Imaginary Men: Genre, Masculinity, and National Identity in Canadian and New Zealand Cinemas

Abstract

This thesis explores the use of genre formulas in Canadian and New Zealand national cinemas. Specifically, this thesis asks whether utilizing generic storytelling conventions undermines the cultural goals of both countries’ national cinemas or whether these strategies successfully inflect genre formulas with national narratives to tell stories for and about the nation that are distinct from what is routinely called Global Hollywood. I argue that Canadian and New Zealand directors that create genre films inflect Hollywood formulas and in the process question national myths about national identity and masculinity. As historian Christopher Dummit underlines, “in the history of masculinity, men’s gendered identities [have been] equated not with themselves as men but with a larger, seemingly ungendered category . . . the nation.” The connection between masculinity and the nation predates the advent of cinema and has been a common theme in films since the early days of cinema and continues to receive attention in the present. The three directors from Canada (David Cronenberg, Bruce McDonald, and Jean-Marc Vallée) and three from New Zealand (Peter Jackson, Geoff Murphy, and Taika Waititi,) that are included in this thesis engage with concerns about the cohesion of the nation in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and likewise deal with the inconsistencies of gender, masculinity more specifically. Through their use of film genre these directors look at the ways masculinity and identities are connected to the nation as a shared culture. Film scholar Susan Hayward’s concept of centers and peripheries in national cinema, French cinema in particular, creates a useful framework for analysing the marginal place of Canadian and New Zealand cinemas in relation to Global Hollywood and the ways different ideas about masculinity and national identity come to be imagined in their films. Particular attention has been paid to representations of masculinity and national identity by analysing six films, three each from Canada and from New Zealand, in order to gauge how the above filmmakers have approached depictions of the nation through different film genres over time. The six films in this thesis have been paired by genre; these include the horror film, the road film, and the coming-of-age film. The two horror films explored are Shivers (Cronenberg, 1975) and Braindead (Jackson, 1992). Critical responses to both films in their respective national contexts informs my discussion around taste and genre cinema. The road films Goodbye Pork Pie (Murphy, 1981) and Highway 61 (McDonald, 1991) are examined for their individual approaches to the familiar formula of travellers attempting to reach their destination at all costs. While Murphy’s film presents a more traditionalist view of masculinity, McDonald’s film deals with gender roles in a more playful manner. Boy (Waititi, 2010) and C.R.A.Z.Y. (Vallée, 2005) tell semi-autobiographical stories set during the period of their respective director’s childhood. Both directors re-write the coming-of-age narrative within specific national and bi-cultural contexts and brighten up the lives of their young protagonists through popular culture. The close reading of these films offered by this thesis demonstrates how Canadian and New Zealand national cinemas negotiate traditional, stereotypical, and contemporary depictions of masculinity and national identity through the inflection of genre formulas to arrive at distinct representations of the nation. Canada and New Zealand thus offer significant case studies for the exploration of the role of national cinema and its persistent cultural relevance.