done’.987 So while the more middle-class Saville had a direct influence upon the female voice in Boys from theBlackstuff, it could be argued that no such influence was exerted by Goddard uponPreston, both coming from broadly similar working-class backgrounds, hence thevirtual elision of any form of meaningful female subjectivity. However, while Cookhas recognised the ‘relegation of women to reactive roles in relation exclusively to(white) men’ as a ‘severe limitation’, it should not be seen as a ‘crippling limitation’.988 984 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 143).985 Ibid.986 The Reunion (2011).987 Ibid.988 Cook (1985), pp. 136-146 (p. 145).275 5.13 Change and EntrapmentAs I have argued, while the male characters in Boys from the Blackstuff are lookingtowards the past the female characters largely are not. It is the women who adaptand survive to new circumstances, while the routine of work has led the men toadopt habits of a lifetime.989 While their embeddedness in working-class patriarchyappears to be the prime reason for this masculine entrenchment, the nexus betweenmasculine identity and work lends considerable credence to Monaghan's propositionthat,far from finding new opportunities, working-class men in the 1980scan no longer even be confident of securing the kind of jobs readilyavailable to them throughout the post-war era. 990 This then has consequences which go beyond economics: ‘For men raised in aculture where masculine self-esteem is directly related to their work’, the loss of thatwork will lead to a loss of identity.991 This apparent loss of identity is clearlycommunicated in silhouette, blurred and, overhead shots together with the framing ofindividuals isolated within the landscape, to provide a network of visual motifs tosuggest that to be out of work is to suffer a crisis of identity that leads in turn to abreakdown in familial relationships and in class solidarity.992 Rather than opening up possibilities of new discourses around gender relations andconstructions of masculinity, the narrative suggests that for its male protagoniststhere is limited opportunity for agentic redefinition. As with Fox, Bleasdale presentsa world which accords with Foucault’s notion of recognised agency but within certain989 Campbell (1984), p. 185; 179.990 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 5).991 Ibid.992 Ibid., p.12.276 discursive parameters. As Whitehead has noted, Foucault sees the self as beingcreated through the self-disciplinary ‘techniques of the practices of self that are at thedisposal of the subject (as individual) seeking self-signification’.993 In this way thediscursive subject becomes enabled. However, discourses also carry with themknowledge, ‘through their capacity to signal what is possible to […] do at a particularmoment and in particular cultural settings’.994 Unlike Fox, for Bleasdale, there is nolonger any meaningful sense of agency as his protagonists retreat further into theredundant and otiose discourses which had been so crucial in their identityconstruction and had fostered the dominant beliefs surrounding gender andsexuality.Although the variety and diversity of emergent discourses of gender is immediatelyapparent in the increasing plurality of masculinities in the 1980s, there remainedresidual resistance to many of these. Yet as different discourses emerge which maythreaten ‘masculine power regimes’, once out in the public domain they are oftenunstoppable.995 Nevertheless, individuals may still attempt to exercise powerthrough the utilisation of dominant discourses of masculinity.996 This is clearly thecase for Bleasdale’s protagonists as they fail to understand that the dominantdiscourses which inform their particular constructions of masculinity are in theprocess of becoming residual.This loss of identity and the inability to construct a new or altered one partly becauseof the embeddedness of working-class masculinity and partly because of the993 Whitehead (2002), p. 102.994 Ibid., p. 103.995 Ibid., p. 109.996 Ibid., p. 107.277 genuine lack of alternatives, at least in the immediate future, leads to bothentrapment within the legacy of the past and the futility of any activity within thepresent. It is therefore impossible to open up new meaningful personal narratives inthis new and inhospitable climate. As Monaghan has argued, Boys from theBlackstuff is essentially about the ‘futile attempts of the film's main characters toconstruct personal narratives in the absence of any but redundant subjectpositions’.997 This is then intensified through a powerfulvisual language of recurring images of frantic but aimless movement,paralysis, entrapment, loss of identity and madness and in setting thefilm's action against a backdrop of literal and metaphoricalwastelands.998 As Bleasdale’s male characters are depicted as largely entrapped by theircircumstances, so much of the mise-en-scene is symbolic of this entrapment. Asthey are framed from behind the wire mesh at the Department of Employment, theiron railings as they arrive there, or the grille behind which Yosser is confined withinthe confessional box, all act as powerful metaphors for their circumstances. A senseof claustrophobia and isolation is given further weight by the use of shallow focus toalienate the individual protagonists; tight shots which cloister characters; smalldiscrete settings like the toilet cubicle in which Dixie receives his bribes; a generalbut realistic use of small houses, cramped rooms, rows of terraces and theforegrounding of venetian blinds and stair treads to further entrap the protagonistsand turn their homes into prisons. Perhaps, however, the most powerful metaphorfor the characters’ entrapment ‘is the close shot of Chrissie’s ferret as it rushesfrantically from one side of its tiny cage to the other in perfect mimicry of its owner'sstate of mind’.999 It is this very type of frenetic, repetitive, and futile action which is997 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 5).998 Ibid., p. 12.999 Ibid.278 perpetually stressed by the narrative. The nature of much of their work, whetherlaying asphalt or bricks is necessarily repetitive and this is cruelly parodied by therepetition of the same questions asked of them every week as they sign on at theDepartment of Employment. Bleasdale seems to be suggesting that the boys arenow leading frantic but futile lives which are further emphasised by an atmosphere offrantic but futile movement. Snowy, vital and with a clear sense of purpose, dies inthe first episode; Chrissie scurrying about the empty docks to find help for George,while all the time George is beyond help; and any sense of purpose and energyhalted emphatically by the freeze frame which ends each episode. The use of freezeframes, however, does not serve to provide any sense of closure to the narrativesas, ultimately, Bleasdale's characters are either left to drift aimlessly through thelandscape or make futile gestures equally without lasting purpose or resolution. Thenarrative finally reveals them as unable to recuperate their old identities or engagewith emergent discourses which might lead to constructions of new ones. AsMonaghan has argued, in direct contradiction of ‘Margaret Thatcher's claim that herpolicies were opening up new avenues of self-understanding for working-classpeople’, Boys from the Blackstuff recognises nothing in their lives other than avoid.1000 These are lives that have become entirely deprived of meaning byunemployment.Regardless then of the emergence of new discourses in the early 1980s, thesediscourses were not open to all and were highly dependent upon where one wasplaced within the social order. Once again Bourdieu’s argument that class acts as amajor mitigating factor, where social limits becomes one’s own sense of limits and1000 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p.13).279 may result in an adherence to the relations of existing order, is singularlyapplicable.1001 This may be true, particularly within traditional working-classsocieties, where Bourdieu argues, there may be an inability to understand one’sposition or envisage possibilities because of where one is placed historically,culturally and socially.1002 Here again social limits become one’s sense of limitswhere social structures may transfer and become mental structures with a resultant‘adherence to (the) relations of order’.1003 Ultimately, the narrative suggests that thisis the case for Bleasdale’s principal protagonists.Bleasdale’s vision of change then is one that is almost entirely bleak, unavoidable,and damaging and the entrapment of his male protagonists suggests identities whichare so disadvantaged and embedded in residual discourses as to rendertransformation in accordance with this change impossible. Fox, however, suggests amore subtle notion of entrapment, not from external forces and lack of agentic self-definition but rather from a stifling nostalgia burdened with expectations and tradition,which can only be eroded slowly. Clearly for the younger South Londoners newdiscourses are becoming available as they accompany new opportunities and theyare better positioned to accommodate changes rather than those in a traumatisedNorth. Indeed, it could be argued that what Paul Du Noyer has called the ‘collateraldamage’ suffered by Bleasdale’s protagonists is, if not the direct corollary ofSouthern economic growth, then at least it must be seen as connected to it.1004 Here, in the relatively prosperous South is the obverse of Monaghan’s assertion thatThatcher’s claims about new avenues for self-understanding for working-class1001 Bourdieu (1984), p. 471.1002 Ibid.1003 Ibid.1004 The Reunion (2011).280 people rang hollow.1005 However, the changes which accompany these newopportunities need to be tentatively negotiated rather than embraced and whatappears to be at risk here is the fragility of both individual and communal identities.This then suggests a certain flexibility in identity formation and maintenance whichBleasdale largely denies his male characters. Here the possibility of change is inaccord with Bourdieu’s notion of durability rather than immutability of identity. WhileBourdieu argues that the subjective ‘dispositions (are) durably inculcated by thepossibilities and impossibilities, freedoms and necessities, opportunities andprohibitions inscribed in the objective conditions’, this does not mean that theyremain constant.1006 Thus, for the next generation of the Fox family, given that the habitus possesses‘temporal structures and dispositions towards the future’, while repetition andreproduction of gender identity may be the norm, there is potential for change.1007 However, this is likely to be far from uniform, hence the ability to accommodatechange and render oneself amenable to the transformation of one’s identity variessignificantly from character to character. As Beynon has suggested, men areacculturated into masculinity,which is composed of social codes of behaviour which they learn toreproduce in culturally appropriate ways. It is indexical of class,subculture, age, and ethnicity.1008 However, ‘easy generalisations about working-class experience belie theconsiderable variation of experience and expression’.1009 Thus, even within this1005 Monaghan (2001), pp. 2-13 (p. 13).1006 Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, by . Richard Nice (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), p. 54; Pierre Bourdieu and Loic J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Cambridge: Polity, 1992), p. 129.1007 Bourdieu (1990), p. 64.1008 Beynon (2002), p. 2.281 tightly knit group of five working-class brothers, masculinity is ‘interpreted, enactedand experienced in a number of different ways’.1010 While masculine identity in Fox is seen to be associated with community, toughphysicality, and family, it is not wholly determined by them. Nonetheless,entrapment within these structures and their residual and dominant discourses ofmasculinity does operate as a powerful motif within the narrative, and it is particularlygermane to the circumstances of Vinny and Ray. For Vinny, the tough physical jobof scaffolding remains his principal source of identity. Any avenue of escape orattempt to create a new life and identity is closed off. Ultimately he must remain ‘justanother iron monkey’. Any aspirations to anything else are severely curtailed by alack of greater cognitive awareness and circumstances which are beyond fruitfulagentic intervention. In short, Vinny is tied to a construction of masculinity whichfavours physicality. Of all the sons it is Vinny and Kenny, who later joins him in thebusiness, who remain under their father’s shadow reproducing their own secondaryand rather diminished versions of him.Similarly entrapment features in the narrative of Ray but in a rather different way.Far more intelligent and open than Vinny, he is nonetheless caught in the past, self-consciously performing his own construction of a tough, vain, posturing mythologisedand highly stylised masculinity. This performance is clearly signified within thenarrative as being informed by specific discourses including criminal codes of honourand classic film representations. While this is initially an entrapment of his ownconstruction it later becomes the instrument of his literal imprisonment, itself the1009 Beynon (2002), p. 2.1010 Ibid.282 extension of the noir inflected chiaroscuro, claustrophobic and recondite world ofnightclubs and bars. For Ray, perhaps the least subject to the constraints, confinesand expectations of the family, one entrapment has been replaced by another,literally as punishment for crime and figuratively for the transgression against family.Ultimately then, change is not something which Fox accommodates particularly wellsince much of the narrative actively resists or negates its dynamic possibilities.Indeed Sean Day-Lewis saw the entire series as one in which stasis and stagnationprevailed, where there was a disavowal of change even after the introduction ofsignificant events and people. Characters were ‘frozen in the attitudes stated whenthey were first introduced’ and had failed to be ‘changed by whatever action therehas been’.1011 5.14 ConclusionThis chapter has argued that both Fox and Boys from the Blackstuff reveal astructure of feeling concerned with anxieties around the erosion of patriarchalpositions and dominant and residual discourses of masculinity. It has explored thesignificance of wider prevailing shifts in society upon working-class masculinities,examining the reactions and strategies engaged in attempting to confront them. Ithas argued that through their individual focus on working-class communitiesundergoing radical change both Bleasdale and Preston have formulated narrativeswhich, while exploring markedly different milieux, have the primary intention ofpositioning their male protagonists where they need to preserve or recoverpatriarchy. Thus, while changes in economic, social, and cultural circumstances of1011 Day-Lewis (1980b).283 the period demanded a reconfiguration of masculinity and gender relations bothnarratives express a structure of feeling which is attached to residual and dominantdiscourses rather than engaging meaningfully with emergent ones.I have shown how both narratives conform to the notion of masculine identitiesbound to physical work, the role as provider, the position of patriarch with theprivilege that it entails and are underpinned by attendant structures. Here I haveargued, the sense of established identity is reliant on sense of continuity andtherefore is resistant to change, demonstrating how the texts explore this as aconsequence of patriarchal privilege, existing social structures, dominant discoursesand social disadvantage.This chapter has demonstrated how both narratives articulate a structure of feelingwhich, reveals both individual and widespread experience, and their relationshipswith the shifting political, social and economic structures of a specific period.However, while structures of feeling may be interpreted as productive processesfacilitating the construction of subject identities in new emergent situations, the textshere articulate the problems men had in formulating these new adaptive identities.While I have explored the ways the narratives articulate anxieties around changeswithin working-class culture in general, this chapter has been particularly concernedwith the considerable discomfort the narratives exhibit in the ways they deal with theemergent voice of working-class women. While the narratives attempt to engendersympathy for the plight of their male protagonists portraying them as victims ofchange while also trapped by circumstances, this chapter has established that it is284 those very changes which are obdurately resisted by men in an effort to marginalisewomen and retain their patriarchal positions.Thus, while this chapter has acknowledged the central theme of the maleprotagonists attempting to contend with the disintegration of their masculineidentities in Boys from the Blackstuff it has also examined the previously unexploredarea of gender relations within the narrative. Similarly, while examining the pivotaldiscourse of change in family and community in Fox, this chapter has alsoaddressed gender relations and identities and the ways that hegemonic practiceworks to facilitate configurations of gender practices to allow them to remain virtuallyunaltered. Ultimately, in presenting changes which do not ‘make sense’ to their maleprotagonists, I have argued that the narratives conform to Bourdieu’s notion where‘social divisions become the principles of division organising the limits of the socialworld. Objective limits become a sense of limits, a sense of one’s place’.1012 Finally, drawing upon a number of significant theories on nostalgia this chapter hasalso examined nostalgic feeling as a particular response to social, cultural, andeconomic shifts. It has demonstrated the ways in which nostalgia functions in bothnarratives as a key discourse in attempting to maintain or restore identities, relyingon increasingly residual discourses. Thus, as the perceived stability of the presentrecedes, nostalgia provides an illusory sense of permanence for what are manifestlyfragile constructions of masculine identities.1012 Bourdieu (1984), p. 471.285 6 Howay the Lads!: Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais6.1 IntroductionThis chapter aims to consider the ways emergent and residual discourses ofmasculinity in the 1980s were frequently experienced by men as a site of contention.In examining Clement and La Frenais’ Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (UK, 1983-86) as adrama which displays a series of working-class masculine discourses this chapterseeks to show the ways men conducted a faltering, hesitant relationship withemergent discourses while simultaneously engaging with residual ones. Thus, whilethe previous chapter was concerned with identifying strategies to manage and resistnew discourses of gender, this chapter will demonstrate the iterative relationshipbetween emergent and residual discourses of masculinity revealing identityconstruction as a disrupted, open ended process operating in a state of unease.While I acknowledge that ‘masculine patterns may change by incorporating elementsfrom […] others’ in a process of ‘mutual conditioning of gender dynamics and othersocial dynamics’, I shall also argue that in foregrounding the ordinary, everydayexperiences of men, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet demonstrates a greater willingness toembrace new discourses, while simultaneously recognising the limitations of thoseexperiences.1013 Thus, this chapter will develop the argument that the practices,experiences and feelings of white, heterosexual working-class men, even whenrelatively open to change, reveal a structure of feeling which is nonethelesscharacterised by anxieties and uncertainties.1013 R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Genderand Society, 19.6 (December 2005), 829-859 (p. 837-848).286 The opening section focuses on the production context, critical reception and theevolution of the series through its extant players. It will examine the press coveragefor both series as evidence of concerns around the impact of social and economicchanges on working-class masculinity and go on to assess the affect of theprogramme on a wider audience. The chapter will also argue that what emerged wasoutside of the generally accepted domain of masculine genres, with its emphasis ondialogue, feelings, and intimacy in a homosocial context, rather than relying explicitlyon action or goal driven narratives. I will go on to argue that unlike Boys from theBlackstuff , Auf Wiedersehen, Pet does not confront the social, cultural andeconomic changes of the late 1970s and early 1980s head on but largely sidestepsthem in order to develop a more subtle exploration of masculinity.The chapter will then explore the shifting intersection of class allegiances andconstructions of masculinity, and how this is played out in the narratives offering upnew opportunities to engage with emergent discourses. Through the principal tropeof foregrounding relationships between male characters exhibiting a range ofmasculine discourses which belies any notion of homogeneity, it will argue that AufWiedersehen, Pet is able to explore the residual, dominant, and emergent showinghow these are related to class aspirations and how they shift through intersubjectivityand exposure to other discourses. However, I will also argue that while thenarratives open up multiple discourses they also frequently rescind on theseopportunities for their protagonists to fully engage with them. Drawing uponWhitehead’s work on masculinity this chapter will show that while Auf Wiedersehen,Pet allows for a degree of possibilities and capacities for resistance to, and indeedtransformation of, existing gender practices, the lived, grounded experience for many287 working-class men may have been manifestly different. Whitehead’s appropriation ofFoucault’s post-structural analysis of gender adopts an approach which, whileemphasising the importance of understanding men and masculinities as discursive,recognises both the limitations as well as the possibilities of this approach.The chapter will then explore a number of specific aspects of Auf Wiedersehen, Petwhere this uneasy relationship between possibilities and limitations is workedthrough. Employing Whitehead’s post-structural perspective of masculinity as aframework it will demonstrate how individual and society are inextricably connectedsince emotions are a response to the ‘expressive relations between people' ratherthan something which emerges from deep within the individual.1014 The close textualanalysis will then explore the social and cultural changes affecting the constructionand performance of gender and gender relations and how these are played outthrough relationships, friendships, family roles and the expression of feelings, againacross a range of masculine discourses within the narratives.Finally, this chapter will demonstrate how the two key themes which concern thewriters in relation to changes and continuities in identity construction, homosocialityand nostalgia, function within the narratives. It will argue that while homosociality isemployed as means to alleviate anxieties about changes which undermine theperceived continuity of identity, as the homosocial group engages with bothemergent as well as residual and dominant discourses of masculinity. It will go on toexamine how nostalgia also works to construct and reaffirm identities and one of theprincipal ways it does this is through the construction of individual and particularly1014 Ian Burkitt, ‘Social Relationships and Emotions’, Sociology, 31.1 (1997), 37-55 (p. 40).288 collective myth. In creating heroic roles the narratives augment ‘pride and self-esteem’ affirming the ‘value of the narrative of self-identity‘.1015 6.2 Breaking Away: The Emergence of Auf Wiedersehen, PetIt has become a generally accepted axiom within media studies that genderedgenres in television, because of their dissimilar and distinct narrative structures andvarying emphases on either action or dialogue, tend to predominantly appeal toeither women or men. Soap operas, for example, with their dominant femalecharacters, stories which deal with emotions and intimacies, emphasis on family andrelationships and narrative structures which suggest ambivalence and contradictionare seen to offer greater opportunity for emotional engagement especially amongstwomen. Indeed Geraghty has talked about a feminine aesthetic existing within soapoperas and Modleski has argued that they operate within a ‘feminine narrativeform’.1016 Conversely, goal oriented narratives with individuals or groups of men,where the goal is paramount and conclusive, and any personal revelations are eitherabsent or smuggled into the narratives have been seen as a requirement for, whathave been considered to be, masculine genres, including police and crime dramas.If, as Easthope has maintained, the masculine ego is particularly inclined towardsself-contained, closed narratives which privilege action over dialogue, then anysuggestion of vulnerability, revelation or ambivalence is necessarily subsumed withinthe goal oriented narrative.1017 1015 nd David Gauntlett, Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction, 2 edn (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008),p.108.1016 Christine Geraghty, Women and Soap Opera : A Study of Prime Time Soaps (Cambridge: Polity, 1990);Tania Modleski, ‘In Search of Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas: Notes on a Feminine Narrative Form’,Film Quarterly, 33.1 (1979), 12-21 (p. 12).1017 Antony Easthope, What a Man's Gotta Do : The Masculine Myth in Popular Culture ([n.p.]: Unwin Hyman,1990; repr. Routledge: New York, NY, 1992), pp. 83-84.289 Where perhaps certain situation comedies like Hancock’s Half Hour (UK, 1956-60)and more particularly Steptoe and Son (UK, 1962-65; 1970-74) may have allowed fora degree of open and ambivalent personal exploration amongst men, together withnarratives where any action and indeed goal become secondary to emotionalrevelation around masculine anxieties, British drama series, with the possibleexception of Budgie (UK, 1971-72), have rarely done this. Perhaps this is why thedevelopment in the 1980s of the comedy drama genre, set over an hour and notdriven by an overarching narrative, created such a prodigious impact. If, as hasbeen suggested, dominant discourses of masculinity have led to men becomingemotionally inarticulate and inhibited, then a fictive space like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet,which was able to open this up was particularly rare in British television.1018 Byinitially exposing these inarticulacies, and then subsequently exploring genuinelyintimate emotions amongst men, it operated as a drama which directly addressedparticular aspects of the 'masculine condition'.While Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais were the creative force behind the series, theinitial idea was actually conceived not by the writers but a director from Teeside,Franc Roddam. Roddam had a track record including the ‘fly on the wall’documentary The Family (UK, 1974) and the television drama-documentary Dummy(UK, 1977). He envisaged a ‘hard hitting play […] in the tradition of Cathy ComeHome. (UK, 1966)’ and initially approached Willy Russell.1019 As someone who wasacutely aware of his background in the industrial North-East, his aim was to ‘shedlight on common experience’ declaring that he had ‘wanted our voices to be heard1018 Stephen M. Whitehead, Men and Masculinities: Key Themes and New Directions (Cambridge: Polity,2002), p. 175.1019 Franc Roddam and Dan Waddell, The Auf Wiedersehen, Pet Story: That’s Living Alright (London: BBCBooks, 2003), p. 13.290 correctly’.1020 This was to be a story about the experiences of his friends, bricklayersand plasterers, who had been forced by unemployment at home, to seek workelsewhere. To this end then, he followed one of them out to Germany.1021 Here heobserved men ‘away from their wives answerable to no one, but themselves’.1022 Roddam remembers that for many of these men this was indeed a good life. Whilemany had married young and had wives, children and adult obligations, in Germanythey had money and minimal responsibilities, their experience being one which wasweighted considerably toward the notion of having fun. Thus, Auf Wiedersehen, Petemerged from the lived experience of ordinary working-class men, those witnessedby Roddam. This experience was one which reflected their comfort within thehomosocial world with its largely residual and dominant discourses of masculinitytogether with uncertainty about the responsibilities and expectations of emergentdiscourses as the consequence of social and cultural changes in Britain.Thus, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet expresses a structure of feeling which conveys howindividual experience and emotion are connected to wider social and economicstructures. It is in essence a small, ephemeral story which uncovers socialexperiences which tended to be undervalued, dismissed, discounted or overlooked,expressing the unease, the hope, and the incomprehension experienced by its malecharacters.1023 1020 Drama Connections: Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, BBC1, 6 September 2005, 22.35.1021 Ibid.1022 Roddam (2003), p. 13.1023 Cora Kaplan, ‘What We Have Again to Say: Williams, Feminism and the 1850s’, in Cultural Materialism:On Raymond Williams ed. by Christopher Prendergast (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995),pp. 211-236 (p. 231); Morag Shiach, ‘A Gendered History of Cultural Categories’, in Cultural Materialism:On Raymond Williams, (see Kaplan above), pp 51-70 (p. 58).291 It should be acknowledged that both the collaborative nature of television productionalong with the specific circumstances of the production’s evolution allowed for anumber of authorial voices to make significant contributions. As I have alreadydiscussed, while the contributions of Mackenzie, Goddard, and Saville influenced thequality of output from McDougall, Preston and Bleasdale this was also the case forClement and La Frenais. For example, while they may have been by far the mostinfluential factors, in terms of dialogue and storylines, there was considerable inputfrom Stan Hey who wrote several episodes in the first two series, Jimmy Nail whodemanded rewrites and of course Roddam.1024 Additionally, director Roger Bamfordwith experience on Play for Today (UK, 1970-1984) and BBC2 Playhouse, (1974-1983) insisted on authentic locations, even for interior scenes, which lent a degree ofrealism.1025 Indeed, any claim to authenticity may actually be supported by the inputfrom these contributors. La Frenais himself has stated ‘everything we have done is acomplete fraud’.1026 As middle-class, privately educated writers they have conceded,‘we’re one sort of people really, and we write about another sort’.1027 Nevertheless,while there may be some truth in this, and the fact that their writing has beengenerically varied and diverse, what their most notable work retains is an acuteinsight into men, homosociality, and male nostalgia.Described by Alan Parker as two of the best writers for British television, whichsuggests they can be placed alongside writers of television drama such as AlanPlater, producer Martin McKeand has remarked that, while ‘they may be middle-class1024 Roddam (2003), p. 13; Omnibus: Whatever Happened To…Clement and La Frenais?, BBC1 20 July 199722.45 50mins; Roddam (2003), p. 9.1025 Roddam (2003), p. 36.1026 Andrew Martin, ‘Everything We’ve Done is a Fraud’, Telegraph, 26 April 2002.1027 Ibid.292 they write really good working-class characters’.1028 Jimmy Nail sees them asparticularly adept at shining the light on working-class men under pressure and whilemuch of their work has been in the area of comedy, this emerges, La Frenais claims,from natural speech and situations.1029 Arguably they have been able to write aboutvery different male characters, because they themselves are very differentpersonalities, La Frenais, ‘laddish’ and knowledgeable about rock and roll, writing thecharacter of Wayne as a reflection of himself, Clement far more ‘straight’ andconservative. Indeed Kevin Whatley has mused that there may have been much ofThe Likely Lads, (UK, 1964-66) in their relationship.1030 Of their most successful work it is perhaps the three television series The LikelyLads and its sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (UK, 1973-74), Porridge(UK, 1974-77) and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet with which they have become most readilyidentified. What connects all three is the emphasis on groups of men inhabiting amilieu where women are either excluded or liminal. As Clement himself has pointedout, they have placed their characters in a state of confinement which for the actorsthemselves sometimes led to an atmosphere of claustrophobia.1031 Thisconfinement with its ‘limits placed on the pleasures of life’, highlights ‘the way inwhich men communicate […] the tensions, the petty feuds and the camaraderie’.1032 This allows for an almost laboratorial exploration of men and how they relate to eachother and operate within each other’s company. The emphasis is almost exclusivelyon modes and practices of masculinity and how they are played out within1028 Omnibus (1997); Roddam (2003), p. 17.1029 Omnibus (1997).1030 Ibid.1031 Drama Connections (2005).1032 Roddam (2003), p. 16.293 homosocial relationships, together with the tension created by characters being‘trapped by job, circumstances, environment and trying to get out of it’.1033 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, however, sharean even closer affinity concerning a general sense of anxiety around class, nationaland regional identity and non-hegemonic individual masculine identity. There is alsothe recurring concern on how group identity and interaction may come to reinforce orindeed undermine individual notions of masculine identities. As Connell has argued:Masculinity is not a fixed entity embedded in […] personality traits ofindividuals […] (but) configurations of practice that are accomplished insocial interaction […] (and) can differ according to the gender relationsin a particular social setting.1034 Furthermore by reuniting the principal characters in subsequent series Clement andLa Frenais are able to explore the fracturing and moderating of these identities andthe urge to either restore or adapt them. This is then combined with a wider sense ofloss in terms of community and locality underwritten by a profound nostalgic impulse.However, where Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? benefited from having itstwo central characters sharing a back-story which originated in childhood, and beingset in a familiar (to them) place, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet works in an entirely differentand much more challenging way. Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? allows foran extremely intense relationship because of the characters’ conversance with eachother and their milieu of the industrial North-East. While things are certainlychanging both economically and socially, there is a great deal of comfortingfamiliarity in their surroundings and circumstances which cushions them against theencroachment of time and social change. Conversely, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet at once1033 Omnibus (1997).1034 Connell and Messerschmidt (2005), 829-859 (p. 836).294 deracinates and brings together its seven male characters, they being disparate inage, social background, education, attitudes and values, family commitment,aspirations, skills, regional background, and interests. Even their physicality ismarkedly different. Indeed in terms of back-story, while some of the characters havelimited knowledge of each other, most have none. As one critic observed ‘all humanlife can be found here’.1035 Nonetheless, as the protagonist’s friendships develop thewriters suggest that, to a degree, their patterns of masculinity adjust and reshape asthey absorb elements from others in a process of ‘mutual conditioning’.1036 What makes for the intensity of their relationships and interactions is that thecharacters are not only displaced from the familiarity of their home environs, andcast into a different country, but that they also exist in a somewhat artificial worldwhere they share almost every minute of their lives, whether working, socialising,sleeping, or simply living. These characters have to get to know each other infrequently fraught and testing conditions, as they unwittingly explore each other’sindividual identities and are exposed to forms of masculinity which they may nothave encountered or wished to have encountered before. If, as Phil Wickham hassaid, the narrative of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? facilitated theprotagonists with relationships which allowed them to 'experience another kind ofmanhood vicariously', then Auf Wiedersehen, Pet does this sevenfold and with a fargreater degree of diversity and hence possibility.1037 Here Demetriou’s concept ofdialectical pragmatism describes this process most succinctly capturing the ways1035 Lenny Broon, ‘Hip Hod‘, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986.1036 Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) 829-859 (p. 847; 848).1037 Phil Wickham, The Likely Lads (London: BFI, 2008), p. 61.295 masculinities exercise a reciprocal influence on each other.1038 While the idea for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was Roddam’s and the characters werecreated and developed by the writers, the casting also had considerable impact onhow the individual characters emerged. As with McDougall and Mackenzie usingcomedian Hector Nicol, folk singer and welder Billy Connolly and blues-rock singerFrankie Miller in key roles, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet also benefited from the casting of anumber of semi-professional actors together with those from a variety of diversebackgrounds. This was a cast of relative unknowns, which, Jimmy Nail claims, led to‘actors on proper dramas’ being dismissive of their efforts, asking rhetorically ‘whowould want to watch a drama about bricklayers?’.1039 This then ’bred a siegementality […] us against the rest’ which ‘forged a special bond between the cast’.1040 While Clement and La Frenais were able to typically explore the intersubjectivitybetween their male characters, it is also worth considering what the actorsthemselves brought to these diverse and heterogeneous constructions of working-class masculinity. While an accomplished actor like Timothy Spall was able to usehis dramatic skills to realise the character of Barry, Kevin Whately has remarked thatmost of the others were ‘selling one aspect’ of his character.1041 Indeed it could beargued that the close resemblance between some of the actors and their characterswas unique in television. As Bamford maintained in 2002, ‘I would not have beenable to cast any of them now’.1042 1038 Demetrakis Z. Demetriou, ‘Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique’, Theory and Society,30 (2001), 337-61.1039 Jimmy Nail, A Northern Soul (London: Penguin 2005), p. 185.1040 Ibid.1041 Roddam (2003), p. 109.1042 Ibid., p. 28.296 Spall has been described as ’shabby’ and a ‘shambles’ but also as the ’hottest talentin town’ and a ‘truly gifted individual‘ with the ability to convey the ‘pathos, humanityhonour and pain’ at the heart of Barry’s character.1043 Spall’s talent allowed him totranscend his London background, if not his physicality, when cast as a ‘Brummie’after being considered unsuitable for the character of Wayne.1044 Similarly,Christopher Fairbanks was also cast against type playing a ‘Scouser’. However, hissignificant contribution to the role was that it drew on a year’s experience of living inLiverpool and it was he who suggested it.1045 Whatley and Tim Healy on the other hand used their own ‘Geordie’ accents, Whatleybeing keen to play characters from the North-East, Healy committed to promotingnew writing and acting talent from the region and having already played toughGeordie characters.1046 Bamford has also suggested that Whatley was cast becauseof a ‘vulnerability’ that impressed him and that it was ‘easy to imagine him with astrong wife […] always eager to please’.1047 Indeed the quiet politeness that Nail firstnoted about Whately, provides the backbone of Neville’s diffidence.1048 However, itis with the characters of Bomber, Oz, and Wayne where the resemblance betweenactor and character becomes most acute.1043 Nail (2005), p.157; 158; 384.1044 Roddam (2003), p. 20.1045 Ibid., pp. 26-28.1046 Ibid., p. 20.1047 Ibid.1048 Nail (2005), p.155.297 Pat Roach had been an action actor with few lines in a number of prestigious filmsand never really considered himself an actor.1049 As a professional wrestler he waslargely cast for his huge physicality rather than acting abilities. However, as Nail hasnoted, his physical presence contrasted markedly with his softly spoken, non-aggressive approach.1050 Additionally, having been extremely well travelled in themale world of wrestling may have furnished him with a degree of insight into theconfined homosocial environs of men temporarily separated from their homes andfamilies.1051 While Roach brought something of his own experience and personality to the role ofBomber, Jimmy Nail, arguably, was even closer to his character of Oz. While Nailhad no experience of professional acting at all, this was eclipsed by a degree ofconsensus by the producers that he was eminently suitable for the role. Bamfordhas stated that on seeing Nail he knew he had Oz: ‘Tall, uncouth, a face that couldsour milk at a glance, all missing teeth, a bashed up nose, and surly working-classcontempt’ and the fact that he ‘could not understand a word he said’.1052 SimilarlyClement has said ‘he was Oz’, his incomprehensibility adding to his authenticity.1053 With his aggressive behaviour at his audition and Healy attesting that he was ‘ascary looking lad‘ who thought actors were ‘poofs’, Nail already possessed some ofthe principal characteristics of Oz.1054 1049 Roddam (2003), p. 24.1050 Nail (2005), p. 156.1051 Anon, ‘Obituaries’, Daily Telegraph, 19 July 2004 [accessed 18 June 2012]1052 Roddam (2003), p. 20.1053 Ibid., p. 23.1054 Ibid., p. 21.298 Indeed, Nail himself has detailed much of the more difficult aspects of his immediatepast which informed the character of Oz. His drinking, arrest for football relatedviolence and a period in Strangeways; his time as a hod carrier and a welder; hisaggressive homophobia; and his pugnacious and confrontational audition.1055 As hehimself has said, ‘I’ve led a bit of a naughty life up until now’.1056 So, while by thesecond series he was afraid of typecasting, with Oz’s traits being seen as his own,initially character and actor were very similar.1057 Indeed, as Bamford observed, as anon-actor, taken out of his environment and paid considerable amounts of money toenjoy himself, his initial excessive and unpredictable behaviour was not unlike that ofthe real builders he was playing.1058 If, as La Frenais attests, there is some truth in the assertion that Nail was actuallyplaying himself, this has also been claimed about Gary Holton’s performance asWayne, and it was this apparent conflation which the popular press were eager toexploit.1059 Unlike Nail, Holton had considerable acting experience having appearedin both Quadrophenia and Bloody Kids, (UK, Stephen Frears, 1979) but he hadmade his most emphatic impact in rock music. On their first meeting Nail hasdescribed him as ‘larger than life’, emanating ‘energy’, with his ‘jet black barnet‘ and‘wild pecking head movements’ looking like an ‘oversized crow’, but impossible not tolike.1060 Dave Ling, who knew him with The Heavy Metal Kids, claimed that he ‘didn’t1055 Nail (2005), pp. 63-66; 76-94; 71; 198-201; 139.1056 Pat Codd, ‘I’ve Led a Bit of a Naughty Life Up Until Now’, Daily Star, 9 October 1983.1057 Roddam (2003), p. 72.1058 Ibid., p. 34.1059 th Michael Hamilton, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet 25 Anniversary: An Interview with Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais’, NE4Me: North East England-The Inside Track [accessed 14 April 2012]; Geoff Baker, ‘Gary isAlright‘, Daily Star, 19 October 1985.1060 Nail (2005), p. 156.299 have to act too much to portray Wayne […] as a skirt-chasing, beer-swilling, lovablerogue’.1061 It was this persona which Holton was able to crystallise, drawing on theshowmanship, frequently unconventional and provocative attire, typically juvenile,destructive and confrontational rock and roll behaviour and overpowering presencewhich he had already developed with The Heavy Metal Kids.1062 As several whoknew him have commented, Holton was not acting and what he brought to Waynewas not only the look:‘Ronnie Wood […] too thin for […] (his) own good’ but also ‘hiscockiness […] conceit […] the way he carried himself […] the jack-the-ladswagger’.1063 While the performances of the principal actors were therefore vital to the delineationof character, it was the way the writers constructed their inter-relationships whichprovided the dramatic tension. Wickham has talked about the considerable debt AufWiedersehen, Pet owes to Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? Despite being‘less dependent on laughs’, featuring rather more complex and troubledcharacterisations, together with the absence of a studio audience and a longerformat,there is empathy and warmth in dealing with the characters that create,a curiosity in exploring aspects of everyday life and how it affects thesoul – and of course a feel for dialogue, for the ebb and flow ofconversation, particularly between men who do not have power or realownership over their own lives.1064 1061 Dave Ling, ‘Heavy Metal Kids’, first publ. in Classic Rock (October 2003) [accessed 14 April 2012]1062 Ibid.1063 Ibid.1064 Wickham (2008), p. 20.300 In terms of narrative structure the first series is able to explore the different individualidentities of its characters while constantly emphasising the nature of the group’sdynamics. Each of the characters have their own distinct and to some extententrenched individual identities, but are clearly affected by each other and therepertoire of discourses that each exhibit. There is little to unite them outside ofliving together in a confined space, and while most of them are emotionally reservedand distant from each other, as the series progresses expressions of feeling andunderstanding emerge together with a quiet celebration of different masculineidentities. Indeed nearly every episode is structured to accommodate bothindividual, sometimes existential, dilemmas within the drama along with the broaderaspects of the group dynamics, the latter primarily through humour.Structurally, however, the second series works in an entirely different way. They areno longer confined to one space, they often interact in non-homosocial spaces, andtheir wives and partners are frequently present. Indeed while some criticism of thefirst series noted the marginalisation of women, McKeand claimed there was aconscious decision to introduce them in more significant roles enabling the series tobecome more heterosocially inclined.1065 The result of all this is a lessening of theintensity of the relationships within the group, since we spend less time with themand they are at times no longer at the centre of the narrative. However, with its ownback-story, the series introduces elements of nostalgia, frequently through explicitself-reflexive myth making. Furthermore the narrative also allows for individualcharacters and their friendships to develop. This idea of development is crucial tothe second series for while the theme of social aspiration becomes increasingly1065 Hugo Williams, ‘Ground Level’, New Statesman, 25 November 1983; Broon (1986); Central IndependentTelevision/Witzend, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet Press Release (Central Independent Television/Witzend, 1986),p. 2.301 linked to emergent discourses of gender and gender relations, these remain in astate of tension with residual discourses which are frequently called upon asanxieties emerge.While the critical reception for the first two series was generally positive, as befittinga series aimed at a popular audience, most critical attention emanated from thepopular press. However, while some coverage tended to focus on the moresuperficial aspects of the programme, it nonetheless recognised that it was reflectingthe mood of contemporary Britain and had the potential for a degree of social impact.The general consensus was that it was a hard-edged comedy, celebrating ‘manlycamaraderie’.1066 The enthusiastic response delighted in the ‘earthy dialogue’, thebawdy humour of the ‘labouring louts’, the colourful pasts of some of the actors andproduction anecdotes.1067 Other critics, however, took a more measured approach.While some recognised ‘the argot of real life’ and the situations as ‘only one removefrom reality’ with the ‘scripts creat(ing) a fine sense of realism’ others noted thedramatic tension rather than the humour within these hour long dramas.1068 Viewedas ‘harder edged and more raw’ than Minder, (UK, 1979-94), this was ‘not merefantasy’, but was how ‘most Geordies seriously regard themselves’.1069 Compared,at times unfavourably with Boys From the Blackstuff, (UK, 1982) and the authors’previous work, some critics recognised that while it was not ‘a serious show’ it didhave some ‘serious themes’ providing ‘a story of occasional optimism about people1066 Carlo Gebler, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet: The Return of the Seven’, Times, 22 February 1986.1067 Broon (1986); Hilary Kingsley, ‘Awful Pets are Fun’, Daily Mirror, 22 February 1986; Baker; MaureenPaton, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pets’, Daily Express, 20 May 1986; Jack Bell, ‘Danger Men at Play’, DailyMirror, 11 November 1983.1068 Gethyn Stoodley-Thomas, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’, Western Mail, 13 December 1983; Broon (1986);Sheridan Morley, ‘Distant Relations’, The Times, 4 November 1983.1069 Philip Purser, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’, Daily Telegraph, 22 January 1984; Stan Eveling, ‘Auf Wiedersehen,Pet, Scotsman’, 18 February 1984.302 in work’.1070 What it adeptly combined was both humour and ‘desperation’ creating arecognisable ‘edginess’ reflecting the anxieties of the times.1071 Of all the programmes dealt with in this thesis Auf Wiedersehen, Pet wasundoubtedly the most populist in its approach, building on a tradition of Britishaudiences responding ‘to the shabby everyday’ and ‘the familiar’.1072 Playing‘variations on the theme of ‘them and us’, its conspiratorial note intimate(d) that thetelevision audience […] (was) to be included in the latter fraternity’.1073 This notion ofinclusion in the fraternity manifested itself in an enthusiastically vociferous andfrequently physical public response, particularly from working-class males. Severalof the actors bore witness to this display of intense audience identification with the‘realness’ of the characters.1074 Conversely, others felt that being so close to arepresentation of their ordinary experiences made it less than drama, less thancrafted, rendering itself as ordinary.1075 Nevertheless, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet attracted extremely large audiences of up to 14million viewers, suggesting that, regardless of gender, many wanted be part of thefraternity.1076 Franc Roddam has argued, however, that within this audience therewas a considerable number of men who identified directly with the characters. Oz,the most popular with male audiences, ‘said what he liked and liked what he said’,echoing Yosser’s ‘signs of masculine power’ as well as self satisfaction.1077 Other1070 Sean Day-Lewis, ‘Blood Brothers’, Daily Telegraph, 11 February 1984; Morley (1983).1071 Sue Summers, ‘Lump It-and Like It’, Standard, 11 November 1983; Anon, ‘The Farce of Class’, TimesEducational Supplement, 27 February 1986.1072 Phil Wickham, ‘The Likely Lads’ (London: BFI, 2008), p. 85.1073 Anon, ‘The Farce of Class’, Times Educational Supplement, 27 February 1986.1074 Nail (2005), p. 169.1075 Ibid., p. 170.1076 Roddam (2003), p. 105.1077 Ibid., p. 60.303 men identified with naïve and gentle Neville, particularly those who had been inNational Service or itinerant builders themselves, frequently stating ‘I was just likeNeville then’, reflecting on how, like Neville, they had missed their wives andfamilies.1078 Many saw it as ‘a subtle story of a section of humanity’ which theyrecognised, with seven interacting, distinct and crucially familiar types.1079 What onemale viewer found so affecting was the lack of heroic qualities of the charactersrendering them ‘just like us’ in the ways they dealt with ordinary problems.1080 Audiences remarked that it had the homosocial poignancy of The Likely Ladstogether with some of the social comment of Boys From the Blackstuff, which madethe series such an affecting experience.1081 Viewers expressed their delight in the‘interplay between the sprawl of characters’ and their verbal sparring’ and theirparticular affection for the characters rather than the situations.1082 Indeed, by theend of both first and second series several commentators suggested that the affectof the programme had been so considerable that ‘a large part of the televisionaudience will find it sad to live without the lads’ expressing a sense of loss.1083 Gauntlett and Hill have critiqued Morley’s and Gray’s audience research asreinforcing gender stereotypes, which suggests that ‘male’ texts involve heroic talesof public life and physical action, whilst ‘female’ texts emphasise the emotional.1084 While, they argue, this may have been the norm, it is merely a convention driven bysociety’s wider gender stereotypes.1085 They acknowledge that much research into1078 Roddam (2003), p. 60.1079 Anthea Hall, ‘Review’, Daily Telegraph, 2 March 1986.1080 Stephen Phillips, ‘Letters’, TV Times, 25 February-2 March, 1984.1081 Day-Lewis, (1984).1082 Roddam (2003), p. 17; 106.1083 Day-Lewis (1984); Maureen Paton, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pets’, Daily Express, 20 May 1986.1084 David Gauntlett and Annette Hill, TV Living: Television, Culture and Everyday Life (London: BFI, 1999),p. 214.1085 Ibid.304 soap operas in the seventies and eighties found that they were largely appreciatedby and targeted at women, but they also hold with Van Zoonen’s criticism of this forpresuming that ‘we can find a stable and easily identifiable distinction between menand women’.1086 This fails to account for the ‘possibility of fragmented and multiplesubjectivities in and among […] men […] (which) allows for difference andvariety’.1087 If, as Smit has argued, audiences are ‘diverse and unpredictable’ andtelevision is ‘a medium long associated with intimacy and emotional excess’ then it islikely that at least some of the male audience would seek to engage withprogrammes that feature emotion and intimacy.1088 As one viewer wrote, thestrength of the series lay in the affection the male characters had for each other,their loyalty and friendship being its most compelling components.1089 Thus, with itsdepiction of ordinary ‘thoughts and feelings’ around work, marriage and friendshiptogether with a largely unprecedented level of intimacy and emotional revelationbetween men in a television drama, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, in presenting far fromtypical representations of men, revealed affective qualities which were picked up inat least some viewers responses. 1090 6.3 Britain in the 1980sMonaghan has argued that 'the most active sites of ideological resistance’ andthe most effective opposition to the Conservative government thatruled Britain throughout the 1980s was often to be found in the creativearts, particularly in the realm of literature and film.1091 1086 Liesbet Van Zoonen, Feminist Media Studies, (London: Sage, 1994), p. 40.1087 Gauntlett and Hill (1999), p. 226.1088 Alexia Smit, ‘Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion’, Screen, 51.1 (Spring 2010), 92-95 (p.92).1089 Phillips, (1984).1090 Wickham, (2008), p. 4; Roddam (2003), p. 17.1091 David Monaghan, ‘Margaret Thatcher, Alan Bleasdale and the Struggle for Working Class Identity’,Journal of Popular Film and Television, 29.1 (Spring 2001), 2-13 (p. 2).305 He singles out Boys from the Blackstuff which Millington has described as a 'highwatermark' of the 'oppositional tradition' of BBC drama because of its ‘exceptionalintervention’ in ‘British culture in the Autumn of 1982’.1092 With its directlyconfrontational narratives together with its viewing figures of nearly eight million it didindeed make a significant and important contribution to the ideologically discursiveclimate of the period.1093 While the press described Auf Wiedersehen, Pet as ‘Boys from the Blackstuff withjobs’, Stan Hey has called the series Boys from the Blackstuff ‘with laughs’.1094 While both these may be either superficial or perhaps disingenuous comparisons,there is an element of truth in both of them. However, while there are certainlysimilarities between the two series they differ in one crucial way. If Auf Wiedersehen,Pet can be seen in some way as an equivalent response to Thatcherism as Boysfrom the Blackstuff, then it is largely a response without the explicit politics. Even if‘the initial idea emerged two years before the Conservative election in 1979, (and)this event and the decline in British manufacturing industry made it even morerelevant’, politics is marginal to the narratives.1095 However, while the programmedid have some political impact, and it did illuminate a section of Britain that wasbeing left behind by Mrs. Thatcher’s increasingly divisive leadership, there is no hint1092 Bob Millington, ‘Boys From the Blackstuff (Alan Bleasdale)’, in British Television Drama in the 1980s, ed.by George Brandt (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 119-139 (p. 121; 119).1093 Bob Millington and Robin Nelson, Boys From the Blackstuff: The Making of a TV Drama (London:Comedia, 1986), p. 155.1094 nd Rob Turnock, ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’, in The Encyclopaedia of Television, ed. by Horace Newcomb, 2 edn, 4 vols (New York: Taylor and Francis 2004), I, p. 172; Paul Armstrong, ‘Interview with Stan Hey’,The Original Auf Wiedersehen, Pet Homepage [accessed1 March2009]1095 Roddam (2003), p. 13.306 of militancy, no characters who lament the demise of heavy industry or forcefullydeclare their class allegiances.1096 La Frenais has said that while they were keen to write the series because it had apolitical message, they did not set out to be political, but politics does underpin thesituations the characters find themselves in.1097 Indeed what they wanted to do waswrite one-hour dramas which dealt with contemporary issues including ‘fecklessmen’.1098 To draw a, perhaps clumsy analogy, where Boys from the Blackstuff couldbe seen as the equivalent of a social problem film, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is rathercloser to social realism. Where the former is explicitly addressing the social fallout ofthe problem of Thatcherism, the drama, while operating on a personal level, linked tothe wider but nonetheless specific political and ideological contexts, AufWiedersehen, Pet uses the social and political climate as a vehicle to explore thepersonal, the ordinary, the everyday. Where Boys from the Blackstuff has a strongnarrative thrust, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is much looser, allowing for greater characterdevelopment and exploration rather than a powerfully driven narrative. Indeed,where the principal characters in Boys from the Blackstuff could be seen as havingtheir flaws exposed as a direct consequence of unemployment, in Auf Wiedersehen,Pet these men are clearly flawed, whether working or not. Thus, while becomingunemployed and having to leave the country to find work is the catalyst for the story,at the centre of the narrative is an examination of subtly shifting discourses ofmasculinities.1096 Roddam (2003), p. 17.1097 Ibid., pp. 14-15.1098 Ibid., p. 17.307 While Auf Wiedersehen, Pet eschews the direct political engagement of Boys fromthe Blackstuff it does explore changes in class and their impact on masculineidentity. If, as Wickham has observed,working-class culture had a very fixed view of what a man should be,especially in the North East. A distinctively male culture wasestablished, centred on the rituals of hard physical work,then shifts in the class structure and patterns of employment which occurred in theearly 1980s would have a profound effect on that culture.1099 While Marwick hasargued that the question of class was central to the changes of the period with anincreasing division between the deprived North and more prosperous South, whichwe have seen in the previous chapter, it is the ostensible weakening of classbarriers, the possibilities of upward mobility and the consequences for working-classmasculinity that are addressed in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.1100 Marwick cites LynnBanks, suggesting that she may have had a point claiming that class identity was sodeeply embedded in society that it had becomea kind of civil war, wearing out our energy and emotions, wasting ourtime and money. It holds back progress, destroys prosperity, impedessocial and working relations on every side.1101 However, this sense of rigid class identity was beginning, under pressure, todisintegrate. Banks’s view would have been shared by many middle-class Britons aswell as the more upwardly working-class, including Barry and to a lesser extentNeville and Wayne. Others, both from the left and the right wanted to see an end toclass consciousness seeing the situation as them and us. However, the mainstreamof the Conservative party recognised an inevitability to the class structure. Marwickcites the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies paper, Class on the Brain: The Cost of a1099 Wickham (2008), p. 54.1100 th Arthur Marwick, British Society since 1945: The Penguin Social History of Britain, 4 edn (London:Penguin, 2003), p. 166.1101 Ibid., p. 167.308 British Obsession for example, which declared that if British society was class boundand differentiated, there was considerable scope for mobility through effort andendeavour. What all agreed upon, however, was that class was still an issue verymuch in evidence.While the middle-class self-image was becoming increasingly assertive, many whohad previously prided themselves of progressive sympathies were beginning tosuccumb to the appeal of Thatcher from as early as the mid-1970s.1102 Furthermoreclass mobility from the working to the middle-class was a continuing trend throughoutthe decade, many of whom dropped their former Labour allegiances.1103 While classdivisions remained, they became more blurred:Within the working-class the expansion of certain types of work […]provided physical mobility and freedom, uncharacteristic of mosttraditional working-class jobs; the growth of white coated occupationsin the former heavy industries also softened the division betweenworking and middle-class.1104 Industrial disputes ceased to be drawn along purely class lines, as many working-class men aligned themselves against industrial action, while at the same timeunionisation now included those involved in white collar employment.1105 Marwick has argued that ‘the critical developments in the years of privatisation werean acceleration of the breaking up of the rigid frontiers of the working-class’.1106 Anera emerged of buying and selling with their attendant commissions, while manualworkers employed in manufacturing shrunk drastically as did the number of those1102 Marwick (2003), pp. 171-172.1103 Ibid., p. 172.1104 Ibid., pp. 173-4.1105 Ibid., p. 174.1106 Ibid., p. 275.309 performing the tasks of the skilled manual worker.1107 Crucially, however, one areaof expansion which was actively encouraged was the shift of those same skilledmanual workers to becoming self-employed entrepreneurs. However, this did notnecessarily mean that a ‘sense of working-class awareness had becomediminished’.1108 In Social Class in Britain Today, however, Marshall et al have recognised a decline inthose who regarded themselves as working-class.1109 As they went on to observe, itwas the shape rather than the openness of Britain's class structure which wasundergoing change as growth of service industries and the decline of manufacturinggained momentum.1110 While Marwick observes that within this smaller group of self-defining working-class there was a strong sense of class identity, this is not in aMarxist militant sense. 1111 This is evident from the collapse of widespread supportfor Scargill towards the end of the miner’s strike in 1983. The strike was no greattestament to class consciousness. While there was sympathy from workers in otherindustries, there was little evidence of support through equivalent industrialaction.1112 According to Marwick, Social Trends of 1980 pointed to the phenomenal growth inconsumerism, the availability of credit for the purchase of durable consumer goods,and latterly the use of credit cards for purchases from alcohol to dining room suiteswas a central phenomenon of the age, while Marr has argued that the Tories were1107 Marwick (2003)., p. 275; 277.1108 Ibid., pp. 277-278.1109 Gordon Marshall and others, Social Class in Modern Britain (London: Unwin and Hyman, 1989), pp. 144.1110 Ibid., pp. 137-8.1111 Marwick (2003), p. 279.1112 Ibid., pp. 281-288.310 intent on creating a ‘property owning democracy’’, whose allegiances would naturallyshift to the Conservatives.1113 The selling of shares to ordinary people, the ‘right tobuy’ policy where over a million families bought their own council properties and theencouragement given to thrift and enterprise were perhaps the instruments whichfacilitated the emergence of something of a new class.1114 Together with theestablishment of the SDP, an answer to the extreme socialism of the militant left,these phenomena allowed for some to acknowledge their working-class roots butalso to embrace the new opportunities that had become open to them.While Barry and Neville are wiling to embrace these new opportunities, to someextent ignoring the reality of their situations, Oz and Dennis find themselves far moreadrift from the prevailing climate, vainly attempting to retain their working-classmasculine identities in the face of enormous change. With rapidly risingunemployment, a startling decline in manufacturing, bitter and violent strikes failingto stop closures and job losses, government spending controls and rapidly risinginflation with the resultant erosion of the spending power of benefits, the working-class were becoming further disempowered and eroded. Inevitably those whoremained and felt some form of class loyalty became even more firmly entrenchedand embittered.6.4 Changing Class, Changing MasculinitiesRutherford has argued that the survival of the enduring masculine myth and men’sheterosexual identities relies upon a complex web of structures and institutions.1113 Marwick (2003), pp. 200-201; Andrew Marr, A History of Modern Britain (London: Pan MacMillan, 2008),p. 429-430.1114 Marr (2008), p. 430.311 Thus, he continues, ‘when these shift or weaken, men’s dominant positions arethreatened’.1115 Consequently the changing nature of work and the disruption ofwork culture with the decline of manufacturing industries, the introduction of newtechnology and subsequent de-skilling of traditional male jobs are changes thatundermined traditional working-class masculinities.1116 Rather than being anexamination of these phenomena in an abstracted way, Auf Wiedersehen, Petexplores the experiences of historically situated individuals. Indeed as Annette Kuhnargues:There is too often a failure to imagine how social class is actually livedon the pulse, how it informs our inner worlds as it conditions our lifechances in the outer world.1117 While gender and class are ‘inseparably linked in any understanding of subjectivity’,it is masculinity as defined by working-class men that appears to be especiallydependent upon a particular type of working-class identity.1118 As Casey hasattested, within television fiction ‘even progressive dramas with their emphasis onthe economic and social circumstances of labour have tended to produce working-class heroes rather than heroines’, thus conflating working-classness withmasculinity.1119 Within the narrative of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, for Oz, Dennis and Neville, thistraditional form of working-class masculine identity, which was apparently reasonablystable throughout previous decades, would appear to be under threat by the early1115 Jonathan Rutherford, ‘Who's That Man?’, in Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, ed. by RowenaChapman & Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988, repr. 1996), pp. 21-67 (p. 23).1116 Ibid., pp. 21-67 (p. 23).1117 Annette Kuhn, Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination (London, Verso, 1995), p. 101.1118 John Kirk, ‘Changing the Subject: Cultural Studies and the Demise of Class’, Cultural Logic, 5 (2002) [accessed 15 January 2012] (para 16 of 24).1119 nd Bernard Casey and others, Television Studies: The Key Concepts, 2 edn. (London: Taylor and Francis,2008), p. 38.312 eighties. Anoop Nayak, in his study ‘Last of the Real Geordies?’, has recognised thiskey shift in the North's economy and industry as one which has challenged traditionalnotions of working-class masculinity, notions that had grown out of economies whichoffered viable yet restricted options for working-class males.1120 While heavyindustry and physical work celebrated masculine camaraderie with an attendantpride in craft or graft, economic restructuring in the North ‘led to changes to theconceptions of gender identity and the relationship between masculinity, work, andleisure’.1121 Even the North-East, associated with the culture of manual labour, wasbeginning to prize 'feminised' attributes like communication skills over ‘the robustmasculine qualities associated with the culture of manual labour’.1122 As labourrelations fragmented and split in the nexus of a new, intensified global economy,working-class males either embraced the changes and altered their masculineidentities as new discourses emerged or displaced their traditional notions ofmasculinity into activities away from work. Thus, according to Nayak, the Geordie inthe post-industrial context retreats into ‘two key masculine zones, football anddrinking’.1123 Of all the key characters, it is perhaps Oz who personifies this retreat mostemphatically. His drinking is prodigious, his enthusiasm for Newcastle Unitedenergetic, aggressively partisan, reinforced by and reinforcing the male bondingprocess and occasionally ending in violence. Bricklaying may constitute the bedrockfor his existence, but only in so far as it provides money for his leisure activities.Indeed his own particular masculine identity derives far less from his work than from1120 Anoop Nayak, ‘Last of the 'Real Geordies'? White Masculinities and the Subcultural Response toDeindustrialisation’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21.11 (2003), 7-25 (p. 7).1121 Ibid., p. 7; 9.1122 Ibid., p. 9.1123 Ibid., p. 8.313 how he practises and engages with his leisure pursuits. Of course, others who donot share in these practices are, for Oz, with his highly solipsistic view of the world,in some way suspect, lacking as real men.While Oz is not entirely alone in his celebration of working-class masculine pursuits,the key difference here, however, is that unlike Nayak’s post-industrial study, all thecharacters are still engaged in traditional physical labour, and they still retain a senseof pride in their craft. Furthermore while the restricted options for working-classmales that Nayak discusses are generally accepted, some members of the groupsee the possibility of transcending their current circumstances and benefiting fromthe new emerging economic and social climate, which has profound consequenceson the constructions of their own particular masculinities. Where Dennis remainsfirmly set within traditional working-class attitudes and values, the younger Nevilleand Barry, and to some degree Wayne, represent a new emerging class, stillrelatively incipient in 1982, but a class nevertheless with a particular set of valuesand attitudes. While their particular circumstances may reap few rewards in theeconomic climate of the early eighties by the end of the decade their diligence mayhave proven worthwhile.However, their virtual abandonment of their working-class allegiances and embracingof a new class identity means that any attendant discourses surrounding theirindividual constructions of masculinity will also have to be negotiated. While theirsomewhat pusillanimous approach to working-class male bonding might appear outof step with the rest of the group, it serves to underline their openness to new anddifferent discourses. Barry is prudent, thrifty, and enterprising. By the second series314 he has his own building business, enjoys holidays and restaurants with his fiancée,and owns his own home. He has bought into the notion of a fluid class system andappears to have transcended his class roots. All this serves to inform his own senseof masculinity, something that is far removed from Oz's stridently aggressivemasculine performance. Similarly Neville's masculine identity is rooted almost asmuch in his economic aspirations as his working-class experiences. He likes hisfootball and is proud of his work, but is less interested in spending his leisure timedrinking in bars with other men, than at home with his wife, saving for a new house,on, as Dennis puts it, 'that posh new estate'.The character of Wayne also appears to engage relatively easily with emergentdiscourses of masculinity. Rutherford has suggested that the emergence of working-class men’s interest in designer clothes was a reflection of masculinity that had‘partly detached itself from its formative links to traditional class identities. It hasbecome aspirational and more narcissistic’.1124 Disruption in sexual identity, heargues, produced a new flexibility in masculinity.1125 However, in the case of Wayne, to overstress this flexibility may be a mistake.Wayne does exhibit a rather more effete masculinity than the others and for all hisposturing he is actually physically waif like. However, unlike the sexually ambiguous,truly transgressive working-class fops who had emerged in the 1970s from Bowiethrough to Martin Degville and George O‘Dowd, or the upper middle-class fantasiesof Jason King, (UK, 1971-2) and The Persuaders, (UK, 1971-2) the character of1124 Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (p. 39).1125 Ibid.315 Wayne owes more to the legacy of dandyism which emerged in working-classpersonalities like Terence Stamp in the 1960s.While the dandy can be traced at least as far back as Beau Brummell, these werewealthy, well connected males and ‘the most striking and historically specificcharacteristic of this revived male decorativeness is that it was led almost exclusivelyby working-class men’.1126 As Shail has argued, the swinging London dandy in theshape of Stamp and ‘the importance of being a sharp dresser as an indicator of self-worth’ led him to occupy ‘the centre of fashionable’ London and this was bolstered bya number of his sixties films, not least with Stamp being initially cast in the centralrole of hip photographer in Blow-Up,(UK/Italy/USA, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)but also the dandy sergeant in Far From the Madding Crowd,(UK, John Schlesinger,1967).1127 Indeed Stamp has highlighted the importance, as a youth, of his firstmade-to-measure suit.1128 Similarly Elms has recognised the significance of tailoringin Michael Caine’s character Charlie in The Italian Job, (UK, Pete Collinson, 1969) tohis ‘metropolitan working-class assertiveness’, qualities different from Northernworking-class heroes.1129 In this sense he personifies what Caughie and Rockett,cited in Shail, have called ‘the crafty working-class lothario’.1130 If, as Shail asserts, ‘the exuberance which marked the working-class emancipationsof the early 1960s’ led to a dandified, meritocracy in certain circles, then from the1126 Robert Shail, ‘Constructions of Masculinity in 1960s British Cinema’ (unpublished doctoral thesis,University of Exeter, 2002), p. 81.1127 Ibid., p. 207.1128 Terence Stamp, Stamp Album (London: Bloomsbury, 1987), pp. 175-8.1129 Robert Elms, The Way We Wore: A Life in Threads (London: Picador, 2005), p. 69; Robert Shail,‘Masculinity and Class: Michael Caine as ‘Working-Class Hero’, in The Trouble With Men: Masculinitiesin European and Hollywood Cinema, ed. by Phil Powrie, Ann Davies and Bruce Babbington (London:Wallflower Press, 2004), pp. 66-76 (p. 69).1130 Shail (2004), pp. 66-76 (p. 69).316 ‘besieged mentality’ of the 1970s emerged a masculinity, based upon thismeritocracy but without many of the concomitant attributes.1131 Thus Wayne hasmuch in common with the Adam Faith character Budgie who had emerged a decadeearlier. Budgie was ‘a cheeky, money-hungry, street-savvy, young, working-classguy, obsessed by wearing the right schmutter’.1132 Here was ‘a guttersnipepeacock’, a Jack-the-Lad, or as Faith has described him, a ‘dandy’.1133 Thus theseventies dandy, personified by Budgie and evident in the Bowie Boys and mascarawearing, A Clockwork Orange, (UK/USA, Stanley Kubrick, 1971) influenced, footballhooligans, could be seen as something far less socially mobile than its sixtiesequivalent.1134 Wayne then, can look the part, but lacks the opportunities to turn that ‘look’ intoanything beyond immediate hedonistic pleasure. Indeed Wayne actually resides inthe Essex suburb of Tilbury rather than the metropolis, and thus could only beconsidered to be on the peripheries of anything fashionable. Arguably, it is to theworld of music to which Wayne is more closely aligned, from the avowedlyheterosexual swaggering of The Faces to the street punk peacockery of BarrieMasters and Gary Lammin.Like Budgie or Bob Ferris resembling Illie Nastase, while Wayne may look andbehave like a working-class sixties dandy, this only belies the reality of his situationas an itinerant builder. For all the apparent trappings of the metropolitan newaristocracy, when juxtaposed against Barry or Neville, Wayne’s exoticism is only1131 Ibid., (p. 75).1132 Elms (2005), p. 81.1133 Ibid., pp. 81; 83.1134 Ibid., pp. 93-98.317 fabric deep. Furthermore by 1983 his character could be regarded as something ofan anachronism, out of step with the new, younger working-class dandies of Billy’sand Blitz.While Wayne may indeed be a type of dandy, the narrative fails to offer up hisdandified masculine performance as anything other than, in many ways, areproduction of traditional masculine values. While, as Shail has argued, Stamp andDavid Hemmings in Blow-Up are able to acknowledge masculine beauty in a waythat is not problematic to their heterosexuality, for Wayne any question of his vanityequating to effeminacy is entirely extinguished by his ever more aggressive pursuitand prodigious success with women. 1135 Indeed Holton has declared himself to beboth ‘old fashioned’ and ‘sexist’, with the tired aphorism ‘a woman’s a woman and aman’s a man’.1136 Clearly then, for these protagonists, as they conduct a hesitant relationship withemergent discourses while simultaneously engaging with residual ones, the practiceof masculinity appears far more problematic than in many other fictional narratives.This is further compounded by Clement and La Frenais’ negative view of classmobility. Here Marwick’s argument that opportunities were opened up by shifts inclass structures in the period, rings rather hollow for even the most upwardly mobileof them. This is highlighted in key scenes throughout the second series. Whenconfronted with an irrationally angry and distinctly middle-class resident both Bomberand Barry are confused by his questions: '’Who are you people? What are you doinghere?’, replying respectively, 'who do we have to be?' and 'everyone's got to be1135 Shail (2002), p. 215.1136 Anon, ‘Gary’s Perspective‘, Melody Maker, 31 March 1984, The Original Gary Holton Tribute Site, [accessed 18 June 2012]318 somewhere sir'. Later, as they are drinking in The Cross Keys Hotel, this sense ofclass conflict reaches a crisis point. Where Barry blithely sees the bar as simply apleasant place with an upmarket clientele, Neville grimly recognises the looks ofdistaste from the locals which meet them: 'It's another country round here' he says, 'Ifeel more of a foreigner here than I did in Germany'. When Barry suggests thatNeville is perhaps overly aware of his class origins, Neville's response is that Barry isalso working-class. Barry reluctantly agrees but suggests that he has the socialcapital to transcend class barriers. It is only when confronted with an irate middle-class, middle England local who accuses him of taking his barstool, that a confusedBarry begins to realise that he may never be accepted, that there is little possibility ofhis transcendence. Indeed the nuances of differing class identities within the groupare certainly not recognised here, they are simply irrelevant. The writers seem to besuggesting that the possibilities of the discursive individual subject are severelylimited. It does not matter how you define yourself, since it is more about interactionwith others and how they define you. These are 'the consequences of acts ofcategorisation that confine individuals to lives in certain spaces and distinct positionsin culture’.1137 This somewhat negative view of working-class social mobility has of course beenexplored elsewhere, as exemplified in the work of Mike Leigh. Indeed Leigh has attimes invited criticism for his apparent disdain for lower middle-class aspiration andpetty snobbishness.1138 In Abigail’s Party, (UK, 1977) for example, estate agentLaurence, displays his volumes of Shakespeare remarking that they are notsomething one would actually read, while his wife Beverley is a comic grotesque, a1137 Simon J. Charlesworth, A Phenomenology of Working Class Experience (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1999), p. 181.1138 Michael Coveney, The World According to Mike Leigh (London: Harper Collins, 1997), p. 20.319 vulgar snob. However, while aspiration is shown to be amusing in its vacuousness, itis also portrayed as tragic in its inability to facilitate happiness. In Meantime, (UK,1983) for example, for Chigwell dwelling Barbara, with all her trappings of newaffluence, the future remains as emotionally bleak as it does for her sister’sunemployed working-class family.1139 Similarly in Secrets and Lies, (UK, Mike Leigh,1996) Monica’s delight in ostentatiously showing off her house is undercut by theempty misery of her childless life.Arguably, this negative view of class mobility for the working-classes can be tracedback to the New Wave. Vic, for example, in A Kind of Loving, (UK, John Schlesinger,1962) is forced to choose between the ‘honest’ working-class pursuit of a brass bandconcert and an evening watching commercial television in the avaricious affluence ofhis mother-in-law’s house; In The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, (UK,Tony Richardson, 1962), Colin’s mother spends on consumer goods in a display ofassiduous vulgarity; In Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, (UK, Karel Reisz, 1960)once again, the acquisition of a television represents both emptiness and decline;and in Room at the Top, (UK, Jack Clayton, 1959) Joe Lambton is deemed to haveforsaken his working-class ‘authenticity’, and ‘emotional and spiritual’ happiness inhis pursuit of ‘superficial, material values’.1140 Clement and La Frenais, however, also seem to be questioning why anyone wouldwant to transcend their own working-class roots and join the middle-classes. In aseries of broadly drawn strokes, most of the middle-class characters are portrayedas appalling caricatures, which the audience are invited at once to laugh at and1139 Coveney (1997), p. 175.1140 John Hill, Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956-1963 (London: BFI, 1986), p. 158.320 dislike intensely. While the narrative constantly deflates, ridicules or undermines themiddle-classes it is equally critical of anyone who attempts to leave their class andtries to join them. Neither Neville nor Barry, aspirational and upwardly mobile, findany lasting fulfillment or happiness. Others with aspirations, in particular womensuch as Barry's fiancée Hazel, are portrayed as grasping, avaricious and sociallypretentious. Indeed, not unlike Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? it is thewives and girlfriends who are seen to ignite and stoke the men's drive for socialmobility. As with Leigh and much of the New Wave, social aspiration and shallowconsumerist values are most frequently associated with women. 1141 While Clementand La Frenais, emerging from the 1960s of the New Wave, appear to subscribe tothis highly questionable perspective with Thelma, Mrs. Chambers and Brenda inWhatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Brenda and Hazel in Auf Wiedersehen,Pet, explicitly representing these values, as their writing progressed this perspectivelessened considerably.The changes in class structure then, together with other significant economic andsocial changes which became evident in the 1980s had a particular and significantimpact on constructions of individual masculine identities, as new discourses werebeing opened up. What subsequently emerged led to a greater plurality even amongworking-class men. However, as I have previously argued, while certain conceptualmodels of gender argue for the possibilities and capacities for resistance and indeedtransformation, the lived, grounded experience for many men may have beenmanifestly different. Thus, the narratives articulate the anxieties men felt as they1141 Hill (1986), pp. 156-7.321 attempted to negotiate the shifting parameters of residual, dominant, and emergentdiscourses which they frequently experienced in a state of tension.Drawing upon Foucault, Whitehead has argued that while discourses are bothmultiple and dynamic and consequently always shifting, allowing for a number ofsubordinated discourses, dominant discourses, he argues, do have ‘normalcy andregulatory capacities’ the consequences of which are the establishment of ‘beliefsand rituals around gender’.1142 Although the variety and diversity of discourses ofgender is immediately apparent in the increasing plurality of masculinities in the1980s, there remained residual resistance to many of these discourses.1143 AsWhitehead has argued, emergent discourses may be resisted as they are perceivedto threaten ‘masculine power regimes’ and dominant discourses may continue to beutilised.1144 Thus, through a reflective process and the subjective engagement withthe wider world, individuals perform their ‘identity work’ through both consensus with,and resistance to, prevailing discourses.1145 However, Whitehead acknowledges thatthere are limits upon the subject’s capacity to reflect upon different discourses.1146 While enabling the masculine subject, discourses also constitute the disciplinarybounds within which the subject validates himself.1147 Thus, while Auf Wiedersehen,Pet explores masculinities which are ‘plural and multiple’, these are frequentlyinformed by dominant and residual discourses.1148 For all the characters, theconstruction of their individual masculine identities is contingent on what is allowed,1142 Whitehead (2002), p. 104.1143 Ibid., p. 109.1144 Ibid., p. 107; 109.1145 Ibid., p. 103.1146 Ibid., p. 105.1147 Ibid., p. 110.1148 Ibid., p. 34.322 what is restricted, what is available, what conflicts, what can be readilyaccommodated.In his analysis of Foucault and the limits of masculinity, Duff has argued thatlimits restrict the flow of existential possibilities open to the subjectdefining certain modes of existence, behaviour and comportment asunintelligible with respect of the ontology of the self.1149 This fixing of identity is what Foucault actively opposes. Foucault, argues Duff, asksus to consider the costs of subjectification in terms of restriction of freedom andagency. What is lost in the realisation of masculine identity? Masculinity is a limitrestricting the subjective experience of male identifying individuals.1150 In constructing and establishing masculine identities, it is the feminine and itsattendant signifiers that are rejected, defining itself by which it is not, ‘that iswoman’.1151 Thus, Duff maintains thatthe experience of emotionality and passivity, nurturing, intimacy andreceptivity are made problematic for men through their classification asessentially feminine characteristics.1152 Consequently, says Duff,the social construction of masculinity is characterised by the privilegingof a set of behavioural and ontological properties such as virility,courage, self-mastery and independence.1153 While such a process may have become widely accepted by many men in theconstruction of their masculine identities, in terms of the experience of masculinity bythe individual subject, it is one which involves a considerable amount of tension and1149 Cameron Duff, Stepping Through the Eye of Power: Foucault, Limits and the Construction of Masculinity(Queensland University of Technology, 1999) [accessed 15 October2008] (p. 3).1150 Ibid.1151 Ibid., p. 4.1152 Ibid.1153 Ibid.323 negotiation. Nonetheless, while these traditional 'behavioural and ontologicalproperties' of masculinity may have been undergoing some degree of challenge inthe1980s they still largely held common currency within working-class malecommunities.6.5 Fatherhood and RelationshipsWhitehead has talked about a dualism which exists at the heart of many men'sconceptions of their own masculine identities: 'If the public world of men is rooted inmyth, then men’s private lives can appear deep, dark, almost gothic in theirimpenetrableness’ emerging as a ‘gender category that is omnipresent yet distantand obfuscatory’.1154 While Whitehead’s post-structuralist perspective does not allowfor the ontologically grounded individual, he does recognise that there is an apparent‘inner’ world of the male, with points of subjectivity, ambiguities of self and emotionaldepth.1155 However, as Burkitt has observed, emotions are a response to the‘expressive relations between people' and do not emerge in isolation from within theindividual.1156 As social and cultural changes impacted upon constructions ofmasculinity, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet explores how this is played out in the everydaypractices of its protagonists. Through their relationships with partners and children,their friendships with each other, their displays of emotion and their shiftingperformance Clement and La Frenais draw out their anxieties about a number ofemerging discourses.A great deal of writing on masculinity which has emerged since the 1980s hassought to establish some form of crisis discourse. One particular strand has tended1154 Whitehead (2002), p. 146.1155 Ibid, p. 149.1156 Burkitt (1997), 37-55 (p. 40).324 to focus upon men’s relationships with family life and children. Whitehead citesAnthony Clare for example, as havingidentified the UK’s burgeoning divorce rate, the rise of lone womenparents and the rise in post-divorce absent fathers as evidence ofincreasing separation from fatherhood and family life.1157 Whitehead, however, refutes the notion of a deepening sense of crisis, seeingidentity as permanently in a state of chaos, contingent upon continual social changewhich largely evades individual or social manipulation. While employment patterns,post-industrialisation, increased education opportunities for women, globalisationand so forth are significant influences on how men and women respond to ‘familyresponsibilities‘, those responses will not be uniform in any way. 1158 Auf Wiedersehen, Pet tends to bear out Whitehead’s analysis, with the relationshipswhich each man has with his family being both complex and variegated, the narrativesuggesting that these are a consequence of the protagonists’ relationships with theirown fathers and male role models. For most of them, fathers have been all butelided, while mothers and female siblings are foregrounded. While this may simplybe a narrative device to isolate its male characters even more from outsidemasculine influence, it may also indicate the roots of their own tensions in starting,maintaining, and relating to their own families.Bomber has a particularly ambivalent relationship to his wife and family. From thevery first episode of the first series Bomber is portrayed as a father wanting to fulfilhis dutiful obligations by providing for his family. Having worked and saved for hisreturn to the UK, however, he clearly feels as a working man that he deserves some1157 Whitehead (2002), p. 152.1158 Ibid., p. 153.325 leisure. It is here that his allegiance to duty is betrayed by his libido. While his moralcode stretches as far as his children he does not harbour any reservations about notremaining faithful to his wife.While Bomber’s sense of duty is undeniable, it is, however, probably a consequenceof his age and the era he was born into. In his early forties, he is in many waysshown in sharp relief to the others, representing a residual construction of working-class masculinity largely untroubled by any emergent discourses. Although he isclearly aware of his own failings as a husband and father, he sees little moral conflictbetween his familial duties and his personal gratification. The only real conflictoccurs on a level where the money that is needed for the former is used for the latter.In sharp contrast to Bomber, Neville is portrayed as the embodiment of ‘New Man’.Whether ‘New Man’ as an entity actually existed in the 1980s or whether it wassimply a media creation, an advertisers marketing device, is something of a mootpoint. Nevertheless as a discourse of masculinity that circulated at the time, it isinevitable that it would bear some influence on how some men were to constructtheir own individual masculine identities. Jonathan Rutherford has defined ‘NewMan’ as ‘an expression of the repressed body of masculinity’.1159 He sees it is afractured and awkward means of attempting to reconcile masculinity, emotionally andsexually. As such it appears to be a response to both feminism and the structuralchanges in society at the time. Thus Rutherford sees it as a form of compromisewhich while embarked upon with tentative caution does not retreat into the denialand reaction of, for example, the male protagonists in Boys from the Blackstuff.1159 Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (p. 32).326 Neville, being relatively open to new ideas, is likely to absorb some of the elementsof the ‘New Man’ discourse. However, there would also have been a number ofcompeting discourses which are likely to have been far more entrenched within hispsyche as a working-class bricklayer from the North-East. While Neville has noproblems sharing his emotions with his wife, and openly displays his intense feelingsfor her to his colleagues, both these have to be accommodated within moretraditional working-class discourses of man as breadwinner and provider, andcrucially as ‘one of the lads'.1160 Rowena Chapman sees ‘New Man’ as a sort of composite identity which becamefragmented. In reality it was an uneasy mix between, what she calls ‘the narcissist’,evident in the rapidly proliferating style culture of the time and the nurturer, a productof the men’s movement and its readiness to engage in female terrain to open up theiremotions and embrace female subject positions.1161 Both Chapman and Rutherfordrecognise a shift in the way men regarded fatherhood, partly brought about by ‘newliberalised images’ of men attending births and pushing buggies.1162 The opening montage of the second series depicts Neville running to be with his wifefor the birth of their baby daughter. As is evident from the first series, he iscommitted to his relationship with his wife, and one would expect him to be the samewith his family. His eagerness, however, is rapidly undercut by the circumstances hebegins to find himself in. He is soon shown to have been laid off work, looking after1160 Wickham (2008), p. 53.1161 Rowena Chapman, ‘The Great Pretender: Variations on the New Man Theme’, in Male Order: UnwrappingMasculinity (see Rutherford above), pp. 225-248 (pp. 230-231).1162 Ibid; Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (p. 34).327 his daughter full time and cooking all the family meals, while his wife pursues hersuccessful career as a hospital ward sister, coming home late from work, and playingin the hospital badminton tournament with the male doctors. Neville finds that hisconceptualisation of masculine identity is compromised, as he feels increasinglyuseless and out of his depth. This is further compounded by the glaring classdifference between his wife's doctor colleagues and his position as a bricklayer.What makes this worse is that he is unable to practise his métier in the prevailingeconomic climate.Whitehead has drawn upon a number of sources as evidence of a degree of tensionbetween new and emergent characteristics of fatherhood and more conventional andresidual conceptions of the authoritarian provider.1163 While there is, he argues,some evidence of a shift in attitudes over the last thirty years to familyand domestic roles by some men, dominant discourses of masculinitydo not sit easily with these practices.1164 He cites Smith’s research that for those who have become full-time house husbands'the role can engender illegitimacy (as a man), self-doubt and social isolation’.1165 Similarly, for Warrin,while western men’s attendance at antenatal classes and childbirthhave become accepted and encouraged, many men remain unsureabout their role in the relationship to childcare work.1166 Neville is now as enthusiastic as any of the others to be part of the homosocialworld, where he might feel some validity as, what he considers to be, a man. Headmits to Dennis that he is keen to see ‘the lads’, feels like getting away, is fed upwith babysitting. Brenda is actually the one who has a far more open and1163 Whitehead (2002), p. 154.1164 Ibid.1165 Ibid.1166 Ibid.328 progressive attitude to gender differences exposing Neville's traditional working-classview commenting, 'you have some fixed idea that the wife won’t let you go'. WhenBrenda declares that she thought they had both accepted changing roles, Neville,clearly uncomfortable with his wife as sole breadwinner, replies, 'you might haveaccepted it'. Neville, for all his ‘New Man’ credentials, still defines himself and hissense of masculinity from largely traditional discourses, of which man as providerand worker is one.While Neville is markedly consistent in his attitudes and emotional engagement withhis family, something which is only challenged when he remains unemployed, bothOz and Dennis vacillate between indifference, confusion, and resentment.Rutherford writes 'when men fall in love they surrender their solitude and relinquishtheir masquerade of self-sufficiency'.1167 For Oz and Dennis, rooted in more residualmasculine discourses, this sense of solitude and self-sufficiency sits uneasily withthe needs and requirements of their individual marital relationships. As Whiteheadhas noted, a great deal of writing on masculinity within the discipline of sociologysees many men’s relationships as highly ‘problematic’ and even ‘dysfunctional’.1168 Men may seem to lack ‘the emotional tools, empathy, sensitivity, (self)understanding, indeed maturity necessary to enable a committed relationship onequal terms’.1169 While Whitehead sees this as something of a stereotype, heconcedes that there may be some grounding in reality which supports the argumentthat in constructing a particular type of masculinity many men are frequently illpositioned to exercise the emotional labour needed in sustaining relationships.1167 Jonathan Rutherford, I Am No Longer Myself Without You: An Anatomy of Love (London: Flamingo, 1999),p. 3.1168 Whitehead (2002), p. 156.1169 Ibid.329 While this is a consequence of having learned to be self-sufficient, the corollary ofthis is ‘the sense of loss and emotional immaturity that pervades masculinesubjectivities, together with the pervasiveness of the public/private dualism insustaining this condition’.1170 As Whitehead concludes:Whether it be the fear of rejection, vulnerability, wariness, a lack ofself-esteem or simply emotional illiteracy, many men appear unable toexpose their inner selves to the outer world.1171 Both Dennis and Oz are in similar situations. Both are fathers, both are inproblematic marriages. Oz is portrayed as feckless, irresponsible, impulsive, violent,undomesticated. Indeed, like many of his more egregious traits, his treatment of hisfamily at times serves to alienate him from the rest of the group. His flight fromresponsibility is not dissimilar to that of Dancer in Just a Boy’s Game, but whereDancer possesses a degree of charm, his humour and genuine affection for hischildren acting as a counterbalance to his selfishness, Oz has no such equivalence.His relationship with his wife Marjorie is fraught and antagonistic, with his son Rodawkward and strained. He is, what Rutherford has termed ‘Retributive Man’struggling to reassert traditional masculinity, tough and independent, ‘wildly lashingout at everything that threatens or disappoints him. He confronts a world […]pacified by traitors and cowards and dishonourable, feminised men’.1172 Notions ofmanhood and honour are under threat, challenging his understanding of his ownself-identity. In an effort to recreate order and subdue these forces he often resortsto violence, if only in language.1173 1170 Whitehead (2002), p. 157.1171 Ibid.1172 Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (p. 28).1173 Ibid., p. 29.330 Philip Wickham, discussing Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, has madesome particularly trenchant observations about the relationships between men andwomen in working-class Northern communities.1174 It was a world where men revelin their own masculinity, ‘in being a typical, chauvinistic, Northern working-classman’.1175 They are ‘happy to live the way they were brought up […] distrustful ofwomen and of men from a different background'.1176 Oz is not dissatisfied with hislife, but it now seems to be under threat from forces like aspiration, feminism,economic change, forces he cannot control. Oz personifies this extreme version ofworking-class masculinity precisely believing that 'women hold you back, drag youdown, nag you as you work your fingers to the bone, and stop you having fun'.1177 Unlike Oz, Dennis sees his role of father and husband as one which demands astrong authoritative masculine persona based on the repression of vulnerability anddependency. This then creates a set of tensions and contradictions, which are borneout explicitly in the personal dilemmas facing him. Dennis is perhaps the everymanand through his character the narrative is able to explore the consequences ofmarital breakdown, something that was occurring increasingly in the eighties.Furthermore the notion of emotional inarticulacy is perhaps most notably played outwithin his character, where, throughout the narrative he ’represses those emotionswhich he feels cannot be expressed in social practice’.1178 When his wife Vera accuses him of being insensitive to other peoples’ feelingsDennis responds angrily. It was his masculine pride, she suggests, that was hurt by1174 Wickham (2008), pp. 53-55.1175 Ibid., p. 54.1176 Ibid.1177 Ibid., p. 64.1178 Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (p. 28).331 her wanting a divorce, not his emotions. Dennis is clearly mystified and frustrated bythe situation he finds himself in. This confusion is perhaps best encapsulated whenhe declares 'The older I get the less I understand women. I don't know what theywant or who they want it from'. Thus Dennis, like Bomber, represents a generationof older men who felt increasingly uncomfortable with emergent discourses of genderand gender relations.Like many men he has put all his efforts into his work, having had his own businessat one time, with Vera alluding to his absences in the past. Nonetheless, whenDennis is placed in a position of choosing between the love of his new partner andduty to his children, it is duty that triumphs, since duty needs no emotionalinvolvement, has little ambiguity, and can be accommodated by clearly definedaccounts of traditional and dominant discourses of masculinity. For both Dennis andBomber, while they lament that they probably married far too young, seeing throughtheir dutiful obligations to wife and family remains an important part of theirconceptualisations of masculinity.6.6 FeelingsWhitehead has argued that ‘dominant discourses of masculinity do not sit easily withnotions of emotional literacy and maturity’, and while he recognises that men differfrom each other in a number of significant ways, he sees many prevailingconventional discourses as remaining so powerful that they will inevitably ‘influencethe behaviours and practices of countless men’.1179 However, while culturalembeddedness accounts for the dichotomy of emotion and reason together with the1179 Whitehead (2002), p. 175.332 notion of gendered dualism, ‘masculinity is not singular or cohesive, emotions arenot simply the product of innate, gendered impulses and there are numerousdimensions to emotionality’, allowing for a degree of variation.1180 Writing in the 1970s, Tolson has maintained that some men discovered that they hadno ‘language of feeling’.1181 They were ‘trapped in the public, specialised languageof work’.1182 By the end of the decade Tolson argues that the profound changebrought about by globalisation, post-industrialisation and feminism led to aquestioning of these prevailing expressions of masculinity. Indeed, citing Rutherford,Whitehead argues that these changes confronted many men withthe tenuousness at the heart of their sense of masculinity, an insecurityheightened by the emotional tensions, blockages, and inarticulation atthe root of many prevailing expressions of masculinity.1183 Clearly this is the case for the majority of the group in the first two series where theyfind it difficult to express any really deep emotional feelings whether in the contextsof their relationships or friendships. Caught between residual, more traditionaldiscourses of working-class masculinity and a world which is beginning to requiregreater emotional engagement from men, they appear initially unable or reluctant toexpress their true feelings about anything on an intimate level. What frequentlypasses as an expression of deep inner feelings is more often sentimentality, themaudlin or merely self-pity.Wayne prides himself on his ability to have no emotional involvement with women,his mantra being 'jump ‘em and leave ‘em'. Although he does claim to be 'smitten' at1180 Whitehead (2002), pp. 175-6.1181 Andrew Tolson, The Limits of Masculinity (London: Tavistock, 1977), pp. 135-136.1182 Ibid.1183 Whitehead (2002), p. 177.333 one point, one suspects that this does not involve any genuine emotionalcommitment. While his pride as a lothario precludes any intimate or emotionalrevelations concerning love, conversely neither aggression nor anger figure withinWayne's construct of masculinity. Barry frequently camouflages his own emotionalinsecurity with trivia and facts, rather than engaging with his emotions. Even hisrelationship with his fiancée Hazel is weighed down by practicalities rather thanfeelings. Dennis, as we have seen, struggles with his emotional inarticulacy, at timesbeing open and at other times displaying his discomfort with emotional engagement.In one scene, when Neville is released on bail having been accused of attacking aGerman woman, and in a state of extreme distress, breaks down in tears, Dennis'sresponse is to tell him to 'let it all out’ before he ‘faces the lads'. For Dennis it wouldbe undignified and unmanly to reveal Neville's level of emotional upset to more menthan is necessary.Nonetheless, there are moments of intimacy and expression of feelings within thenarrative. While I have argued that Neville displays the greatest emotional fluiditywithin and regarding his relationship with Brenda, it is Barry, struggling with hisinexperience and emotional confusion, who reveals an ability to open up to others,expressing himself candidly and ingenuously. At one point, in emphatic close up, hepoignantly asks Wayne, 'what's it like, being in love?'. In the second series when hedeclares his love for his fiancée Hazel and is subsequently rejected, he pleads, 'I’vegot feelings'. It is Barry's ingenuousness which allows him at times to express hisemotions without the barriers which the others have erected in their constructions ofmasculinity. Indeed, as Jimmy Nail has observed, it is Tim Spall’s interpretation334 which gives it the 'pathos, humanity, honour and pain'.1184 What, however, makesthese expressions even more poignant are the other times when he can only writethem on a postcard or articulate them in a soliloquy. Yet it is this repression ofemotion and inability to express inner feelings intimately, which makes theoccasional open exchange and the awkward revelation all the more powerful andaffective. What makes the characters so emotionally interesting and indeedcomplex, is not that they do not feel, but rather the difficulties that they have inexpressing that feeling. When there are moments of intimate revelation or genuinecloseness between any of the male characters, these are diffused by a visual stylewhich places the characters side by side rather than facing each other. In this way,unlike Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, the need for eye contact is obviated.When Neville breaks down in tears after his release on bail, he and Dennis are seensitting on the back seat of a taxi, looking away from each other. Within homosocialspaces such as the pub, the characters in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet are placed at thebar, where they can glance at each other but where drinking takes precedence overinteraction. Of course there are times when two characters do face each otherdirectly, and occasionally much tighter shots are used in these scenes, but someactivity is usually placed between the characters, such as playing cards or, ratherpoignantly, darning socks, which diffuses the intensity of any interactions. Thus,while all of the characters to some degree engage with emergent discourses aroundmasculinity and the expression of feeling, the mise-en-scene generally works againstthis preventing any form of excessive intimacy.Vergard Iglebaek has observed that1184 Nail (2005), p. 158.335 personal disclosure and intimacy among heterosexual NorthernEuropean men tend to be restricted to specific arenas and situationssuch as blissful moments on the football pitch or situations of externalcrisis.1185 By male intimacy she says 'I think of men sharing personal feelings with each otherin such a way so that disclosure has an intrinsic value'.1186 Iglebaek has thusidentified a number of narratives where no action is needed, where dialogue andinteraction is more important. Thus, whilethe exchanging of emotional interest in each other displaying notions ofcare and dependency are alien elements within the paradigm of malehomosocial relations, there may be moments within particularnarratives when this emotional barrier is breached.1187 While Auf Wiedersehen, Pet largely conforms to this dominant model, the charactersdo at times threaten to transcend it, albeit awkwardly. The fact that they exchangefavours rather than genuinely intimate moments with each other cannot mask thefact that they do care for each other. It is simply that their feelings, inhibited throughemotional inarticulacy have been displaced onto other more practical devices. Thus,it is the prevailing tensions over revelatory exchanges, together with repression offeelings, avoidance of intimacy, and displacement of emotional contact whichprovided Auf Wiedersehen, Pet with its powerful emotional impact for the audience.6.7 HomosocialityAs I have argued, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet explores new discourses of masculinity andgender relations emerging from social, cultural, and economic changes and how theyare experienced by working-class men. Whether previously accepted certainties1185 th Vegard Iglebaek, ‘What Kind of Male Friendship? A Case of Joey and Chandler in Friends’, 4 EuropeanFeminist Research Conference, Bologna (2 October 2000), [accessed 3 May 2009] (p. 1).1186 Ibid, p. 5.1187 Ibid.336 around class, changing dynamics within relationships and friendships or the need torealign their constructions and performances of masculinity the narratives scrutinisethe ways the protagonists meet these pressures with varying degrees of uncertainty.While their identities and practices are seen to be grounded in residual discoursesClement and La Frenais are particularly interested in how they reconcile these withemergent ones and one of the principal ways they do this is through the homosocialgroup dynamic. This chapter will therefore go on to examine the ways homosocialityfunctions within the narratives in relation to changes and continuities in identityconstruction.Fiske has discussed how many television dramas featuring a predominantly malecast tend to be goal oriented.1188 The insecure basis for the protagonists masculinityhas to be constantly reactivated through achievement, he says, and the closerelationships inscribed in the male bonding process are protected from intimacyprecisely because they are goal oriented rather than relationship oriented.1189 Actionis predominantly foregrounded over feeling, relationships serve the common goal,and the needs of that relationship itself need to be externalised into a goal. AufWiedersehen, Pet, however, initially without a genuinely clear and consistentcommon goal, exists in something of a state of tension. There are of course goalsthroughout the series, but they provide a framework, a narrative mechanism onwhich to approach the friendships within the group. It is these that are explored andforegrounded as the goals recede within the narratives. Essentially the focus is onthe homosocial and the ensuing bonding process.1188 John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 174.1189 Ibid., p. 172; 174.337 Homosociality has been defined by Lipman-Blumen as ‘the seeking of engagement,and/or preference for the company of the same sex’.1190 With specific regard toheterosexual men, it is a concept variously examined by Eve Kosofsky Sedgewickthrough her analysis of male homosocial desire in nineteenth-century Englishliterature; employed by Anthony Easthope in his study of masculinity across a widerange of media; and analysed by Jonathan Rutherford in his examination of whiteheterosexual masculinity in the 1980s.1191 As defined by Schwyzer, it is the principlethat men aim to please other men rather than women and this process is workedthrough within homosocial spaces where men are expected to bond with othermen. 1192 While some writing on the subject including that of Kosofsky Sedgewickhas recognised desire and intimacy between men as primary characteristics ofhomosociality, the majority of literature has stressed the suppression of non-hegemonic masculinity and the subordination of women as its principal definingfeatures.1193 The public homosocial world is frequently characterised by its rules, protocol andrecherché practices. These help to engender a unique group identity, which, whileostensibly open to all, excludes those who are unable or unwilling to 'play the game'.As Whitehead has pointed out:Paradoxically, the public worlds of men are often very private, withmen's practices often obscured behind ritualised behaviour, bound by1190 Jean Lipman-Blumen, ‘Toward a Homosocial Theory of Sex Roles: An Explanation of the Sex Segregationof the Sex Segregation of Social Institutions’, Signs, 1 (1976) 15-31 (p. 16).1191 Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York:Columbia University Press, 1985); Easthope (1990); Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67.1192 Hugo Schwyzer, ‘Homosociality’, XY: Men, Masculinities and Gender Politics, 23 (April 2009) [accessed 14 May 2009].1193 Kosofsky Sedgewick (1985), p. 3; see for example Sharon Bird, ‘Welcome to the Men’s Club:Homosociality and the Maintenance of Hegemonic Masculinity’, Gender and Society, 10.2 (April 1996),120-132 (p.120-122).338 fraternities and frequently embedded in misogynistic attitudes andsexual stereotypes.1194 As with Barrett’s work on the organisational structure of masculinity, Whiteheadmaintains that:Fraternities within an organisation can require, if not demand, aparticular validating masculine display from its (men) members;anything less, rapidly making would-be participants’ membershipuntenable.1195 While 'playing the game' may offer a vague indication of what these validating rulesmay be, the reality is that it is the frequently excessive display of traditionalmasculine behaviour which prescribes the place the individual has within the group.As Wickham has pointed out in relation to Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?,men work and live in the company of other similar men, taking pleasure in 'the pint,the match, the betting shop, chasing girls'.1196 ‘Interactions with each other and withthose outside the group are governed by implicit codes of behaviour andexpectations’.1197 These are unwritten rules that have to be negotiated and deviationfrom them is questioned possibly leading to loss of acceptance.1198 Rutherford sees male cultures which have grown up around homosocial bonding asessentially defensive:The threat that women have posed to men, that they will expose theirweaknesses and undermine the myths and illusions upon which theirclaims to superiority are founded has produced a male bonding, acollusion amongst men to resist the Other.1199 The attendant structures and protocol of homosocial bonding and collectivity, whileintended to emphasise ‘prestige’ and power actually signify men’s weakness and1194 Whitehead (2002), p. 116.1195 Ibid., p. 127.1196 Wickham (2008), p. 54.1197 Ibid.1198 Ibid.1199 Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (pp. 53-54).339 ‘trepidation‘, serving to provide ‘reassurance and validation’ particularly at times ofperceived threat and anxiety.1200 Rutherford sees this as men's culture pitted againstwomen sinceit is not just what is going on inside the pub that unites men, it's whatthe pub door is shutting out. Men have created a culture arounddrinking, sport and work that seeks to shut out the troublingcontradictions of male heterosexuality. They have produced alanguage that has diminished the central influence of women in theirlives. Wives and sex become disassociated objects.1201 As Wickham has pointed out, it becomes a state of 'us and them’, where sex is seenas a pleasure, but women themselves a threat to the lad’s stability’.1202 While thismay generally be the case for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet where we come to understandthe ‘pleasures of male company’, it is not without its ‘problems, limitations and in thelong term its ill effects’ which are seen as most of the characters, on occasion, demurto the group’s practices.1203 Indeed Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is at once both acelebration of male homosocial bonding, together with a critique of its constrictionson individual constructions of masculinity. However, as the narratives progress,there emerges a softening of attitudes allowing for a greater expression of their ownindividualised and internalised conceptualisations of masculinity as they becomemore heterosocially rather than homosocially oriented.What is evident throughout Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is the character’s need be in thecompany of other men as a way of affirming their masculinity. While theirinteractions with women frequently challenge their normative assumptions aboutgender and sexuality leaving them uncertain about their own identities, the1200 Rutherford (1988), pp. 21-67 (p. 54).1201 Ibid.1202 Wickham (2008), p. 54.1203 Ibid., p. 56.340 homosocial group dynamic, regardless of any internecine conflict, allows for thecollective affirmation of masculine status. Anthony Easthope has discussed what hecalls The Masculine Myth and how it operates within homosocial groupings:The masculine myth argues that at present masculinity is defined in theway that an individual deals with his femininity and his desire for othermen. The forms and images of popular culture lay on a man theburden to be one sex all the way through. So this struggle to bemasculine is his own struggle to cope with his femininity.1204From the versions of masculinity examined by Easthope, he concludes that men arein actuality concerned about other men rather than about women: ‘In the dominantmyth it looks as though women take on more value for men in terms of the game ofmasculinity than in their own right’.1205 Thus, positioned as they have been with thepower to make decisions in this arena, men have chosen to spend most of their timein the company of men rather than with women. 1206While I would argue that most of the aforementioned characteristics attributed toheterosexual male fraternities do have considerable bearing on how we might cometo understand Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, they fall short of adequately describing theintra-group male relationships portrayed in the series. Since the narratives do notwholly conform to most of the precepts outlined above it would seem moreappropriate that another model of homosociality should be applied. Hammaren andJohansson have recognised a distinction between what they call vertical/hierarchicaland horizontal homosociality. The former, conventional use of the term, has beenused to describe the ‘means of strengthening power and of creating close1204 Easthope (1990), p. 6.1205 Ibid.1206 Ibid., p. 7.341 homosocial bonds to maintain and defend hegemony’.1207 Here men formfriendships to ‘exchange valuable cultural and social capital’.1208 They go on to usethe term horizontal homosociality as a means of describing ‘relations that are basedon emotion closeness, intimacy, and a non profitable form of friendship’.1209 Whilethey acknowledge that there can be no absolute boundaries between theseapproaches they are clearly different aspects of the same concept.The former approach has been argued by Snyder, Kiesling, Messner and others as away that men perpetuate hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy, sustaining privilegesand the existing gender order.1210 Thus, homosociality operates as a ‘mechanismthat supports and reinforces hegemony’ through the employment of a number ofdifferent strategies.1211 These strategies may include, for example, emotionaldetachment, competitiveness, which facilitates the hierarchical relationship betweenmen, and the sexual objectification of women, which binds men but excludeswomen. 1212 While this may be a perfectly valid model of homosociality in many, if notmost, circumstances, Hammaren and Johansson argue that male homosocialrelationships can also be discussed in terms of ‘intimacy, gender equality, and nonhomophobia’ suggesting a more dynamic view of homosociality.1213 1207 Nils Hammaren and Thomas Johansson, ‘Homosociality: In Between Power and Intimacy’, Sage Open,(January 2014) [accessed 10 June 2014].1208 Ibid.1209 Ibid.1210 Mark Snyder, ‘Crisis of Masculinity: Homosocial Desire and Homosexual Panic in the Critical Cold WarNarratives of Mailer and Coover‘, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 48, (2007) 250-277; Scott F.Kiesling, ‘Homosocial Desire in Men’s Talk: Balancing and Re-creating Cultural Discourses ofMasculinity’, Language & Society, 34,(2005) 695-726; Michael Messner, ‘Friendship, Intimacy andSexuality’, in The Masculinities Reader, ed. by Stephen Whitehead and Frank Barrett (Cambridge: PolityPress, 2001), pp. 253-265.1211 Hammeren and Johansson (2014).1212 Bird (1996), pp. 120-132 (p. 122).1213 Hammeren and Johansson (2014).342 While the fictional examples of horizontal homosociality cited by Hammaren andJohansson reveal ’traces of changes and redefinitions of masculinity’ over the lastfifteen years, I would argue that Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was already negotiating theseimminent changes through its exploration of homosocial relationships in the early1980s. While the character’s interactions take place around more traditionalactivities such as sport and drinking they also entail a degree of ‘emotionalsharing’.1214 Indeed as Easthope has argued, sport and drinking are highly potentimages in defining masculinity and bringing men together, where they can sharesome instantly common ground.1215 While they may lead to competition, aggression,and conflict they may equally result in a level of ‘personal intimacy otherwise frownedon’.1216 While homosociality is a key component to understanding Auf Wiedersehen, Pet it ishorizontal homosociality rather than vertical homosociality which takes precedence.As I have already described earlier in this chapter, expressions of intimacy do attimes emerge to threaten the masculinist status quo. While some members of thegroup may be uncomfortable with certain emotions and behaviours, this does notprevent them from occasional expression. This, I would argue, suggests a degree ofengagement with something that could be considered to be emergent.Competitiveness is also played out somewhat subtly within the group dynamic.While a form of hierarchy appears to emerge within the group, this is a result ofdeference rather than competition. When any competition is introduced it isfrequently utilised as a way of sharing time together. With regard to the sexualobjectification of women this undoubtedly plays a crucial part in the way we come to1214 Hammeren and Johansson (2014).1215 Easthope (1990), p. 77.1216 Ibid., p. 75.343 understand the homosocial interaction between the characters. These are, after all,ordinary working men, relatively isolated from women, brought up in a culture thatobjectifies women. Yet this objectification does not go without challenge throughoutboth series.Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's contribution to the conceptualisation of the termhomosocial is the notion that the boundaries between the social and the sexual areindistinct and that homosociality and homosexuality are connected and can neverfully be disentangled. While she acknowledges that the nature of this boundaryvaries from society to society and from era to era, and even within one society, sheargues that ‘obligatory heterosexuality is built into male-dominated kinship systems’,the necessary corollary of which, is homophobia.1217 This is, to a degree, the casewith Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, when homophobic remarks are used to pre-empt anymoments of intimacy between the characters being misinterpreted as homoeroticism.However, while this conforms to Kosofsky Sedgewick’s model of heterosexual malegroups, homophobia is entirely absent from the rest of both series.Thus, I would argue, while homosociality is a key component to understanding AufWiedersehen, Pet, it does not function simply as a way of upholding hegemonicmasculinity and patriarchy.1218 The narratives present a multiplicity of contradictorymasculinities each one as important as the other; the relationships are presented aslargely non-hierarchical and involve a degree of emotional intimacy; and while thefocus is upon a group of men, women are not necessarily excluded from non-romantic or non-sexual interaction with them. Thus, it is a fraternity which is1217 Kosofsky Sedgewick (1985), p. 3.1218 Hammeren and Johansson (2014).344 relatively open and incorporates emergent as well as dominant and residualdiscourses of masculinity.It is the notion of horizontal homosociality then which informs the friendships withinboth series. While Messner has asserted that throughout the twentieth-century itwas generally accepted that men, rather than women, were more liable to create‘deep and lasting friendships’, much research cited by Whitehead, including that ofFranklin, reveals the 'importance of friendship to men's lives and the capacity thatexists for empathy, trust and intimacy between [...] men'.1219 However, ’men'sfriendships with other men can (also) be seen to be crucial in sustaining masculinesubjectivities and men's sense of identity as men’.1220 Thus, with Auf Wiedersehen,Pet, while the protagonists’ homosocial relationships are characterised by a degreeof intimacy and trust they also function as a way of reaffirming their identities. It isprecisely when the characters experience changes in both circumstances andrelationships with women, or they face particularly radical challenges to theirconstructions of masculinity from emergent discourses, that they turn to each other.It is the stability and relative coherence of the homosocial group and the lastingfriendships within it that provide a sanctuary in the face of a chaos of discourses.6.8 The Heroic Project, Mythologising and NostalgiaWhile the concept of homosociality and male friendship are central to theunderstanding of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, nostalgia also performs a key function withinthe narrative. As a key discourse in identity formation and maintenance nostalgia1219 Michael Messner, Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity (Boston, MA: Beacon Press,1992), p. 215; Whitehead (2002), p. 158.1220 Whitehead (2002), p. 158.345 provides a sense of continuity by reaffirming both individual and collective identities.It can contribute to what Giddens describes as, the ‘reflexive project of the self,which consists of the sustaining of coherent yet, continually revised, biographicalnarratives’.1221 It is a place where a ‘continuous narrative can be sustained’, whilebeing open to subtle reinterpretations and alterations.1222 However, it also frequentlyfunctions as a site for fantasy. Here, the writers allow their characters to create theirown mythic past rather than simply feeling nostalgic about the actual past. Thus, theyinterpret past events and circumstances in a way which conveys heroic status uponthe group.Whitehead has argued that the centrality of thepublic and private dualism is founded largely on myth. Such miragesand legends surrounding men's public endeavours are potent andubiquitous. This is a reification of a state of being that presumes aseparation between emotion and practice and between family andwork.1223 This myth may work for men, but it also works against them. The public world ofmen and its accompanying myths of ‘heterosexual hyper-masculinity’ may informgendered actuality, but can rarely be lived up to in reality, for few men could beconsidered as genuine heroes.1224 This idea is repeatedly worked through thenarrative of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet where the protagonists fall short of the heroicstature which they might be expected to achieve and perform. They are continuallyrevealed to be weak, naïve, selfish, immature, lacking insight and intelligence. Thisis precisely how the narrative is able to expose this need for the mythologising of aheroic project, for noble or dignified validation, when all the evidence suggests there1221 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford:Stanford UP, 1991), p. 5.1222 Ibid, p. 53.1223 Whitehead (2002), p. 144.1224 Ibid., pp. 143-144.346 is none. By throwing up the reality and the myth in sharp contrast the narrativeexposes the dichotomy within the public world of men.Whitehead argues that the mythological and heroic narratives created by men arethe basis of the public domain where 'man becomes a hero [...] an adventurer’.1225 While what he calls ‘the heroic male project’ appears to suggest both ‘self-aggrandisement and self-sacrifice’ it actually operates as a means of alleviatingexistential uncertainty.1226 Thus, in their departure from home, facing newchallenges, enduring trials and subjecting themselves ‘to the rigours and dangers ofthe world’ without comfort or solace, the men in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet would appearto conform closely to Whitehead’s ‘heroic project’.1227 A particularly illuminating intimation of this mythologising is in the theme song whichaccompanies the opening titles of the first series. The opening theme is a plaintivelament to failure and loss, sung entirely in the first person:Used up my options, paid all my dues,played all my cards, now there's nothing to lose.This sets up a certain tone of sacrifice, honour, and dignity:Don't want tomorrow to be like today,that's why I'm breaking away.Here a sense of a heroic project has been set up where there is no choice for theprotagonists. They have been victims of external forces, but the situation can berescued through a process of mythologising. The lone, independent, and self-sufficient male must do what he has to do, and embark upon the heroic journey.1225 Whitehead (2002), p. 118.1226 Ibid.1227 Ibid., pp. 118-119.347 Although the chorus is rather more upbeat and positive, the mood remains sombreas the open ended guitar picking lingers on into the opening scene of the narrative,contributing to a sense of ambivalent expectation.Throughout both series this idea is worked through and often commented on by theprotagonists themselves. It is, however, in the second series that this mythologisingbecomes much more formalised and self-aware. By re-uniting the characters thewriters are able to couple this mythologising with a deeper nostalgic impulse.Sedikides et al see the prime existential function of nostalgia as an ‘exercise insearch for identity and meaning, a weapon of internal confrontations with existentialdilemmas, and a mechanism for reconnecting with important others’.1228 In doing soit serves to provide ‘a positive emotional and experiential reservoir that people delveinto to deal with existential threat’.1229 Perhaps the most important existentialfunction, Sedikides argues, is the ability of nostalgia to solidify and augment identity.It may operate as a ‘mechanism for coping with loss of self-esteem’, a sort of ‘self-affirmation tool’ allowing one to ‘escape present mediocrity by resorting to a splendidpast’.1230 Sedikides goes on to say that nostalgia can function to regenerate andsustain a sense of the meaningful: ‘In instances of felt loneliness, separateness andalienation’ one can resort to ‘nostalgic engagement which can be therapeutic’ for theindividual.1231 This reinforces the ‘value of cultural traditions and rituals of which wewere once part’, leading to an increased sense of ‘cultural belongingness’.1232 Afurther existential function according to Sedikides is that nostalgic feeling may1228 Constantine Sedikides, Tim Wildschut and Denise Baden, ‘Nostalgia: Conceptual Issues and ExistentialFunctions’, in Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology, ed. by Jeff Greenberg, Sander L. Koole,and Tom Pyszczynski (New York: Guilford Press, 2004), 200-214 (pp. 202-3).1229 Ibid., p. 206.1230 Ibid.1231 Ibid., p. 207.1232 Ibid.348 invigorate social connectedness. In ‘nostalgic reverie’ one draws upon memories ofpeople from one’s past which may allow for the re-establishing of symbolic bondsreinforcing belongingness, identity and self-esteem.1233 While Clement and La Frenais employ nostalgia as a key discourse in their writing,they actually do so in a rather deliberate and self conscious way. In bringing intoplay, what Robertson has described as, ‘a certain kind of willful nostalgia’, theystress a perceived ‘threat to local distinctiveness’ and the need to ‘strengthen thecollective sense of uniqueness’.1234 Thus their characters frequently resort tonostalgia in an effort ‘to retain dignity and a sense of rootedness in an era of rapidchange’.1235 Boym has argued thatglobalization encouraged stronger local attachments […] an affectiveyearning for a community with a collective memory, a longing forcontinuity in a fragmented world. Nostalgia inevitably reappears as adefence mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life andhistorical upheavals.1236 As their characters are shifted from location to location with considerable ensuinguncertainty amid broader social and cultural changes, nostalgic feeling becomesmore central to the narrative. As Michael Skey maintains, while difference may beincreasingly evident because of greater physical mobility, globalisation has tended toreinforce some people’s feelings for the past.1237 1233 Sedikides, (2004), 200-214 (pp. 207).1234 Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage, 1992), p. 31; ThomasHylland Eriksen, Globalization: The Key Concepts (Oxford Berg, 2007), p. 144.1235 Eriksen (2007), p. 144.1236 Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York, NY: Basic, 2002), p. xiv.1237 Leonhardt Van Efferink, ‘Interview with Michael Skey: National Identity, Multiculturalism,Cosmopolitanism, Globalisation’, Exploring Geopolitics (July 2011) [accessed 14 March 2012].349 However, as Hutcheon has argued, the emotional appeal of nostalgia may becontingent upon it being wholly irrecoverable.1238 Furthermore, rather than being apast that has been experienced, it is far more likely to be one that has been createdor imagined through a conflation of ‘memory and desire‘.1239 As Boym hassuggested, ‘nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also aromance with one’s own fantasy’ or fantasies.1240 Thus, it may employ aconsiderable degree of reflexivity relying heavily upon myth making strategies.1241 Stewart sees nostalgia as narrative where ‘the past it seeks has never existed exceptas narrative’ and ‘the realization of re-union imagined by the nostalgic is narrativeutopia’.1242 Thus, the collective nostalgic narrative which emerges in AufWiedersehen, Pet is one which is based upon fantasy or myth and stresses theheroic qualities of the characters’ past.Here then is a myth in which all the group are complicit, some immediately andactively, some more hesitantly. As they reconvene after a couple of years, a littlemore disappointed and mature, they are able to consider their circumstances andwhat has drawn them together. However, as the group reflect upon their pastexperiences and anticipate future events these are imbued with a sense of heroism.Rather than feeling nostalgic for the realities of their past in Germany, they attempt tobuild upon some form of mythic past, one where they performed heroic tasks. In the1238 Linda Hutcheon, Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern (University of Toronto English Library, [n.d.]) [accessed 18 April 2008] (para 9 of 27).1239 Ibid.1240 Svetlana Boym, ‘Nostalgia and the Off-Modern Swerve: From ‘’a Hypochondria of the Heart’’ to the Off-Modern Swerve’, Tank Magazine, 7.4, [n.d.] [accessed 11 February 2012].1241 Robertson (1992), p. 31; Roland Robertson, ‘After Nostalgia? Willful Nostalgia and the Phases ofGlobalisation’, in Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity, ed. by Bryan S. Turner (London: Sage, 1990),pp. 45-61 (p. 48).1242 Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection(Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1984), p. 23.350 prosaic and mundane surroundings of a motorway service station they spell out theirown myth, seeing themselves as The Magnificent Seven (USA, 1960: John Sturges).Oz describes them as 'misfits, drifters on the highway of life', Moxey expands on this,'free spirits, rebelling against a system that wants to grind us down', to which Wayneresponds, 'free spirits embarking on a great new adventure – we're The MagnificentSeven '. Subsequently through some brief analysis of their individual personalitiesthey ascribe one of The Magnificent Seven to each of themselves. This idea isfurther compounded by the use of the theme from the film and intertextual referencesto High Noon (USA, 1952: Fred Zinnermann).Regardless of the realities, in the characters’ eyes, theirs was, and will once again,be a heroic project. As the narrative progresses, the self-referential mythologisingthat they indulge in strengthens this impression. The theme songs from the secondseries only serve to re-emphasise this mythologising in their rhetoric.Opening theme:No one said it was going to be easy, no one said it had to be fair,all of the chances taken together, all of the chances you had to share,everything that made it all worthwhile, then you realise no one cares,End theme (extracts):Helpless heroes caught in a dream.One for all and all for anyone as long as you play the game.Longing for the way we were.With its allusion to failure, loss and nostalgic feeling combined with a reneweddetermination which can only be provided by the reunification of the group, thesethemes are now thoroughly unambiguous. This is not simply the selective treatment351 of the past but the creative treatment of it. The past has become a site of heroismand self sacrifice rather than simply homosocial. If, as Sedikides maintains,nostalgia can function as a way of escaping mediocrity by ‘resorting to a splendidpast’, then this is a splendid past that never was. 1243 Thus, for the characters in AufWiedersehen, Pet, nostalgic feeling works to restore the mythic certainties of heroicmasculinity, ameliorating any doubts about their own fragile and increasingly residualmasculine identities.6.9 ConclusionThis chapter has argued that the practices, experiences and feelings of white,heterosexual working-class men, even when relatively open to change, reveal astructure of feeling which is nonetheless characterised by anxieties anduncertainties. It has gone on to contend that for many men, the experience ofmasculinity in the 1980s was typified by both residual and emergent discourses heldin a state of tension. While it has engaged with Foucault’s concept of the discursivesubject and the possibilities for the social construction of gender, it hasdemonstrated how this intersects with its ‘incomplete and fragmented and shiftingmaterial existence’, which facilitates an approach which allows for the greaterunderstanding of experiences, practices and lived realities.1244 Thus, I have arguedthat within the context of social and structural changes in the early eighties AufWiedersehen, Pet, while demonstrating a degree of openess and engaging with newdiscourses, also underscores the very real constraints and inhibitions experienced bymany men.1243 Sedikides (2004), 200-214 (p. 206).1244 Tim Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), p. 134.352 With their acute insight into men, homosociality, and male nostalgia, Clement and LaFrenais explore the limits of discursively informed identity construction andtransformation through the feelings and experiences of their male protagonists. InAuf Wiedersehen, Pet they have constructed a series of narratives which perlustrateBritish working-class male identities at a time of particular stress and unease. Theyexplore the shifting intersection of class allegiances and constructions of masculinity,and how this is played out in the narratives offering up new opportunities to engagewith emergent discourses. However, as this chapter has demonstrated, theseidentities, while attempting to awkwardly accommodate emergent discourses, areshown to be grounded in those which are far more residual. While certainestablished discourses may continue, precariously dominant, their characters remainfaltering or uncertain about emergent ones.This chapter has been particularly influenced by Whitehead’s work on masculinities,employing it as a framework to understand how social and cultural changes areworked through within the narratives. It has focused particularly on relationships,friendships, family roles and the expression of feelings and how these influencemasculine construction and performance. Thus, it has been able to explore both thepossibilities and limitations for the discursive subject which are articulated withinthese interactions and relationships. It has gone on to explore the notion ofhomosociality which serves to both enable and constrain discursively informedmasculinities. Ultimately, I have shown how Auf Wiedersehen, Pet demonstratesthat ‘although the variety and diversity of discourses of gender’ may be ‘apparent inthe increasing plurality of masculinities’, while any combination of these may be353 taken up by the individual. ‘there remains residual resistance to many of thesediscourses’.1245 Finally, this chapter has demonstrated the ways both homosociality and nostalgiahave been deployed by Clement and La Frenais in relation to changes andcontinuities in identity construction. It has shown how the homosocial group, whileincorporating a number of emergent discourses around masculinity also functions asa site of relative stability for its protagonists. It has gone on to examine hownostalgia also operates as a method to ease anxieties about changes which threatenthe perceived continuity of identity, suggesting that the primary way it achieves this isthrough the construction of myth at individual and collective levels. Thus, it hasargued, in order to validate their increasingly fragile constructions of masculinity themale protagonists frequently retreat into both the homosocial and nostalgicmythologising.1245 Whitehead (2002), p. 109.354 7 ConclusionMy thesis began by bringing into question the ease of transformative change ingender identities and gender relations in terms of masculine performance by whiteheterosexual working-class males. The 1970s and 1980s, I argued, was a periodwhere fundamental change in British society had a particularly profound effect uponmasculine identities, and television, which had surpassed cinema by virtue of ‘overallquality, audience pleasure, the development of talented artists and technicians, andthe honest reflection of contemporary life and crises’, was particularly well placed inworking through many of these anxieties about change.1246 In doing so, it was ableto express what lies ‘between the articulated and the lived […] all that is not fullyarticulated, all that comes through as disturbance, tension, blockage, emotionaltrouble’.1247 While I acknowledged the emergence of new positions, identities, and possibilitiesproduced in changing economic and social circumstances, I went on to posit threekey questions: To what extent are people able to reconstruct themselves and theirown identities?; how are changes which are deemed to affect identity experienced?;and what effect do they have on the construction and crucially the maintenance ofidentities? My intention was to demonstrate how and why many men’s constructedmasculine identities were particularly resistant to new cultural conditions leading toquestions about how identity is formed and maintained, the relationship betweenconstruction, limits and constraints, and the dialectic of social structures and agency.1246 Dave Rolinson, ‘The Last Studio System: A Case for British Television Films’, in Don’t Look Now: BritishCinema in the 1970s, ed. by Paul Newland (Bristol: Intellect, 2010), pp. 163-176 (p. 165).1247 Raymond Williams, Politics and Letters: Interviews with New Left Review (London and New York: Verso,1979), p.168.355 I have argued that while construction and performativity may function as enablingprocesses, they may also operate within power structures and sets of values whichleave the transformation of masculine identity constrained, limited, and embedded.This is a consequence of men’s own privileged position within those powerstructures, their inability to understand those power structures, the lack of discursivepossibilities open to them, the notion of identity predicated upon biographicalcontinuity or the doxic relationship between social structures and mental structureswhich emerges as axiomatic beliefs and values. Thus men are subject to ’thepressures and compulsions which limit the scope of […] (their) agency’.1248 AsConnell has noted, ‘recognizing the non-discursive and unreflective dimensions ofgender gives us some sense of the limits of discursive flexibility’ and ‘furthermore,the costs of making certain discursive choices can be extremely high’.1249 Whitehead has argued that some men may have difficulty in understanding thecomplexities of the social world, perceiving existing patterns as natural rather thanculturally conditioned: ‘The multiplicity, contingency and disorder of our everydayexistence cannot be fully accepted, for to do so would be to place our sense ofontological security at risk’.1250 Thus existing gender patterns may give the ‘illusionof order and thus a certain security’.1251 Consequently, ‘symbols, myths andideologically informed practices lend gender representations a sense of order,naturalness and timelessness’ creating structures which position subjects within1248 Thomas Okes, ‘Power Always Goes on and on: The Limits of Masculinity in Marabou Stork Nightmaresand Fight Club’, Academia.edu [accessed 2 February 2013] (p. 76).1249 R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Genderand Society, 19.6 (December 2005) 829-859 (pp. 842-843).1250 Stephen M. Whitehead & Frank Barrett, ‘The Sociology of Masculinity’, in The Masculinities Reader, ed.by Stephen M. Whitehead and Frank Barrett (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 12).1251 Ibid.356 specific confinements.1252 Clearly then, Whitehead and others are suggesting thatwhile the discursive possibilities of transformation in gender relations and identities isnot impossible, it is frequently contradictory and subject to considerable maleresistance.However, as Mercer has observed, ‘Identity only becomes an issue [...] whensomething assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experienceof doubt and uncertainty’.1253 If, as Stuart Hall has argued, ‘we need to situate thedebates about identity within all those historically specific developments andpractices which have disturbed the relatively settled character of many populationsand cultures’ then the 1970s and 1980s, which challenged the very notion ofworking-class masculine identity and the attendant structures and institutions whichunderpinned it, is certainly one of those historically specific sites.1254 As both socio-cultural and socio-economic changes brought into question the perceived stability ofgender relations they had an equally profound effect upon the construction ofmasculine identities.Thus, as I have argued, through my examination of particular case studies inChapters Four, Five and Six, there were a number of writers who foregrounded a‘structure of feeling’ that emphasised anxieties about these changes while exploringthe limits and constraints upon effective transformation particularly within working-class cultures. Raymond Williams’s methodological concept has facilitated my1252 Whitehead and Barrett (2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 12).1253 Kobena Mercer, ‘Welcome to the Jungle: Identity and Diversity in Postmodern Politics’, in Identity:Community, Culture, Difference, ed. by Jonathan Rutherford (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990), pp.43-71 (p. 43).1254 Stuart Hall, ‘Who Needs Identity?’, in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay(London: Sage, 1996), pp. 1-17 (p. 4).357 analysis of these writers as they explore an area of social experience of individualsand groups which may be frequently discounted, overlooked, or inhibited togetherwith the relationship between these experiences and the structures of the period.Williams’s ‘structure of feeling’ allows for the exploration of specific cultures atparticular moments through privileging experience. Hence I have used it as amethodological framework for the analysis of television to facilitate the understandingof the experience of wider culture and cultural change. These are texts whichemerged from the individual concerns of the writers together with ‘crucial aspects ofthe broader social, political and cultural context of the time’.1255 I have argued that the three films by Peter McDougall, Trevor Preston’s Fox, AlanBleasdale’s Boys From the Blackstuff and Clement and La Frenais’ Auf,Wiedersehen, Pet are particularly sensitive to the experiences of working-class men,and whilst relating to a fictional past also ‘revalidate, reinforce or question themeaning of masculinity’ and particular masculinities at a crucial temporal and spatialjuncture in history.1256 The discourses emanating from these texts offer up their owninterpretations of complex and unstable processes, whilst themselves contributing toand questioning gender power relationships. They are engaged in exploring andhighlighting struggle, dialectic, tension, and inarticulacy, in short, the feelings of theirmale characters. In doing so they reshape, re-mythologise, legitimate or consolidateworking-class masculine subjectivities or indeed a combination of all four, whileexamining the strategies employed by the characters to accomplish this, as1255 John Kirk, ‘Class, Community and ‘Structures of Feeling’ in Working-Class Writing from the 1980s’,Literature and History, 8.2 (Autumn 1999), 44-64 (p. 44).1256 Joanne Woodman, ‘Narrating White English Masculinity: Male Authored Fiction of Crisis andReconstruction, 1987-2001’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Birkbeck College, 2005), p. 7.358 normative masculinity becomes increasingly compromised, thus revealing ahistorically specific structure of feeling.By accounting for residual, dominant and emergent consciousness, Williams’sconcept provides an avenue into the ways ‘individuals and communities engage withfundamental transformations in their everyday life-world […] to engage with changesin the present’.1257 It is precisely this model of the residual, dominant and emergentwhich I have used to explore residual meanings and values in the narratives whichcould be said to be operating outside of the dominant culture. As Williams hasacknowledged, while the movement of structures of the past into the present andfuture allows for the dominant, emergent and residual to exist simultaneously they arelikely to be in a shifting state of contention and discord.These then are narratives which express male anxieties about the reconfiguration ofmasculinities and gender relations revealing ‘gradual awareness, barely articulable’,frequently confused and contradictory, and indeed possessing a strong element ofresistance, to radical change and disruption.1258 If structures of feeling are ‘socialexperiences in solution’, while not necessarily radical they may be to varyingdegrees, oppositional to, or rather in dissent with, the social order, or officialconsciousness, expressing a degree of heterodoxy.1259 However, as I havedemonstrated, they also need not be progressive in any way whatsoever and indeedthey may run contrapuntal to the wider prevailing drift, for while they may be directlyrelated to the politics of social change, they may not actually positively articulate it.1257 John Kirk, ‘Working Paper: Theory/ Method/ Themes-A Discussion Document’, SPHERE, [n.d.] [accessed 12 April 2011] (p. 7).1258 Kirk (1999), pp. 44-64 (p. 47).1259 Ibid., p. 61.359 The case studies have developed the argument that the practices, experiences, andfeelings of white, heterosexual working-class men reveal a structure of feeling thatemphasised anxieties about changes while exploring the limits and constraints uponeffective transformation. They have shown how discourses of masculinity, anxiety,and change were both constructed and mediated by television informed by thecultural, social, and economic contexts of the period. While each of the narrativesmay be focused differently they are all characterised by their representation of menand their constructions of masculinity as both uncertain yet deeply embedded.In Chapter Four I argued that while Peter McDougall is critical of residual anddominant discourses of masculinity and expresses the anxieties of his maleprotagonists he is also profoundly pessimistic about the possibilities of themengaging meaningfully with alternative ones. Even when the narratives allude to thepositive possibilities of emergent discourses of gender practices he portrays men asbeing unwilling or unable to effect change or transformation to their constructionsand performances of masculinity.McDougall suggests that his protagonists are both so embedded within andemotionally ravaged by the social structures underpinning their milieu that there islittle possibility of escape let alone transformation. Here, I have argued, McDougallconforms to Connell’s notion of ‘social structure’ which refers to ‘the constraints thatlie in a given form of social organization’.1260 1260 R. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge: Polity, 1987), p. 92.360 As Messerschmidt has argued:Through this interaction masculinity is institutionalized, permitting mento draw on such existing, but previously formed masculine ways ofthinking and acting to construct a masculinity for specific settings. Theparticular criteria for masculinity are embedded in the social situationsand recurrent practices whereby social relations are structured.1261 However, while Connell and Messerschmidt maintain that social structures are notsimply forms of external constraint and that subjects may alter social structures aswell as reproduce gendered behaviours, McDougall sees minimal possibility of this oneither an individual or collective level, thus masculine transformation is renderedprofoundly problematic.1262 In Chapter Five I have gone on to examine the reactions of men when confronteddirectly with changes and emergent discourses which threaten to erode theirpatriarchal positions revealing deep anxieties about those changes. I have arguedthat the relationship between social and economic change and the transformation ofmasculinity is particularly problematic through my analysis of two writers whose maleprotagonists experience this change in very different ways. Alan Bleasdale’sprotagonists like those of McDougall, are revealed to be so firmly embedded withintheir class and gender positions that they are unable to adapt or transform whenconfronted with profound economic and social change. As their already insecureidentities are further eroded, attempts to reaffirm their patriarchal positions and holdonto those identities, particularly in their relationships with women, take on an air ofineffectual desperation. In effect the drama played out reinforces Campbell’sassertion that working-class masculinity failed to recognise its gendered position1261 James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Men, Masculinities and Crime’, in Handbook of Studies on Men andMasculinities, in Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, ed. by Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearnand Robert W. Connell (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005), pp. 196-212 (p. 197).1262 Ibid.361 where ‘many of those good old values rested on the weary labours of women, whoseeconomic, social, sexual, cultural and political interests are not given any politicalprimacy by any party’.1263 Furthermore, she says:Hoggart treats the tradition of men and women power relations in theworking-class as natural and that this hides the highly fabricated andrigid construction of that tradition.1264 Ultimately then, all the narrative can do is offer a largely redundant nostalgia forworking-class solidarity, unity (and power) which ignores this gendered inequity.In contrast, with Preston’s treatment of social change, identities and configurations ofgender practices are allowed to remain virtually unaltered. Here Connell’s conceptof hegemonic masculinity is shown to adapt by absorbing or rejecting emergentdiscourses, realigning itself generationally. Nonetheless, the importance of thefamily and patriarchy is emphatically reaffirmed within the narrative.Connell’s approach acknowledges ‘the dynamics of change’, and while practice isconstrained, it is also open to both history and change in a dialectic which attemptsto acknowledge both the importance of structures together with the possibility ofcommutation.1265 However, with Preston this commutation is less than satisfactory,as vague, superficial change belies the continued maintenance of common sensevalues and beliefs.1263 Beatrix Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited: Poverty and Politics in the Eighties (London: Virago, 1984), p.225.1264 Ibid.1265 nd R. W. Connell, Masculinities, 2 edn (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), p. 67; Tony Jefferson, ‘TheorisingMasculine Subjectivity’, in Just Boys Doing Business?: Men, Masculinities and Crime, ed. by TimNewburn and Elizabeth A. Stanko (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 10-31 (p. 15).362 Indeed I have argued that Fox conforms to Bourdieu’s model which maps out thelimits of reflexive transformation and identity where social divisions organise and limitthe social world, where objective limits become subjective limits.1266 With Fox thereis an ‘adherence to relations of order which, because they structure both the realworld and the thought world, are accepted as self-evident’.1267 Ultimately, both Bleasdale and Preston exhibit considerable unease about changesin gender relations. While they open up emergent discourses they are moreconcerned with how men can deal with these rather than working through their fullimplications within the narratives. Thus, they allow their male protagonists tocontinue to exist within dominant but increasingly residual discourses of masculinity.In Chapter Six I argued that with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Clement and La Frenaishave created more nuanced depictions of masculinity, fragile and more open, with adegree of heterogeneity. This heterogeneity allows for a variety of discursivepractices and an element of inter-subjective fluidity for its protagonists. Anyadaptation and transformation, however, while not proscribed within the narrative, isstill experienced as a contradictory, confusing, and painful process. Indeed theirwriting reveals the importance of nostalgic homosociality as a way of reaffirmingresidual discourses when faced with challenging emergent ones.Clement and La Frenais’ characters are placed within increasingly pluralisticrepresentations of masculinity, and engage with varying discourses of genderrevealing the limitations as well as the possibilities for the discursive subject as it1266 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. by Richard Nice(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984), p. 471.1267 Ibid.363 ‘intersects with its incomplete, fragmented and shifting material existence’.1268 Asthe narratives explore emergent discourses they also suggest that there isconsiderable conflict between these and more dominant traditional working-classmasculine discourses. As Whitehead has observed, despitethe apparent multiplicity of masculine expression, traditionalmasculinities, and associated values still prevail in most culturalsettings. Many men still act dominant, deny emotions, resort toviolence as a means of self-expression, and seek to validate theirmasculinity in the public rather than the private world.1269 This is a performance which, Whitehead suggests, masks a deeply fragile identity,itself exposed by changing social contexts.While Whitehead takes a highly critical view of a perceived crisis of masculinity, hedoes recognise that social transformations have been particularly profound forworking-class men where,male dominated industrialisation (has) largely given way to femaleoriented service industries; women are increasingly exercising choiceover relationships, divorce, child bearing and their sexualexpression.1270 This then is precisely what is addressed in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. However,Whitehead argues, men adapt, and this is a continual process, generational, andlargely experienced unknowingly, where men’s notions of the masculine selfundergoes shifts. Nevertheless within their lifetime many men experience minimalchange.1271 Thus, while Clement and La Frenais explore the effects of change upontheir varied male protagonists, their constructions of masculinity remain remarkablyconstant. Ultimately, I have argued, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet presents a problematicrelationship between emergent and residual discourses of masculinity, revealing1268 Tim Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity (Oxford: Routledge, 2006), p. 134.1269 Whitehead and Barrett (2001), pp. 1-26 (p. 7).1270 Ibid., p. 9.1271 Ibid., p. 10.364 identity construction as a disrupted, open ended process operating in a state ofconsiderable unease.While fully in accord with the enabling dimension of discourse and performativity, thisthesis then has been far more concerned with interrogating the limits and constraintsthat inhibit change and progress. As I have demonstrated, the post -structuraltheoretical perspectives of Foucault, Butler, and Giddens which emphasise the‘potential for artifice, flux and contingency’ provide excellent ways of approachingidentity construction.1272 However, while all articulate the increasing possibilities forthe transformation of social identities as a consequence of social, cultural, andeconomic changes in contemporary society they also acknowledge that there maybe certain limits and constraints.1273 According to Foucault, the construction of one’s identity is dependant upon socialprocesses. The subject is not a firm entity, but rather identity is contingent uponhistorically constructed discourses: ‘The individual is not a pre-given identity’ and ‘thepositions of the subject are defined by the positions that it is possible for him tooccupy’.1274 However, while these discourses may enable subject positions they arealso subject to constraints, limits, and ‘regularities’.1275 Gender and sexual identityare always shifting, argues Foucault, and these can change through resistance, itself‘a1272 Edwards (2006), p. 3.1273 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990);Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford:Stanford UP, 1991), pp. 18-37; Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon,1972).1274 Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, trans. ColinGordon and others (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 73-74: Michel Foucault, (1972), p. 52; p. 197.1275 Foucault (1972), pp. 231-232.365 process of breaking out of discursive practices’.1276 Thus Foucault recognises thepossibility of a degree of transformative agency. However, as Sawicki has argued,while Foucault may emphasise resistance, he is also ‘sceptical about widespreadtransformation and far from utopian’.1277 Butler’s development of this Foucauldian perspective of gender construction in herconceptualisation of the notion of performativity similarly argues that identity ispotentially open, dynamic, and liable for transformation. However, whileperformance should defy notions of originary identities it may also ‘conform to thegendered norms of cultural intelligibility’.1278 While Butler offers a model which isoptimistic and positive, she nonetheless recognises that through the acquisition ofsocial and cultural facets gender identities may become solidified and reified throughrepetition. As she argues, ‘the action of gender requires a performance that isrepeated’ re-enacting ‘a set of meanings already socially established’.1279 Like Foucault and Butler, Giddens sees the self not as something either essential orfixed, but rather there is a ‘reflexive project of the self, which consists of thesustaining of coherent yet, continually revised, biographical narratives’.1280 ForGiddens ‘a human being is […] a purposive agent’ with a degree of reflexivity whichmay engender change ‘across space and time’.1281 However, Giddens1276 Michel Foucault, The Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984: Ethics, trans. by Robert Hurley, ed. by PaulRainbow, 3 vols (New York: The New Press, 1997), I, p. 168-169.1277 Jana Sawicki, Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 28.1278 nd Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 2 edn (New York: Routledge,1999), p. 24.1279 Ibid., p. 178.1280 Giddens (1991), p. 5.1281 Christopher G. A. Bryant and David Jary, Giddens’ Theory of Structuration: A Critical Appreciation(London: Routledge, 1991), p. 8; Anthony Giddens The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory ofStructuration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 3.366 acknowledges the influence of, what he describes as, ‘standardising influences’.1282 People’s actions, he says, may be conditioned by the expectations of others, theirinvestment in the ‘coherence of everyday life’ and the reliance upon a sense ofcontinuity in the maintenance of their identities.1283 While the work of Foucault, Butler and Giddens, while not necessarily utopian, wouldappear to be generally positive as theories of reflexive identity transformationemphasising new possibilities as a consequence of the destabilisation of thetraditional, this has not, however, gone without criticism. McNay, for example hasargued that they underplay aspects of gender which are deeply embedded andresistant to adaptation or remodelling; Edwards has suggested that Butler’s notion ofperformativity does not necessarily lead to endless possibilities and potential; andMestrovic sees Giddens’s theory of structuration as perceiving agents as rationalrather than emotional.1284 Thus, while I have applied these post-structural theories as a way of approachinggender identity, I have suggested, that in the context of the structure of feelingevident in the narratives of McDougall, Preston, Bleasdale and Clement and LaFrenais, they have certain limitations. While I have not suggested that identity isstable and unchangeable I have argued that what may persist as a consequence of‘inculcation’ are ‘durable, adjusted, dispositions’.1285 1282 Giddens (1991), p. 5.1283 Ibid., p. 38; 53.1284 Lois McNay, ’Gender, Habitus and the Field: Pierre Bourdieu and the Limits of Reflexivity’, Theory,Culture and Society, 16.1 (1999), 95-117 (p. 95); Tim Edwards, ‘Queer Fears: Against the Cultural Turn’,Sexualities, 1. 4 (November 1998), 471-484 (p. 472); Stjepan Gabriel Mestrovic, Anthony Giddens: TheLast Modernist (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 77-81.1285 Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), p. 67.367 It is Bourdieu’s model then which I have found to be a more appropriate way ofunderstanding these narratives. While Bourdieu allows for a degree of identitytransformation, new performative paradigms are heavily circumscribed by thebounds of the field and are ‘limited in their diversity’.1286 Thus, an agent’s actionsand thoughts can be seen as a set of subjective dispositions informed by assimilatedroutine beliefs and values.1287 Ultimately, what Bourdieu suggests is a model ofgender, which, whilst undergoing a considerable degree of destabilisation which mayfacilitate certain changes in normative behaviour, may also be so deeply entrenchedwithin the individual and collective unconscious as to render certain aspects ofreflexive transformation problematic.In conclusion then, what I have suggested is that change should be understood as aprocess rather than an outcome, a process which is experienced and responded toemotionally. It is rarely linear or uniform, is the effect of other overlapping shifts, and is characterised by residuality as well asemergence. Nonetheless, there have undoubtedly been periods when this processof change could be said to have been more rapid and fundamental than others, feltmore acutely, and required considerable realignment by those experiencing it.This thesis has proposed that throughout the 1970s and 1980s a number of writerswere able to explore a structure of feeling around anxieties about shifts in genderrelations and question the potential for genuine transformative change in masculineidentities. They suggest that working-class men have an adherence to aconstruction of masculinity which is perceived as authentic but is actually both1286 Bourdieu (1990), p. 55.1287 Ibid.368 troubling and troubled and they show how men have adopted strategies of adaption,control, and denial in an effort to maintain that construction. 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E., ‘Male Constructions of the Changes in Gender Relations in theContext of Anti-Discriminatory Legislation and Changes in the Pattern of FemaleEmployment’, (unpublished doctoral thesis, Glasgow Caledonian University, 1998)Sexton, Max, Urban Imaginaries and Euston Films[accessed 7 May 2014}Shail, Robert, ‘Constructions of Masculinity in 1960s British Cinema’, (unpublisheddoctoral thesis, University of Exeter, 2002)Smith, Justin, ‘The Lack...and How to Get it: Reading Male Anxiety in British CultFilms of the 1970s, 1970s Conference, University of Portsmouth, (July 2008)Joanne Woodman, ‘Narrating White English Masculinity: Male Authored Fiction ofCrisis and Reconstruction, 1987-2001’, (unpublished doctoral thesis, BirkbeckCollege, 2005)Zborowski, James, ‘Structures of Alignment: Jack Regan on Screen and Page’,You’re Nicked: The Sweeney and British Crime Drama in Film and TelevisionConference, University of East Anglia, (September 2012)5. 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W., Raymond Williams Base and Superstructure in MarxistCultural Theory (1973), (University of West Indies, 2008) [accessed10 September 2012]Collins, Frank, ‘Armchair Cinema: Regan (Pilot for The Sweeney: Blu-Ray Review)’,Cathode Blu-Ray Roundup: Out of the Archives, (Cathode Ray Tube, 2011) [accessed 27 July 2012]Cooke, Lez, ‘Bleasdale, Alan’, Screenonline, (BFI, [n.d.]) [accessed 12 November 2011]Deuchar, Ross and Chris Holligan, Territoriality and Sectarianism in Glasgow: AQualitative Study, (University of Strathclyde and University of West Scotland, June2008) [accessed 18 May 2012]Dickens, John, ‘Unarticulated Pre-emergence; Raymond Williams’ Structure ofFeeling’, Constellations (University ofWarwick) [accessed 20 February 2014]400 Duff, Cameron, Stepping Through the Eye of Power: Foucault, Limits and theConstruction of Masculinity, (Queensland University of Technology, 1999) [accessed 15 October 2008]Fagan, A. ‘Theodor Adorno’, Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy [accessed 15 September 2012]Fisher, Mark, ‘Mitigated Nostalgia and Excessive Presence’, K-Punk: AbstractDynamics, ( 2007) [accessed 22 January 2012]Gallagher, Paul, ‘Peter McDougall’s Classic Gangland Film’, Dangerous Minds [accessed 19 March 2014]Gauntlett, David, ‘On Men’s Magazines and New Gender Identities: Derrick Cameronand David Gauntlett in Conversation’, Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction [accessed 9 March 2012]Gill, Rosalind, Rethinking Masculinity: Men and Their Bodies: Masculinity in Crisis?,(London School of Economics and Political Science) [accessed 14February 2012]Goddard, Peter, ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’ , The Museum of BroadcastCommunications [accessed 22 October 2011]Harne, Lynne, ‘Women’s Liberation and Radical Feminism 1970s to early 1980s’,London Feminist Network, (London Feminist Network, 2010) [accessed 17 January 2012]Hutcheon, Linda, Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern, (University of TorontoEnglish Library, [n.d.]) [accessed 18 April 2008]Inglebaek, Vegard, ‘What Kind of Male Friendship? 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Media SourcesBeefcake: A Very British Sex Symbol, BBC1, 27 December 2006, 20.00 hrsThe Black Stuff with Audio Commentary Featuring Alan Bleasdale and JimGoddard, [included in Boys from the Blackstuff DVD, BBC, 2003]Drama Connections: Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, BBC1, 6 September 2005, 22.35 hrsThe Family…and the Future with Audio Commentary Featuring Trevor Preston andJim Goddard, [included in Fox: The Complete Series DVD, Network, 2007]A History of Modern Britain: Revolution 1979-90, BBC Two, 12 June 2007, 21.00 hrsInterview with Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, (BBC Radio Tyne, 2002) [accessed 2 June 2008]It Must be the Suit with Audio Commentary Featuring Trevor Preston, Jim Goddardand Barry Hanson, [included in Out, Network, 2007]King Billy with Audio Commentary Featuring Trevor Preston and Jim Goddard,[included in Fox: The Complete Series DVD, Network, 2007]The Late Show: Big Boy’s Tale: A Profile of Peter McDougall, BBC2, 15 September1993, 23.15 hrsThe Long View : The Business of Football, BBC Radio 4, 17 Feb 2009, 09.00 hrsOmnibus: Whatever Happened To…Clement and La Frenais?, BBC1, 20 July 199722.45 hrsRazor Sharp, w. Simon Farquar, d.Bevis Evans-Teush, p. Gillian McKirdy. [Includedas DVD extra to The Peter McDougall Collection, John Williams Productions, 2006]The Reunion: Boys From The Blackstuff, BBC Radio 4, 20 August 2011, 09.00 hrsThe South Bank Show: Alan Bleasdale, LWT, 13 January 1985, 22.30 hrs.Swinging Britain: 1965 – 1966: The 60s - The Beatles Decade, Yesterday Channel,12 February 2011, 20.30 hrsThinking Aloud: Richard Hoggart, BBC Radio 4, 31 August 2009, 16.00 hrs403 Teleography and Filmography1. Principal Television ProgrammesAuf Wiedersehen, Pet. w. Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Stan Hey, Franc Roddam.d. Roger Bamford, Baz Taylor. With Timothy Spall, Tim Healy, Jimmy Nail, GaryHolton, Pat Roach, Christopher Fairbank , Kevin Whately. Witzend/CentralTelevision. UK. 1983-1986The Blackstuff. w. Alan Bleasdale. d. Jim Goddard. With Bernard Hill, MichaelAngelis, Tom Georgeson, Peter Kerrigan, Alan Igbon. BBC. UK. 1980Boys from the Black Stuff. w. Alan Bleasdale. d. Philip Saville. With Julie Walters,Bernard Hill, Michael Angelis, Tom Georgeson, Peter Kerrigan, Alan Igbon. BBC.UK. 1982The Elephant’s Graveyard. w. Peter McDougall. d. John Mackenzie. With BillyConnolly, Jon Morrison. BBC. UK. 1976Fox . w. Trevor Preston. d. Jim Goddard. With Peter Vaughan, Elizabeth Spriggs,Bernard Hill, Derrick O’Connor, Larry Lamb, Ray Winstone, Eamon Boland, MaggieSteed. Euston Films/Thames Television. UK. 1980Just a Boy’s Game. w. Peter McDougall. d. John Mackenzie. With Frankie Miller,Ken Hutchison, Gregor Fisher, Hector Nicol. BBC. UK. 1979Just Another Saturday. w. Peter McDougall. d. John Mackenzie. With Jon Morrison,Ken Hutchison, Billy Connolly, Bill Henderson. BBC. UK. 19752. Other Television ProgrammesAbigail’s Party. BBC. UK. 1977Budgie. LWT. UK. 1971-72Callan. ABC, Thames Television from 1968. UK. 1967-72Cathy Come Home. BBC. UK. 1966Dallas. BBC. US. 1978-1991.Down Among the Big Boys. BBC. UK. 1993The Family. BBC. UK. 1974The Firm. BBC. UK. 1989Friends. Channel 4. USA. 1994-2004Gangsters. BBC. UK. 1975; 1976-78The Gentle Touch. LWT. UK. 1980-84Hancock’s Half Hour. BBC. UK. 1956-60Jason King. ITC/ITV. UK. 1971-2The Likely Lads. BBC. UK. 1964-66Law and Order. BBC. UK. 1978Love Thy Neighbour. Thames. UK. 1972-1976Made in Britain. Central Independent Television. UK. 1982Meantime. Channel 4. UK. 1983Mind Your Language. Thames. UK. 1977-79; 1986404 Minder. Euston Films/Thames Television; Central Television from 1993. UK. 1979-94The Naked Civil Servant. Thames. UK. 1975Oi for England. Central Television. UK. 1982Out. Euston Films/Thames Television. UK. 1978The Persuaders. ITC/ITV. UK. 1971-2Play for Today. BBC. UK. 1970-84Porridge. BBC. UK. 1974-77The Professionals. Avengers Mk 1/LWT. UK. 1977-83Public Eye. ABC. Thames Television from 1969. UK. 1965-75Regan. Euston Films/Thames Television. UK. 1974Scully’s New Year’s Eve. BBC. UK. 1978Scum. BBC. UK. 1977Shoestring. BBC. UK. 1979-80Shoot for the Sun. BBC. UK. 1986Special Branch. Thames Television with Euston Films 1973-74. UK. 1969-74The Spongers. BBC. UK. 1978Steptoe and Son. BBC. UK. 1962-65; 1970-74The Sweeney. Euston Films/Thames Television. UK. 1975-78Thriller. ATV. UK. 1973-76Villains. LWT. UK. 1972The Wednesday Play. BBC. UK. 1964-70Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. BBC. UK. 1973-1974.Women’s Lib Television. Thames Television. UK. 19803. FilmographyThe Bank Job. d. Roger Donaldson. Mosaic/Relativity/Skyline/Atlas/Omnilab. UK.2008Billy Elliot. d. Stephen Daldry. Arts Council/BBC/Studion Canal/Tiger Aspect/WorkingTitle/WT2. UK. 2000Bloody Kids. d. Stephen Frears. Black Lion Films/ITC/Hanson. UK. 1979Blow-Up. d. Michelangelo Antonioni. Bridge Films/MGM. UK/Italy/USA. 1966Brassed Off. d. Mark Herman. Prominent/Cannel Four/Miramax. UK.1996Carry on Girls. d. Gerald Thomas. Rank. UK. 1973A Clockwork Orange. d. Stanley Kubrick. Hawk/Warner Bros. UK/USA. 1971Far From the Madding Crowd. d. John Schlesinger. Vic Films/MGM. UK. 1967The Full Monty. d. Peter Cattaneo. Redwave/Channel Four/20th Century Fox. UK.1997Get Carter. d. Mike Hodges. MGM. UK. 1971Here Come the Huggetts. d. Ken Annakin. Gainsborough. UK. 1948High Noon. d. Fred Zinnemann. Stanley Kramer Productions. USA. 1952Holiday Camp. d. Ken Annakin. Gainsborough. UK. 1947The Italian Job. d. Pete Collinson. Paramount/Oakhurst. UK. 1969A Kind of Loving. d. John Schlesinger. Vic Films. UK. 1962The Likely Lads. d. Robert Tuchner. Anglo-EMI. UK. 1976The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. d. Tony Richardson. Woodfall. UK.1962The Long Good Friday. d. John Mackenzie. Back Lion/Calendar/Handmade. UK.1980The Magnificent Seven. d. John Sturges. Mirisch/Alpha. USA. 1960405 The Man Who Fell to Earth. d. Nic Roeg. British Lion/Cinema 5. UK. 1976McVicar. d. Tom Clegg. Polytel/The Who Films. UK. 1980Millions like Us. d. Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. Gainsborough. UK. 1943My Name is Joe. d. Ken Loach. Alta/Arte/Channel Four and others. UK. 1998Nil By Mouth. d. Gary Oldman. SE8/Europa Corp. UK. 1997Quadrophenia. d. Franc Roddam. Polytel/The Who Films. UK. 1979Room at the Top. d. Jack Clayton. Romulus/Remus. UK. 1959Saturday Night,Sunday Morning. d. Karel Reisz. Woodfall. UK. 1960Scum. d. Alan Clarke. Berwick St/Boyd’s/Kendon. UK. 1979Secrets and Lies. d. Mike Leigh. Channel Four/CiBy 2000/Thin Man. UK. 1996A Sense of Freedom. d. John Mackenzie. Handmade Films. UK. 1979Slade in Flame. d. Richard Loncraine. Goodtime Enterprises. UK. 1975The Squeeze. d. Michael Apted. Martmat/Warner Bros. UK. 1977Stardust. d. Michael Apted. Goodtime Enterprises. UK. 1974Still Crazy. d. Brian Gibson. Columbia/Marmot Tandy/Greenlight. UK. 1998Sunday. Bloody Sunday. d. John Schlesinger. Vectia. UK. 1971Sweeney! d. David Wickes. Euston Films. UK. 1977Sweeney 2. d. Tom Clegg. Euston Films. UK. 1978That'll be the Day. d. Claude Whatham. Goodtime Enterprises. UK. 1973This Happy Breed. d. David Lean. Noel Coward-Cineguild/Two Cities. UK. 1944Tommy. d. Ken Russell. Polytel/The Who Films. UK. 1975Trainspotting. d. Danny Boyle. Channel Four/Figment/Noel Gay. UK. 1996Up the Junction. d. Peter Collinson. BHE/Crasto. UK. 1968Villain. d. Michael Tuchner. Anglo-EMI.406

Angry Young Men? A Product of Their Time

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Angry Young Men? A Product of Their Time

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