Wild Ones
Masculinity in classical Hollywood
youth cinema of the 1950s
Marjolein Maassen
5734290
[email protected]
Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
Media en Cultuur
Dr. L.T. Copier
Second reader: M.C. Wilkinson
14 February 2013
Table of contents
Introduction
p. 3
Chapter 1: Theoretical framework
p. 9
1.1 About masculinity
p. 10
1.2 About homosexuality
p. 12
1.3 About ethnicity
p. 13
1.4 About stars
p. 15
Chapter 2: The Wild One: the outlaw rebel
p. 17
2.1 Chino & The Beetles
p. 17
2.2 Johnny & Kathie
p. 22
Chapter 3: Blackboard Jungle: the delinquent
p. 28
3.1 Miss Hammond
p. 28
3.2 Sidney Poitier as Gregory Miller
p. 33
3.3 The confrontation
p. 36
Chapter 4: Rebel Without a Cause: the middle class rebel
p. 39
4.1 Fathers
p. 39
4.2 Chickie Run
p. 45
4.3 The character of Plato and the search for role models
p. 49
Conclusion
p. 54
Bibliography
p. 58
2
Introduction
Mildred: ‘Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?’
Johnny: ‘Whadda you got?’ (The Wild One)
This quote describes the rebellious attitude of the generation of James Dean and Marlon
Brando. This is a generation that is known for rebelling and for differentiating themselves
from the previous generation. Brando’s character Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (Laslo
Benedek, 1953) is a good example of such a rebel. He will rebel against anything and
everything and does not waste any words to make that clear. This is the new type of man that
gained popularity in the youth films of the 1950s.
The relations between men and women were significantly different in the USA of the
1950s, compared to what they are today. Women were supposed to take care of the of the
chores around the house and raise the kids, while men were expected to get a job to provide
for their family. Men were supposed to be tough and strong, things that were not necessarily
required of women (Dunar 194-195). These expectations were reflected in the popular culture
of those days. I would like to research the ways in which men were represented in Hollywood
youth movies in those days, to see if the gender roles were the same for the next generation as
well. I will look at – among others – some of the most famous stars of those days, Marlon
Brando and James Dean, and how they represented masculinity both on and off the silver
screen. I will be focusing on three 1950s films, namely The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause
(Nicholas Ray, 1955) and Blackboard Jungle (Richard Brooks, 1955), which all deal with the
upcoming youth culture of those days, the problems of young men, and their attitude towards
authoritative figures. The main characters in all these films are almost exclusively men and
they are wildly different from the female characters in these films.
The 1950s are the first decade where there is evidence of a new youth culture. Kids are
rebelling against their parents’ generation, against their teachers, and against other
authoritative figures. They also develop their own style and taste in music and other art forms
(Doherty 35-36). This youth culture influenced all subsequent youth cultures, and would
continue to be represented in movies of later decades, such as Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978),
Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985) and Cry-Baby (John Waters, 1990). The clothing
styles, and other expressions of their tastes, may have changed, but ever since the 1950s
teenagers and adults have been two separate groups. I will look at the emergence of this youth
culture in cinema, and how it was represented, because the influence of this is still visible in
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today’s youth. I want to see if the youth depicted in these films really was as rebellious and
delinquent as is reputed, or whether this was merely due to the fact that any kind of youth
culture was unprecedented in those days. Can they still be seen as rebels and juvenile
delinquents by today’s standards, and has there been an improvement in the relationship
between the generations over time? I will discuss the three aforementioned films, because
they are not just examples of this because of the topics they deal with, but they were also an
essential part of this upcoming culture in their own right. Dean, Brando and Sidney Poitier
were the stars of these films, and both on and off the screen, they were known for their
representations of masculinity. Dean and Brando were already famous when they played these
parts, while the part of Gregory Miller proved to be Poitier’s big break.
I will now give a brief summary of the three films that I will by analysing, and I will
explain why I chose these movies and why I did not expand my research to include films
made in different decades. The first of the three films, The Wild One, is about a motorcycle
gang called the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (B.R.M.C). They are led by Johnny Strabler
(Brando) and make a stop in a small town to have some ‘fun’ with the locals. While there,
Johnny develops a crush on Kathie, the daughter of the town’s only cop. Then ‘The Beetles’,
a rival motorcycle gang, show up in the same town and Johnny gets into a fight with their
leader, Chino. This, together with other antics the gangs get up to, brings chaos and anxiety to
the normally quiet town. The townsfolk have had enough when Johnny is chasing after a
crying Kathie, with the apparent intention to hurt her. They attack Johnny, but what they do
not know is that Johnny had no intention of hurting her. He had upset her earlier, by not
responding to her advances, and was now going after her to – presumably – apologise. He
manages to escape the enraged crowd on his bike, but he loses control of the vehicle when
one of the angry men throws a tire iron at him. He falls off, but the bike keeps going and
crashes into old Jimmy – who worked at the bar – and kills him. Johnny gets arrested for this,
but after Kathie and several others stand up for him, he is released. The guys are told to not
come back, but Johnny drops in on Kathie one more time, to say goodbye.
Even the name of Johnny’s gang confirms it: these guys are rebels. They’ll rebel
against all society’s got to give. There are some girls with the gangs, but they are basically
disregarded by the men. Johnny is annoyed by a girl of Chino’s gang, who asks him if he
remembers her, seemingly still pining over him, even though they had only met once or twice.
He dismisses her. This encounter is representative for the way men treat women in this film,
with the possible exception of Kathie. Not that there seem to be many women around. Even
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the town seems to be mostly populated by men. Kathie might not be treated as badly by
Johnny as the other girl, the other members of both gangs seem to treat her as nothing more
than a play toy. And despite his obvious interest in her, Johnny does not exactly treat her like
his equal either. When the other guys gang up on her, he comes to her rescue, but immediately
after that he goes back to being distant and pushes her away. He has power over her, so when
he rejects her, she cannot deal with that and runs away in tears. His intentions towards her
seem to be good, mostly – he saves her, and when he upsets her he goes after her, seemingly
distressed over the reaction he caused in her. But it is a long way from treating her well.
Rebel Without a Cause deals with high school student Jim Stark (Dean), who keeps
getting into trouble, both with the law and with his parents, although you’d be hard pressed to
label him a criminal. At his new school Jim befriends an insecure boy whose nickname is
Plato, and his attention is caught by a girl named Judy, the girlfriend of bully Buzz. Both Judy
and Plato are dealing with problems related to their parents as well. While Jim wishes his
father would stand up to his mother more and be a proper male role model, Judy wishes her
father would still show her the kind of affection he still shows her little brother. Plato’s
parents are always gone and he feels lost without them. So much even, that he will try to find
substitutes for them in his friends. In the meantime, Jim also seems to get in himself in trouble
at school, getting into a fight with Buzz. Buzz then challenges him to a ‘Chickie Run’, a race
in which both contestants drive a stolen car towards the edge of cliff. The first one to jump
from the car is a chicken, and loses. Jim agrees (although he has no idea what he is getting
himself into). It all goes horribly wrong when Buzz’s sleeve gets stuck behind door handle of
his car. He is unable to get out of the car in time, and falls off the cliff to his death. Jim wants
to tell the cops what happened, but neither his parents, nor Buzz’s angry friends, think this is a
good idea. Jim – together with Judy (who has really taken to Jim by now) and Plato – hides
from Buzz’s friends in an old deserted mansion. Things get worse when it turns out that Plato
has brought a gun with him. Plato freaks out when he cannot find Jim and Judy anymore and
does not just aim for Buzz’s friends – who have caught up with them – but even points it at
Jim, who tries to calm him down. By this time, the cops have arrived and are calling for Plato
to come out. Jim manages to take the bullets out of the gun, but when Plato goes outside and
aims for the cops, they shoot him before Jim had the chance to tell them the gun’s no longer
loaded. Plato dies in Jim’s arms, and Jim turns to his dad for support, which he provides.
Jim and his friends are not as anti-society as Johnny and his gang. Their main cause
for rebellion is the issues they have with their parents. It is about the differences between two
5
generations. Women play a very different part in this film as well. Jim’s mother and
grandmother are much more vocal and powerful than Jim’s dad is, and Judy is a much
stronger character than Kathie was. The men in this film struggle with their masculinity, and
how to express it. Their masculinity is similar to that in The Wild One, but it causes a lot more
problems for them, which I will discuss later.
Blackboard Jungle is told from a different point of view than the other films. It is not
through the eyes of the rebellious youth through which we watch the events unfold, but
through the eyes of the teacher of these kids. High school teacher Richard Dadier (Glenn
Ford) has to deal with rebellious kids on a daily basis. The teachers in his high school are
treated without any respect: several students ruin a very valuable record collection of one
teacher, while another boy attempts to rape the new female teacher. Meanwhile, Dadier’s wife
receives letters in which her husband is accused of cheating on her. At first Dadier suspects
one of his students, Gregory Miller (Poitier) of causing most of the problems. As it turns out,
Miller has got nothing to do with it, it had been his classmate Artie West all along. Dadier
apologises to Miller – not in the least because his accusation could be construed as racist, and
motivates him to stay in school because he is doing well. West loses the respect of the rest of
the class when he attacks Dadier with a knife and he is subsequently punished for his actions.
By emphasising the side of the teachers, the authority, Blackboard Jungle presents us
with a different view on youthful rebellion than The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause. It
does, however, fit in with these two films, because the problems that the characters deal with
are very similar. All these films deal with the issues that arise in trying to figure out how to
show one’s masculinity, how to deal with the difficulties between generations, and the role of
women in all this. Blackboard Jungle adds another issue to deal with in all this: ethnicity. The
fact that Miller is Dadier’s primary suspect, suggests racist motives on his side. The issue of
racism is even discussed in Dadier’s classroom, with Dadier trying to explain that ethnicity
based name-calling, like nigger or spic, is racist and insulting. When it turns out Miller is
innocent, the films makes a statement against prejudice and racism, but it also shows us just
how common this level of racism still was in the 1950s (and perhaps still is). I will try to
establish the influence ethnicity has on the status and masculinity of Poitier’s character and
how this distinguishes his character from Dean and Brando’s characters.
I chose these three films because they deal with the same sort of issues relating to
masculinity, to the gap between generations and to the relationship between men and women,
but they do so in different ways, emphasising different things. This makes them an interesting
6
topic of research, because even through their differences, the similarities in the representation
of masculinity are quite obvious. The films deal with the differences between men and women
in various ways and in varying degrees, but this still allows us to find connections in the way
women were treated in these films, which in turn represents how women were viewed in those
days. Lastly, the main actors were also important in deciding which films to analyse. Dean,
Brando and Poitier were (and, in Poitier’s case, are) big stars, whose reputations of rebellious
youth extended to their personal lives. Even though Poitier’s big break came with Blackboard
Jungle, it is interesting to examine how their fame, their reputation, influenced the
representation of their characters.
I will only focus on these three films, and I will not include any movies from other
decades as comparison, simply because the relationship between men and women – and how
it is represented – is constantly changing, as is the representation of masculinity in popular
culture. To add more films would broaden my research topic in such a way that it would limit
to what extent I could discuss the individual films and compare the analyses. I will therefore
limit my focus to the representation of youth and masculinity in these three Hollywood
productions of the 1950s.
I will also limit my research to the definition and representation of masculinity and I
will not include much about femininity, because my focus is on the men in these films. This is
not to say that the role the women play is not equally interesting and telling, and I will
definitely deal with the way they are represented in relation to the men in this film, but they
simply are not my main point of focus.
Something I do want to discuss is the part homosexuality plays in the ideas on
masculinity in the 1950s. Showing homosexuality on screen was actually prohibited back
then, but many filmmakers found a way around the censors and wrote it in without explicitly
mentioning it. Much has been written, for instance, on Plato’s (alleged) homosexuality, and I
will incorporate this in my research. I want to know how it affects Plato’s masculinity (and
possible others), both in his own eyes and in the eyes of others, because in those days
homosexuality was seen as something that would diminish one’s masculinity.
To research these topics, I will analyse several scenes of these three films in detail.
Aside from the thematic aspects in these scenes, I will also discuss the mise-en-scène and the
cinematography. I will use literature on masculinity, ethnicity, homosexuality and the concept
of ‘stars’ to discuss the representation of masculinity in these films. Steven Cohan deals with
all of these themes in his book Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties, which
7
I will use for a significant part of my research. In the next chapter I will provide a more
thorough explanation of the literature and methods of analysis I will use. Cohan combines a
sociological and historical perspective in his work, by addressing the zeitgeist and dealing
with ethnicity and homosexuality. My research will alternate between a sociological and a
historical perspective as well. Many of the sources I will use belong to the field of Cultural
Studies, which uses several academic fields (among them: gender studies, sociology and
anthropology). Cultural Studies also tends to criticise the fields it uses and the texts that used
to be studied. It also studies different cultural phenomena and emphasises ideologies within a
text (Springer 6-7).
The first chapter will consist of my theoretical framework, divided up in the concepts
of masculinity, homosexuality, ethnicity and stars. Next, each movie will be discussed in its
own chapter, in chronological order, ending with Rebel Without a Cause. These chapters will
be divided into analyses of the most important scenes and characters. In the conclusion I will
draw a comparison between the three films. First I will start with outlining the theory I will
use and how I will go about analysing and discussing the movies.
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1. Theoretical framework
In this chapter I will discuss which sources and methods I will use in my research. I will
divide this chapter into sections, discussing masculinity, homosexuality, ethnicity and stars,
and how they affect the representation of masculinity in the films I will analyse. But first I
will discuss the cause and effect of the rise of youth cinema in the fifties, to show how these
films could come to be in the first place.
The fifties showed a change in the status of America’s youth. Timothy Shary deals
with this, and how it affected the cinema, in his book Teen Movies: American Youth on
Screen. Here he explains that because the economy was doing really well in the fifties, many
households acquired their own television set. This provided them with home entertainment,
and therefore less need to pay a visit to the movie theatre. The healthy economy also allowed
most families the luxury of a car, a car which their teenagers – with their newfound freedom –
could borrow to go to the drive-in cinema. When the film industry realised this, they started
focusing specifically on youth oriented films, hoping to lure more teenagers to the theatre,
while their parents stayed at home to watch television (17). Thomas Doherty explains that
besides having more money and freedom than the previous generations, the teens of the fifties
were larger in number as well. Even before the start of the official baby boom, birth-rates in
the US had been going up as early as the later 1930s (34). This produced the first generation
of ‘teenagers’, a generation very much aware of their (newly acquired) status of ‘teen’. As
Doherty explains, this awareness came to be because they were seen as a separate group of
people (for the first time), almost everywhere: at school, at home and in the media. By
treating them like they were different from both adults and children, teenagers quickly
realised their unusual status and started behaving accordingly. This created a strong bond
between teens, which distanced them from their parents even further (35-36).
Shary also discusses the Juvenile Delinquent (JD) films that were quite popular in the
1950s. The thirties also knew their fair share of JD films, but these were different from the
ones made in the fifties. Back in the thirties, poverty was often used as an explanation for the
behaviour of the kids in these films, while schools, parents and sometimes the teens
themselves, were considered to be responsible for the acts of the teens in the 1950s version of
the JD films (19).
Doherty also discusses how the influence of the new teenaged generation showed itself
in the music business. He explains that even though R & B (‘black’ music) and pop music
9
(‘white’ music) still had separate music charts in those days, music loving teens tended to
ignore this form of separation and listen to all music. Radio shows and jukeboxes were
adapted to accommodate the teens’ tastes during the mid-fifties, and the new music genre,
Rock ‘n’ Roll, could be heard practically everywhere (43-44). Rock ‘n’ Roll had become the
youth’s music. Another way for them to rebel against their parents’ generation. David Baker,
who is both versed in film theory and popular music studies, sees similarities between the role
of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the use of music in The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause and
Blackboard Jungle. These movies were made shortly before Rock ‘n’ Roll’s real
breakthrough, but the jazz music used in these films was used in a similar way by the
protagonists. It was used to bring some form of unity within different groups of youth in the
films, and helped to separate them from other groups, as well as their parents’ generation1
(40).
1.1 About masculinity
One of the most important sources I will use in my research of masculinity is Steven Cohan’s
Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties. His focus is on masculinity in films
of the 1950s and he discusses the differences between boys and men, and the related
differences between ‘old Hollywood’ and ‘new Hollywood’. He compares actors like James
Stewart and John Wayne to the generation of upcoming actors of the fifties, like Dean and
Brando (who he discusses in detail). The ideas about masculinity changed in the 1950s, and
Cohan includes topics like race and homosexuality in his discourse to show how people
related these topics to masculinity. Cohan often mentions theories by other theorists in his
text, who I will occasionally refer to as well.
The chapter ‘Why boys are not men’ in Cohan’s book, is very important to my
research. Here, Cohan introduces what he calls ‘the transvestite effect of the boy’. What he
means by this, is that boys can be compared to transvestites, because of the new definition of
masculinity that arose in the 1950s. This new definition had a lot to do with the new
generation of actors. They were not really considered to be ‘men’ at first. They were not
rough, tough or sure of themselves and their masculinity. They were young (and looked it),
rebellious, vulnerable, and dressed in jeans and t-shirts. They were not exactly considered to
1
Although the use of Bill Haley and the Comets’ ‘Rock Around the Clock’ in Blackboard Jungle did signal the
debut of rock music in cinema.
10
be feminine either though, but they were definitely considered to be more feminine than the
previous generation of actors. That is why they could be regarded to be between two genders,
similar to the way transvestites can be considered to be between two genders.
Another interesting chapter is ‘Tough guys make the best psychopaths’, in which
Cohan links psychopaths to juvenile delinquents. Especially Blackboard Jungle’s Artie West
can be seen as a guy with psychopathic tendencies. Characteristics of psychopathy are
ruthlessness, fearlessness, and anti-social behaviour (Dutton 21-22). To explain someone’s
(mostly a man’s) anti-social behaviour back then, they were often labelled a psychopath.
Anther helpful source on masculinity is ‘Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men
and Mainstream Cinema’ by Steve Neale. Neale focuses on heterosexual masculinity in
movies, because he feels not much research has been done on this topic. He uses Laura
Mulvey’s text ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ to see if it can also be applied on men
– both on the characters and the viewers. His intention is to discuss how heterosexual men
view their peers on the screen and how this reflects on their ideas of masculinity. A difference
he notices between watching men and women, is that the women on the screen merely need to
be passive, while the men tend to be involved in an activity to help directing the attention to
their body.
Alyssa Costa also discusses masculinity in Rebel Without a Cause in her thesis. She
discusses the reasons for the behaviour of the men in this film, and how this behaviour
coincides with the ideas on masculinity in the fifties. She describes the ‘masculinity crises’ of
the four male protagonists: Jim, Plato, Buzz and Jim’s father (Mr. Stark). Costa often refers to
Jon Lewis, who wrote several texts on masculinity in relation to the fifties and teen movies. I
will also refer to one of his texts, namely: ‘1955-Movies and Growing Up... Absurd’, which
deals with Jim’s relationship with his dad in Rebel Without a Cause, as well as with the
problematic teens of Blackboard Jungle.
Another important issue in my research, is the place of the rebel within the discourse
on masculinity. I will use Claudia Springer’s book James Dean Transfigured: The Many
Faces of Rebel Iconography, which focuses mainly on James Dean’s status as a rebel, and has
an introductory chapter in which she explains the ways in which the teenage rebel icon is used
in popular culture. She then applies these uses of the rebel icon to James Dean (and his
reputation), also discussing his part in Rebel Without a Cause. Another way to look at rebels
is discussed in David Baker’s ‘Rock Rebels and Delinquents: the Emergence of the Rock
Rebel in 1950s ‘Youth Problem’ Films’. Baker compares the rock rebel to the juvenile
11
delinquent and examines how they are represented in The Wild One, Rebel Without a Cause
and Blackboard Jungle. Masculinity plays an important part in this. The rock rebel is a
‘leisure-time rebel’ rebel who has a job and therefore has a choice in whether or not they want
to rebel against something. Rebelling is not a necessary part of life for a rock rebel. This
makes free time an important condition for the rock rebel (44). The juvenile delinquent
however, is placed outside of society and does not have the same choices as the rock rebel.
Rebelling is not as much a choice for them, as it is a necessity (49). James Gilbert also brings
up the differences between rebels and delinquents. According to him, a rebel is not always a
delinquent or a criminal, but because they look similar to delinquents, they were often
confused with them (11-12). In the analyses in the next few chapters I will try to identify
which characters can be seen as rebels, and which characters are more like delinquents.
1.2 About homosexuality
Homosexuality is a common topic in discussing masculinity, and it appears both in Cohan’s
book, and in the article by Steve Neale which I mentioned earlier. As I will point out in my
analysis of Rebel Without a Cause, there are a lot of suggestions of homosexuality that can be
found in this film. They mainly revolve around the character of Plato, who is considered to be
gay in almost every analysis. I will discuss the reasons for this, and how this interpretation
affects his relationship to the other characters, in the final chapter. These hints at
homosexuality seem absent in The Wild One and Blackboard Jungle, but homosexuality is an
important topic in relation to heterosexual masculinity nonetheless, because men tended to be
defined by it.
Cohan describes how psychopathy became linked to homosexuality in the 1950s.
Sexual violence was already considered an important aspect of psychopathy, but added to this
was that psychopaths became targeted for representing an abnormal form of masculinity,
which was used to ‘enforce heterosexual conformity for men as well as women’ (119).
Meaning, that when psychopaths did not represent heterosexual conformity, they must be
homosexuals, which in turn linked homosexuals to the sex crimes that were committed by
men who were labelled psychopaths. Being a psychopath was now considered a synonym for
both sex criminal and homosexual. Needless to say, homosexuals did not have a good
reputation in those days. The Motion Picture Production Code even forbade referring to
homosexuality in films. Filmmakers found ways to work around this rule however, and there
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are many movies which can be read in a homo-erotic way. Cohan discusses the restrictions of
the Code, and, in relation to this, the (sexual) tension between Jim and Plato, as well as
between Jim and Judy.
Christopher Castiglia’s text ‘Rebel Without a Closet: Homosexuality and Hollywood’,
focuses completely on homosexuality in films. He describes what a love-triangle consisting
only of men might look like, by pointing out the three different figures in such a triangle, and
their relation to each other:
(…) another obvious figure of authority (the father), another threat to the father’s
authority (a homosexual lover), and a kind of hero, to a greater or lesser degree (the
son), who must negotiate between patriarchal privilege offered by his father (and
consequently heterosexual convention) and the Otherness, the alienation from male
heterosexual privilege, threatened by an acceptance of the lover, and hence of
homosexuality (31).
This type of love-triangle can be seen in Rebel Without a Cause, where Jim, Plato and Jim’s
dad fulfil these roles. This way of looking at the relations between the male characters in
Rebel, also touches on the difficult relationship that Jim has with his father, which is another
important aspect of the film.
Alyssa Costa does not just discuss the possibility of sexual tension between Jim and
Plato, a relationship that many articles examine in this light, but also between Jim and Buzz.
Buzz is the kind of archetypical male that Jim looks up to: he is butch, violent and jealous
(28). But Costa points out that ‘(…) Buzz too reveals his uncertainties and a veiled
homosexual tension through his exchanges with Jim’ (28). By adding this layer of tension to
the relationship between Buzz and Jim, Costa gives an even more complex reading of
homosexuality in Rebel Without a Cause. Leaving the option open that not just the unstable,
but kind Plato is gay, but that the tough guy Buzz is gay as well. I will come back to this
interpretation of Buzz’s sexuality in the chapter on Rebel Without a Cause.
1.3 About ethnicity
The concept of ethnicity is mainly of importance in Blackboard Jungle, because this is the
only one of the three films with any (noticeable) non-white characters. Although the lack of
such characters in the other films could be an interesting notion to discuss as well. Cohan
links psychopathy to race in his chapter on psychopaths, noting that when white men
13
committed a sex crime, they were often sent to a mental institution, while black men were
sent to jail. ‘The courts repeatedly differentiated “mental illness” from “willful violence”
according to an offender’s race’ (118). Blackboard Jungle plays with this notion by showing
us a white sex offender, who gets punished for his actions, and a white delinquent who is not
getting away with his crimes either. The black student was under suspicion at first, but
Blackboard Jungle makes a statement against the accepted beliefs of those days, by making
him the hero of this film.
Richard Dyer wrote several texts on the representation of people of different
ethnicities in movies. In his book ‘Only Entertainment’ he discusses Sidney Poitier and the
relationship between race and class, which makes this a very useful text in analysing
Blackboard Jungle. While images of white men are often related to the split between leisure
and work activity, images of black men tend to be linked, for instance by the setting, to ‘the
jungle’ or ‘black power’. ‘Such images also put black men ‘outside of’ this class’ (129). Dyer
does note, however, that Sidney Poitier is one of the notable examples of black men who is
often represented as middle class, instead of ‘outside of’ any class. This can be seen in
Blackboard Jungle, where his character is hard working and well behaved, never participating
in the violence, and aspiring to finish school and get a job. It is interesting to note that
Blackboard Jungle obviously wants to represent a different kind of black man than was
common in those days.
In America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality at the Movies,
by Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin, the representation of both white and coloured people in
classical Hollywood cinema is discussed. They too mention Sidney Poitier, and how the
characters he portrays tend to be less stereotypical black men than most other black characters
in Hollywood in those days. His role in Blackboard Jungle is interesting because the first half
of the film pays a lot of attention to racial issues, while those tend to fall to the wayside in the
second half, to reveal the actual problems have nothing to do with race at all. Poitier’s
character is given more layers, which removes him from suspicion and from the stereotypical
depiction of black guys in Hollywood.
Todd Reeser claims in Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction that race and gender
are so closely connected to each other that it is almost impossible to analyse one without
discussing the other as well (144). He also explains that race and masculinity are closely
related, even if we do not always realise this.
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‘The very use of the word “white” suggests an attempt to appear colorless, thus
raceless, when in fact very few white people are actually white. If a key morphology
of masculinity is implicitly defined as white, any hegemony or advantage assigned to
that masculinity can be attributed to the category of whiteness, while non-white bodies
are made into another masculinity’ (145).
This means that we may subconsciously attribute certain qualities of masculinity to a white
male, and not to a black male, which makes us prejudiced. This prejudice is also present in
Blackboard Jungle, when we are made to believe that Gregory Miller is the bad guy, while it
really was the white Artie West all along.
1.4 About stars
The part the main actors play in creating the image of these characters is very important in
these films, especially in the cases of Dean and Brando, whose off-screen reputations in those
days were very similar to those of the characters they played. Dean and Brando were already
quite famous when they portrayed Jim and Johnny, and their reputation of masculine guys in
real life influenced the way their onscreen characters were viewed.
Cohan touches on the reputation and ‘authenticity’ of Brando and other ‘rebels’ in his
book. When discussing the off-screen reputation of Brando, the actor famous for playing
immature characters, he notes ‘ the actor’s well-publicized nonconformity was taken as
evidence of his own immaturity’ (243). The link between his on-screen characters and his offscreen life was easily made, judging by the things that were published on Brando and his
behaviour. Brando was known for his method acting, which made his performance seem very
authentic, but at the same time, Cohan observes Brando’s ‘calculated use of performance
signs centered on his body’ (252). His authenticity on-screen had an effect on the authenticity
ascribed to him off-screen, but this might as well have been an act, to conform to the idea
people had of him. Cohan cites an article from the magazine Photoplay, in which it is
revealed that most of the rebellious actors actually led a very quiet home life, and were not as
rebellious as they would have liked the world to believe (239). This all shows that the concept
of authenticity has an effect on how we look at movie stars and the parts they play.
Dyer also discusses stars in his work. In ‘A Star is Born and the Construction of
Authenticity’ he describes the authenticity of stars and how all the images that are made of
them are a part of how we view them, and all of these images put together form the
‘authentic’ image of a star.
15
‘(…) it is the stars really seeming to be what he/she is supposed to be that secures
his/her star status, ‘star quality’, or charisma. Authenticity is both a quality necessary
to the star phenomenon to make it work, and also the quality that guarantees the
authenticity of the other particular values a star embodies (…). It is this effect of
authenticating authenticity that gives the star charisma’ (133).
In short, authenticity is the most important aspect for a star. They need to live up to the image
the world has of them to be seen as authentic, and thus to be a star. This relates to what Cohan
said about authenticity, and it is important when considering the images of Dean and Brando,
and the way their image affected the characters they played.
In the book Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Dyer focuses on the
construction of stars and the differences between stars and real life. This also relates to what
Cohan mentioned in his chapter about stars and authenticity, because the way the stars claim
to be in real life, and how they really behave, might not be the same. Whether it is the image
the press constructs of a star, or whether the star influences this image on purpose, it is still
merely an image that their authenticity is based on. Dean and Brando might have wanted to
make the world believe that they were rebels in real life, something which fit the image that
they constructed, but they may well have been calm and easy-going off camera. When they
behaved in a rebellious way, this seemed authentic, because of their rebellious image.
16
2. The Wild One: the outlaw rebel
Before I will start my analysis of The Wild One, I will distinguish between the different kinds
of rebels that David Baker described, and explain what kind of rebel Johnny Strabler is, and
why. Johnny makes for a different kind of rebel than Rebel Without a Cause’s Jim Stark.
Johnny is an outlaw, but only on the weekends. ‘On weekends we go out and have a ball’ he
says (47). This makes him an example of a rock rebel, also called the ‘outlaw rebel’, who has
got access to free time, and who has got a choice in his rebellion. He has the opportunity to
choose what he would like to rebel against, because we can assume – since he seems to use
the weekends to go out and have fun – that he has actually got a job, which means that he has
got an income, probably a house. He does not actually need to rebel against anything. It is a
choice, which he decides to act on during the weekends. That is why he does not have just one
cause he is rebelling against, he is rebelling against whatever you have got. His choice is the
act of being a rebel, he is not making a stand for any particular cause. Baker goes on to say
that this also means that he would even stand up for the authorities – but only if and when his
authenticity as a rebel was being questioned (48). As I will show in the chapter on Rebel
Without a Cause, this is very different from Jim Stark’s kind of rebellion against his parents.
Baker mentions the influence that both Brando’s Johnny Strabler and Dean’s Jim Stark have
had on rock style and rock attitude, even though they are different kinds of rebels.
To analyse the ways in which masculinity is used in this now classic film, I will
analyse two important scenes. First I will discuss the scene in which Johnny gets into a fight
with Chino and the other bikers, then I will focus my attention on the scene in which Johnny
saves Kathie, but also gets in a fight with her. In doing this I will also discuss the different
looks of the different groups of men in the film, and explain and apply the new masculinity
that Cohan describes.
2.1 Chino and the Beetles
The first scene I will analyse deals with the rivalry between Johnny Strabler’s B.R.M.C. and
Chino’s Beetles, the motorcycle gang Johnny used to belong to (00.27.14 – 00.34.40). We are
introduced to Chino and the Beetles when they come driving onto our screens, accompanied
by an upbeat tune. Chino is right up there, front and centre, and is obviously the leader of the
gang. Due to the composition of the image our attention is immediately directed towards him
17
(fig. 2). When the riders notice the Rebels’ bikes, they stop and turn, and start messing with
them, especially with Johnny’s. Chino takes the trophy – which Johnny had ‘won’ racing the
towns’ people earlier – and which he had attached to his bike. Then Johnny notices that Chino
has got his trophy, and a fight ensues.
At the beginning of the fight, Chino grants Kathie power over the trophy. He had
overheard some of the guys saying that Johnny was her boyfriend and he joked about her
seeing her hero bleed to death on the street. By involving Kathie in the fight, he upped the
stakes: they were no longer just fighting over Johnny’s trophy, but also over the grace of the
girl. They are showing off their masculinity in the fight to impress Kathie.
At first the fight mainly consists of pushing and shoving, but after a while it escalates
into much more aggressive struggling. When Chino entrusts the trophy to Kathie, this only
angers Johnny more. This trophy will continue to remind Johnny of Kathie throughout the
entire film. The gangs cheer their leaders on and the townspeople gather round and watch the
fight. Just as the fighting seems to come to a close – Chino, who appears to be losing,
suggests going for a beer – a car, driven by local Charlie, crashes into some of the bikes.
Rider Meatball almost gets hit by the car as well, and none of the other bikers are about to let
Charlie get away with that. Chino grabs and shakes Charlie, and a lot of bikers work together
to push Charlie’s car over. This is enough for police officer Harry to intervene. At first he is
inclined to arrest both Chino and Charlie (who claims that Meatball drove into him with his
bike), but the other townspeople persuade him to let Charlie off the hook, because he would
continue to cause Harry trouble for taking him in. Johnny confronts Harry with this, and
Harry offers him a free pass if they all leave right away. Johnny – who is not a big fan of cops
– declines this offer. This distrust of authorities fits Johnny’s rebellious image to a tee. Marlon
Brando himself was also known for his non-conformity, for doing things that were not
considered ‘normal’, for being a rebel (Cohan 241). Even though it would have been smart to
take Harry’s deal, it seems perfectly natural that Johnny would decline it. Cooperating with a
police officer would be abiding the law, which is exactly the opposite of what Johnny wanted
to be doing, and of what Brando wanted to show the world.
The clothing style of the bikers is a marker of their rebellious nature. Johnny and his
gang are all dressed in jeans and leather jackets, and many of them wear their caps and hats
lopsided on their heads. Their stance is nonchalant, their hands are stuffed in the pockets of
their leather jackets, or their thumbs are hooked behind the pockets of their jeans (fig. 1).
Chino’s gang does not exactly resemble the orderly townspeople either, but their appearance
18
is much more unkempt than that of the B.R.M.C. Their clothes seem to have been put together
at random, and they all look a little different from each other. A lot of them have grown
beards and are sporting accessories, like pipes, necklaces, goggles, and hats (fig. 2).
The behaviour of both groups varies as well. Johnny does not say much and usually
appears to be quite calm, but he seems genuinely upset while fighting Chino. Chino, however,
is constantly cracking jokes and seems to consider the fight to be a bit of a joke. He does not
seem to be bothered too much by losing, and is more concerned with the bottle of booze he
held onto during the fight. The alcohol might explain the slight wobble in his – and most of
his gangs’ – gait. Meatball does not seem to be quite steady on his feet either, and not just
because of the (alleged) crash.
These two groups of bikers are examples of what Peter Biskind calls the new and the
old form of masculinity. Cohan uses Biskind’s theory in his work, and this is how Biskind
describes the new form of masculinity:
The new generation of actors who came to age in the late forties and early and midfifties were well suited to the new masculinity (…) Men (…) were sensitive, in close
touch with their feelings (or could be made to be) (…) Men, in other words, were
becoming more like women. They were becoming ‘feminized’. When they put down
the gun, they put on the apron (in Cohan 262).
Men were no longer just tough guys, they had learned how to express their emotions,
something that used to be a decidedly feminine quality. By appropriating a feminine
characteristic, a new form of masculinity was created by this new generation of men.
Johnny might not have been very good at expressing his feelings, he does seem to portray
more emotion than Chino, especially during the fight. None of the other men in the town seem
really comfortable around emotions either, we do not see them display any emotion other than
anger towards the bikers, even when old Jimmy dies. They are very different from Johnny and
his Rebels, but they are very different from Chino and his gang as well. They are ‘squares’,
not at all hip, and definitely not rebels. Johnny and Chino are bikers, which implies a sense of
toughness and rebellion right away. They do not adhere to the rules and values of squares.
They do whatever they want. Even if this includes dressing up as women and dancing
together like men and women would, like several of Johnny’s Rebels do (fig. 3). They may
chase the towns’ girls around, including Kathie, but dressing up as women seems a perfectly
normal thing to do for them as well. This fits much better with the new form of masculinity
than with the old one, considering it is sort of feminine behaviour, something the towns’ men
19
would not approve of, let alone do. This is a fairly good example of the transvestite effect that
Cohan describes (259). By dressing up as women, they emphasise their altered position in this
new form of masculinity. They do not act like the men of the old masculinity, but they are
definitely not women either – or actual transvestites: they may have dressed up like women, it
seems to be more of a mockery than a genuine desire to look like a woman.
The differences between the gangs’ appearances also divide them into men and boys.
Johnny and his gang are clean-shaven, and seem to be well groomed in general. Despite their
choice of tough looking clothes, they do not look ragged or dirty. Chino and his Beetles,
however, seem to be the complete opposite. They are unshaven and look shabby. They do not
seem to have taken much time in deciding what clothes to throw on. Johnny’s gang looks
clean-cut and boyish compared to Chino’s guys, who are best described as rough looking
men.
Steven Cohan compares Brando’s generation to the previous one, using actor John
Wayne as a primary example of the old masculinity. Cohan explains that the new generation’s
rebellious and youthful reputation stems from ‘(…) the uniform of black leather jacket, Tshirt, and jeans; the mumbling diction emphasizing inarticulate (and uneducated) speech and
deeply rooted (and unresolved) emotionality (…)’ (202). Because stars like Brando and –
among others – Montgomery Clift adhered to this image both on and off screen, the
combination of their real lives and the characters they played blended together in creating
their reputation of rebels. Cohan describes the origin of their reputation as ‘(…) their selfconscious posing, grungy clothing, lack of formal education, working-class identity, urban
background, emotional immaturity, alienation from corporate America (…)’ (202). This
behaviour is also partly responsible for Johnny’s reputation as a rebel, while Chino’s style and
behaviour are actually much more like John Wayne’s. Johnny and his guys may have been the
rebels in this film, Chino and his gang showed a form of masculinity that was much more
common in those days. This newer form of masculinity, that can be seen in Brando, was
considered by many to be too feminine. John Wayne was one of the people who supported
this opinion:
The derogatory depiction of the “torn T-shirt types” as “trembling” in John Wayne’s
interview condenses into that single, engendered adjective the new stars’
interiorization of masculinity, the signal effect of their distinct performance style,
which translated the social nonconformity connoted by their rebel pose into the
psychological terms of inner torment and emotional excess (203).
20
1.
00:34:58 B.R.M.C
2.
00:27:13 Chino en The Beetles
21
Wayne is obviously not a big fan of this new generation. But it is not just their fashion style
that bothers him. He refers to them as ‘trembling’, conveying that to him they are weak, they
are so weak that they are trembling. They are guys who are so troubled, it shows in their
attitude. They might be rebels, but they are struggling with their feelings, struggling with their
masculinity. Wayne’s generation had no such doubts about their masculinity, or if they did,
they would definitely never show it. They would hide it behind acting tough. Wayne
disapproves of showing doubt in one’s masculinity, it diminishes that same masculinity in his
eyes. Sharing your feelings – or even having any self-doubt – would be a faux pas when
adhering to the old masculinity. By Wayne’s standards, Chino’s gang comes off a lot more
masculine than Johnny’s, by not letting any self-doubt in. Chino considers the fight more of a
joke than anything else. To him it is just some guys being rowdy, and he obviously enjoys
getting on Johnny’s nerves. Johnny takes the fight a lot more seriously. The way he responds
to Chino’s taunts shows that he cares about his reputation and that Chino is really getting to
him. Chino seems to know exactly which buttons to push to make Johnny feel insecure. He
aggressively attacks Chino and really wants to win back his trophy and impress Kathie in the
process. He fights to protect his honour and to prove his masculinity, not just to Kathie, but
also to himself. There is much more at stake for him than there is for Chino, who does not
seem to care much one way or the other, he is just enjoying the brawl.
The rivalry between the two gangs can be seen not just in their behaviour, but even in
their style. Johnny’s gang looks cool in leather, but they also look boyish, while Chino’s gang
looks ragged and tough. The represent the old and the new form of masculinity as described
by Steven Cohan. Johnny is an example of the new form of masculinity. He is more boy than
man, and actually shows some emotion, something that Chino, who fits right into the old form
of masculinity, would never do. According to actor John Wayne, this new generation is so
insecure about their masculinity, that it shows in their behaviour, something which he
disapproves of.
2.2 Johnny and Kathie
The next scene I will discuss focuses on the relationship between Johnny and Kathie, but also
deals with the general behaviour towards women in this film (00.46.20 – 00.56.30). The scene
starts with cheerful music, and the joyful sounds of some of the bikers. Night has fallen and
they have grown loud and rowdy due to some alcohol. They are dancing with some of the
22
local girls, but they are also dancing with each other while dressed up as girls (fig. 3). When
they notice Kathie, they all approach her, trying to dance with her and touching her. She flees
from them as soon as she can, but the guys grab their bikes and follow her. They manage to
surround her with their bikes, circling around her intimidatingly (fig. 4). The only light that
illuminates the scene comes from the headlights of their bikes. This has the eerie, threatening
effect of only really illuminating Kathie and placing her right in the centre of the screen,
focusing both the bikers’ and our attention on her. The bikers are clouded in darkness which
emphasises the danger Kathie is in and makes them form a kind of anonymous, uniform
threat. They symbolise the kind of threat that people were afraid of in those days (and perhaps
still are): a big group of nameless, faceless thugs, intending to cause trouble. Then Johnny
arrives, taking on the role of hero, of the good guy, and saves Kathie from the others. Johnny
is clearly visible, well-lit, and represents not just hope for Kathie, but also for the spectator.
There might be a good guy among the dark and dangerous group of delinquents after all.
Kathie gets on the back of Johnny’s bike and they take off together. The mood of the
scene changes immediately and becomes much more cheerful. They drive off towards the
woods, while a soft jazzy tune is playing in the background. This setting is very different from
the threatening situation in the town they just left, and it emphasises the romantic nature of
this part of the scene. Kathie is holding Johnny, her saviour, tight, and they even share the
occasional meaningful look. But sometimes the music will flare up, grow louder and shriller,
reflecting both the stressful situation Kathie just left, the tension between them, and
foreshadow the stressful situation yet to come. Johnny’s feelings towards Kathie are not
always clear, which is partly responsible for the tension between them. He seems to be
struggling with his feelings for her. Perhaps because her father is a cop, perhaps because he
considers these feelings to be a sign of weakness on his part (since the few girls we have seen
him interact with, besides Kathie, he seems to treat with a certain amount of disdain). When
they stop, the tension between them takes a turn for the worse. Again, this is reflected in the
music that accompanies the scene. It takes on a fairly threatening sound during the upcoming
part. Kathie sits down on a rock, but Johnny commands her to get up. Because this part of the
scene is set in a park, we are very aware of the fact that the two are alone now, away from the
threatening gang members, but also from the other townspeople who might have been able
intervene if things were to get hairy. When Kathie does not immediately obey Johnny, he
grabs her and kisses her aggressively. This obviously upsets Kathie, but she tells him she is
too tired to fight. She even goes as far as saying that he would probably enjoy it if she fought
23
back, so he could hit her. Johnny retaliates by saying that she must think she is too good for
him, and that he does not want to waste his time on a square. He says he could easily hit her,
but he just does not want to do that. He then wants to take her back to the town, but she stops
him by saying ‘you’re afraid of me’. Johnny denies this, just as she denies being afraid of
him. Kathie continues trying to figure out what Johnny is all about: ‘You’re still fighting,
aren’t you? You’re always fighting. Why do you hate everybody?’ Johnny refuses to respond
to these questions, but Kathie does not really seem to mind. For the moment, the worst of the
tension seems to have subsided. Johnny says he wants to leave, because he thinks that is what
she wants. Kathie asks him if she can have his trophy after all, and says she has always
wanted someone to come and take her away. She hopes he might take her with him, but then
tensions suddenly flare up again. She starts to cry and clings to him, but he pushes her away.
This is too much for Kathie, and she runs off, still crying. Johnny seems to regret his actions
immediately and follows her on his bike.
Looking back at the beginning of the scene, the noisy bikers both exude masculinity,
but they also dress up like women in a decidedly un-masculine fashion. They are both chasing
girls and dressing up as them. It is possible that the alcohol is to blame for their dancing and
their willingness to dress up like women, but it clashes with their image of tough bikers
nonetheless. Because Johnny does not participate in this behaviour, he separates himself from
his buddies in this scene. Because he saves Kathie from the others, he seems to be her saviour,
seems to treat her much better than the other guys, but at the same time he is sending her
mixed signals. He saves her, he flirts with her, but he also forces himself on her and then
pushes her away again when she actually wants to be with him. This kind of macho behaviour
makes him seem almost as bad as the ones who chased and surrounded her. During their
conversation – in which Kathie shows him her emotions and talks about her dreams – he is
obviously struggling with his own feelings. His verbal responses to her sound agitated and a
little bored, while the looks he is giving her show that his responses are not an accurate
representation of his feelings (fig. 5).
During the scene Johnny and Kathie both have some kind of power over the other. Johnny
starts out having the most power, saving her and then toying with her emotions by grabbing
her. The power switches to Kathie, however, when she indicates she is too tired to fight
Johnny and generally appears to be unimpressed by his aggressive behaviour. She even
notices that he is afraid of her, something he would never admit to, but it appears to have a
grain of truth in it, considering he appears to be incapable of actually doing something – good
24
3.
0:46:43 Dancing
motorcyclists,
dressed up as
women
4.
00:49:19
Motorcyclists
surround Kathie
25
or bad – to Kathie during the remainder of the scene. His struggle with his own feelings
weakens him and gives Kathie the upper hand, until she suddenly breaks down at the end of
the scene. When Johnny pushes her away, he has regained power over her again, but it is also
a sign of weakness on his part. Not only is he incapable of dealing with his own feelings, he
cannot seem to deal with hers either. Not dealing with emotions can be seen as a sign of
masculinity, but considering the fact that he is showing his struggle with his feelings, we are
obviously dealing with the new kind of masculinity again. The one Brando’s generation is a
part of. His inner struggle is clearly visible in his eyes, something John Wayne, and maybe
even Chino, would probably avoid (fig. 5).
Both Johnny and Kathie often seem to think they know what the other wants (Kathie
thinks Johnny wants to hit her and Johnny seems pretty sure that Kathie wants him to leave),
even though they did not always have probable cause to assume these things. (Nor do we
know whether these were things either of them actually wanted, since this is never made
clear.) Johnny and Kathie actually seem fairly evenly matched throughout the scene, but in
the end Kathie’s emotions overpower her, and leave her incapable of dealing with Johnny or
anything else anymore. Showing the way women were viewed in those days: as weaker than
men, because they are ruled by their emotions.
Marlon Brando created his own image quite carefully. He was considered to be a
strange, neurotic and immature guy. Growing up, he had a fairly dominant mother, which is
perhaps a reason for his doubts about his masculinity. But Brando did not seem troubled by
these assessments of his character. On the contrary, when Twentieth Century Fox sued him
for breach of contract, he used a report by his psycho-analyst, which described him as ‘a very
sick and mentally confused boy’ (Cohan 243). How genuine this image of Brando was, we
cannot really know for sure. All the information we have on him was used to create this
image. Both the onscreen antics of his characters, and the stories that hit the press off screen.
This image we have of him, the one that he might have knowingly created, may seem
authentic, but we cannot know for sure. Richard Dyer notes that once an image exists,
someone’s behaviour is judged by that existing image to see whether they are true to
themselves, instead of asking whether it was true in the first place (1991, 133).
This classic film shows us several different types of masculinity, types which were
typical for the 1950s. The townspeople and the two gangs all represent a different form of
masculinity: the townspeople are neat and well groomed, they do not show many emotions
and they can be considered squares. Chino’s gang represents the old, rough and tough form of
26
masculinity, with his shabby looking gang of bikers, whose only goal seems to be to have
some fun with everyone who crosses their path. Johnny and his gang stand for the new form
of masculinity. They are boyish and look cleaner than Chino and his thugs. They are also
more aware of their emotions, although they really do not know how to deal with them, but
they will fight anyone who will doubt their authenticity as rebels. The fact that they only rebel
on the weekends, makes them rock rebels: they have got the freedom to decide what they
want to rebel against and when to do it. Brando’s life and actions show some definite
similarities to that of Johnny. He is a nonconformist, who is also judged on his authenticity.
To see how Blackboard Jungle compares to The Wild One on these issues, I will analyse
several scenes of this film in the next chapter.
5.
00:54:22 Johnny struggles with his feelings
27
3. Blackboard Jungle: the delinquent
‘Although its shock value has diminished with time, Blackboard Jungle remains a
harsh testimony to how wide the gulf between parents and teenagers had become by
the mid-1950s’ (Doherty 2002, 58).
Thomas Doherty notes here that teens and their parents were dealing with bigger differences
than ever before, something that is represented in Blackboard Jungle by showing the
difficulties a high school teacher has with his rebellious students. And although the youth in
The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause have plenty of problems with their parents and the
authorities, their behaviour is a lot less severe than that of their peers in Blackboard Jungle.
This is why Doherty uses this movie as an example of the wide gulf between parents and
teens in the mid-1950s. In the other movies, the rebels and the authorities eventually manage
to settle the worst of their differences, but Artie West fights Dadier until the very last
moment. Most of the teens side with Dadier, but thanks to West and a few of his buddies, the
tone of this film is much darker than that of the other films, because West never
acknowledges, what Doherty calls, ‘the moral superiority of the social order’. He remains a
delinquent throughout the film (59). West is not a rebel, like Johnny Strabler or Jim Stark. He
is a delinquent, whose only choice in life is whether he will join the army or go to jail. This
means he lacks the freedom to choose what to rebel against, and when to do so. As David
Baker points out, he cannot be a rock rebel, because he has got no options. He is driven to a
life of crime because of this and can be considered a delinquent (49).
In this chapter I will focus on the aspects of the film that show both the differences
between men and women, and how people of different ethnicities are treated. Sidney Poitier’s
role in this is important and I will discuss him as well. I will also focus on the differences
between rebels and delinquents, as described by David Baker.
3.1 Miss Hammond
In this paragraph I will focus on one of the few women in the film, Lois Hammond. Miss
Hammond is, just like Richard Dadier and Josh Edwards, a new teacher at North Manual High
school. She is one of the few female teachers, and the only one who actually gets some screen
time. The only other women who we get to know are Dadier’s wife and their next-door
neighbour. Unlike Dadier’s wife Anne, Lois Hammond has a job, which makes it easier to
28
compare the way she is treated to the way her male colleagues are treated. This makes Lois a
more interesting character than Anne, because it is easier to see the differences between men
and women, when a character that should be equal to her male colleagues is treated
significantly different from them.
When we first meet Lois, she is still hopeful that there will be students who are eager
to learn, even though one of the veteran teachers (Jim Murdock) has just been declaring the
opposite. The men now focus their attention on Lois, and let their eyes roam all over her body
(fig. 6 & 7). Miss Hammond is placed in the centre of the screen on her own (there are some
colleagues in the background, but our attention is immediately drawn to the figure in the
foreground, who is shown in sharper relief), while her male colleagues are all grouped closely
together. This emphasises not just that there are more men than women in this school (and in
this film), but also that the men tend to stick together. The fact that the majority of the faculty
seems to be male does not seem to bother Miss Hammond, but when she is confronted with
the all-male student body later on, she gets nervous. Her colleagues are not exactly helpful
either. Murdock asks her, right before she has to go up on stage to call out her students: ‘You
gonna teach in that outfit?’ He is not just warning her for the boys’ reaction to her outfit, he
is also judging her choice in clothing himself. When she has to get up on stage to call out the
names of the senior class, the boys howl and whistle at her. And when she drops something,
she is too scared to pick it up herself, afraid the boys will find more reason to whistle when
she shows them her body at another angle. One of her colleagues picks it up for her, and then
bows to her, which causes laughter among the boys. This may seem a gesture of respect at
first, but it only serves to emphasise her embarrassment. Instead of just carrying on, her
colleague focuses on the moment and draws all the attention to her, even though she
obviously does not want that.
When she leaves at the end of the day, once again one of her colleagues cannot help
but stare at her while she walks away. Miss Hammond only really has eyes for Dadier though,
and she offers him a lift. After a moment’s hesitation, he agrees to meet her downstairs. When
he gets there, she seems to have already left, but then he notices her shoe on the ground.
Dadier hears noises coming from the library and rushes over there. One of the students, Joe
Murray, is grabbing her and is forcing himself on her (fig. 8). Dadier immediately jumps on
the boy and gets him away from Lois, who keeps screaming. Dadier manages to overtake the
boy, who is then taken away by some other teachers. While other new teacher Josh Edwards
29
is as shocked as Lois and Dadier, Jim Murdock barely seems surprised. He just remarks that
school has definitely started again.
This scene makes the position of women on this high school painfully clear. A violent
attack on one of the female teachers does not even surprise the experienced staff members
anymore. Murdock’s remark on her clothes earlier, can now be considered a much more
serious warning than just to let her know the boys might whistle. This does not mean that
behaviour like this is condoned by the teachers. Joe Murray is no longer welcome at the
school and receives his punishment. But the feeling remains that some of it was her own fault.
A sentiment which is reiterated when Dadier relays the story to his wife. Her first reaction is
that Miss Hammond probably brought it on herself by wearing provocative clothes. Dadier
disagrees with this, which prompts Anne to ask if Miss Hammond is pretty. Her questions and
critique seem to stem from jealousy, but nonetheless, she does not seem to be very shocked by
the events. All of this makes it seem like Miss Hammond provoked the boys and should have
known what her clothes would do to them. When she adjusted her tights on the stairwell, a
public place, Murray noticed this (fig. 9). It is almost as if this innocent act justified Murray’s
attempt to rape her, as if she provoked him by accidentally showing him a little more of her
legs than was appropriate.
In this scene on the stairwell, the camera focuses on Miss Hammond and draws our
attention to her, even though Murray is closer to us. We can only see his head, which is
mostly turned towards Miss Hammond, granting him anonymity. Miss Hammond is unaware
of any spectators and Murray is the anonymous voyeur in this scene. Both Murray and the
spectator are looking at Miss Hammond with a (heterosexual) voyeuristic gaze, while she is
completely unaware of any audience at all. Steve Neale describes the voyeuristic gaze as
follows:
‘Voyeuristic looking is marked by the extent to which there is a distance between
spectator and spectacle, a gulf between the seer and the seen. This structure is one
which allows the spectator a degree of power over what is seen’(1983, 11).
This is the classic gaze, in which the woman is the subject of the heterosexual man’s gaze.
Laura Mulvey calls the way women are both looked at and displayed ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’
(33). According to Neale, men can also be looked at in this way. This is only possible when
men are actively doing something though, like fighting, not when they are merely standing on
a staircase like Miss Hammond, unaware of any spectators. When a fight has to determine the
30
6.
00:07:19 Miss Hammond
7.
00:07:25 The male teachers judge their female colleague
8. 00:24:34 Murray attacks Miss Hammond
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narrative outcome, it becomes a spectacle, enabling both a voyeuristic and a fetishistic gaze.
When the fetishist gaze is applied, the object knows it is being watched.
‘The anxious ‘aspects’ of the look at the male to which Willemen refers are (…) both
embodied and allayed not just by playing out the sadism inherent in voyeurism
through scenes of violence and combat, but also by drawing upon the structures and
processes of fetishistic looking, by stopping the narrative in order to recognise the
pleasure of display, but displacing it from the male body as such and locating it more
generally in the overall components of a highly ritualised scene’ (Neale 12).
This occurs in Blackboard Jungle. During the confrontation between West and Dadier at the
end of the film, no women are present and the narrative outcome is tied to the outcome of the
fight, yet the narrative itself is taking second place to the fight at this moment. West and
Dadier are aware of the audience they have, they know they are being looked at, and this
gives the heterosexual guys in the audience permission to watch the spectacle and get a good
look at the guys (fig. 11). Although there are none of the sexual undertones that Murray’s
gaze at Miss Hammond had, it enables us to look at the men in a different way.
Meanwhile, Artie West has been using Miss Hammond’s name to mess with Dadier.
He has been sending letters and making phone calls to Dadier’s wife, claiming that Dadier has
been having an affair with his colleague Lois Hammond. And while Miss Hammond has
indeed shown an interest in Dadier, he never responded to her advances. He is faithful to his
wife and is unaware of the messages she has been receiving, until they cause her so much
stress that she goes into labour prematurely and has to be taken to the hospital. Both women
are merely used by West as a means to get to Dadier and to try and destroy his career and his
personal life. This is an example of one of the biggest differences between men and women in
this movie: the men are active, they do things, while the women are passive, things are
happening to them, things they appear to have no influence over. This makes taking action
one of the characteristics of masculinity in this film. Men can make their own decisions, they
have influence over the events in their lives, while the women seem to be incapable of
changing the situations they are thrown into. This reflects the 1950s notion of strong men and
weak women.
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3.2 Sidney Poitier as Gregory Miller
Renowned actor Sidney Poitier’s first starring role was that of cool guy Gregory Miller. From
the moment Dadier first meets his students, it is obvious that Miller has a certain reputation
within the group. The other kids look up to him. Dadier hopes that Miller will be of help to
him in trying to get the rest of the class to behave, considering they are inclined to do
whatever he does, so he calls him a ‘natural born leader’ and implies that Miller’s behaviour
will influence his classmates. Miller does not make any promises to Dadier, but he never
really misbehaves during class. It was never Miller who was the biggest problem for Dadier
anyway, but Artie West, although it takes a while for Dadier to realise this. It is not
immediately clear to the spectator either, since, as Baker points out, Miller and West are often
seen in the same shot, implying that they somehow belong together, and that Miller is
responsible for all of the problems that ensue as well (50).
One of the issues that Dadier has to deal with during his lessons, are the racial tensions
between the teens. At one point, some the boys are arguing and West calls the Hispanic
Morales a ‘Spic’, used to offend people of Hispanic descent. Morales retaliates by calling
West a ‘Mick’, an insult aimed at the Irish. Dadier tries to calm the teens down and explains
that it is never justified to use these words, even if they were just trying to make a joke. In
explaining this, he uses the words himself, to show how hurtful they can be. This effort to
teach the teens some manners only results in Dadier being called to the principal’s office,
where he is informed that there has been a complaint about him using racist slurs in class.
Dadier draws his own conclusions and accuses Miller of making the complaint. He confronts
him with it, while barely able to control his anger over it. He grabs Miller, and they struggle
for a short while on the stairs (fig. 10). Miller is offended by the accusation, and Dadier only
makes the situation worse, by making a racist remark about Miller himself. Even though he
immediately apologises, the damage has been done, and he has alienated Miller. By
immediately accusing the black guy, Dadier has shown himself to be less open minded and
more prejudiced than he would like people – including himself – to believe.
In spite of this, it is obvious that he regrets his outburst, because he keeps trying to get
closer to Miller. When he discovers that Miller plays the piano and sings in a choir, Dadier
tries to get him and his friends involved in the school musical that he is directing, and he
succeeds. Miller’s response to this request – and the fact that he still treats Dadier kindly and
with respect – shows what kind of guy he really is. Later on, Dadier walks him to his job, and
33
they discuss school, race, work and teachers on the way. Outside of the setting of the high
school, the two become more like equals than student and teacher, and both Dadier and the
viewer get to see where Miller works and how he behaves out of school. Miller lives in a
black neighbourhood and works at an auto repair shop where the customers do not care he is
black. Just the fact that he feels this last part is worth mentioning, shows that he has to deal
with racism in other parts of his life quite often. Miller is intending to quit school and start
working at the auto repair shop full time once he turns 18, but Dadier tries to convince him
not to give up on school just yet, because he is a good student. Miller confronts him with the
amount of teachers that do not care and give up, and they end up making a deal, agreeing that
neither of them will throw in the towel just yet.
Cohan notes how race is used in an unusual way in Blackboard Jungle, by focusing on
it at first, but then dropping the issue altogether:
‘(…) after a heated confrontation between white teacher and black student about the
former’s racism, which allows the film at once to recognize and deny the place of race
in its representation of both delinquency and authority, Blackboard Jungle then shifts
gears, ignoring the ethnic and working class composition of the student body to blame
all the disturbances in Dadier’s classroom on the pathology of the psychologically
disturbed white teenager, Artie West’ (118).
American society was divided by racial issues and class differences in those days, but as it
turns out, neither of these issues was the cause of all of Dadier’s problems with his students.
They were caused by Artie West, the white boy with psychopathic tendencies. Class
differences between the guys were never really shown, and race had absolutely nothing to do
with it in the end.
Richard Dyer (2002) also notes that conflicts often arise between different classes, or
at least when white men are involved. Black men are often treated as separate from class, but
Sidney Poitier is an exception to this. In his films, he is often presented as middle class, which
is hinted at in this film as well (129). Miller does not come from a good neighbourhood and is
planning on leaving school to go to work full time, but stays on after all. Add to this that he is
the first student to take the side of the white, middle class teacher, and it is easy to see how he
might end up in the middle class himself, being a hardworking, kind guy.
Because Poitier often portrayed educated and kind characters, he was easy to identify
with for both black people – who appreciated him for not portraying the stereotypical kind of
black men Hollywood often used – and for white people as well, who were not used to seeing
34
black men portrayed as equal to white men. ‘His characters were non-confrontational black
men with whom white viewers could sympathize, while black viewers could appreciate that
his characters were markedly different from past stereotypes’ (Benshoff and Griffin 87). By
not focusing on race or class, and by choosing to go with a different explanation for the
conflicts the characters are dealing with, Blackboard Jungle presents a different way of
dealing with masculinity within conflicts. In those days, African-American men were often
presented in a racist way as being ‘hyper virile’, they were sexualised to a point where they
would do everything for sex, even resorting to violence (Reeser 149). While Miller is
suspected of several different delinquencies, none of them have anything to do with a sex
offence. The guy who harassed Miss Hammond was white, and even though a lot of the boys
and men in the film make negative remarks to women, or stare at them, Miller is never one of
them.
Miller takes Dadier’s side completely when it comes down to a confrontation between
West and Dadier. I will go into the details of this explosive conclusion of the film later, but
Miller’s choice to side with the teacher has a lot of influence on the rest of the boys. He
actively fights West, when most of the guys are too afraid to stand up to him. Because most of
the guys looked up to Miller to begin with, his actions are what convinces them to finally side
with him and Dadier, and show that they have got enough of West’s behaviour. Miller plays a
defining part in helping Dadier to finally deal with West definitively.
In the final scene, where Miller and Dadier leave the school together after dealing with
West, Miller proudly shows Dadier the can in which he is collecting money to replace Josh
Edwards’ record collection, which was destroyed by West and most of the other boys. The
men remind each other of their promise to not quit school just yet, and part ways as friends.
These two men are the heroes of this film, representing the most admirable way of dealing
with masculinity in Blackboard Jungle. West and his buddies only represent one form of
masculinity, while Miller and Dadier represent another form, which eventually turns out to be
the more enduring form, considering they manage to turn West in to the principal, and they
can be considered the winners in this story. Both characters are strong and they have a strong
sense of integrity and justice. This is especially admirable in Miller, who has dealt with
racism his entire life, and whose classmates hardly care about education, rules or respect. That
he still manages to treat others kindly and with respect really speaks for him. He makes the
active choice to stay on the right path, while delinquency might have been an easier option for
35
him. He even initiates collecting donations for Edwards’ record collection, even though he
was not involved in the destruction of those records in the first place.
At first, race seemed like an issue that needed to be dealt with in this film, but
eventually it fell to the wayside and Blackboard Jungle even sent out a positive message by
making Miller the hero of the movie. It is also important to note that Miller is neither a rock
rebel, nor a delinquent. We are meant to believe he is the latter for the first part of the film,
but when it turns out that West is the real delinquent, we come to realise that Miller is actually
just a normal guy, minding his own business. He does not qualify for Baker’s definition of a
rock rebel, because he lacks the freedom of having enough time and money, and the mobility
that is required to fit this description (40). He does not just go to school, he also has a job,
which means he barely has any time for himself. The racial tensions he has to deal with
restrict his movements and his freedom. Miller symbolises the part of the teens who did not
cause any trouble and who adjusted to their circumstances, which was – especially in those
days – an extremely positive representation of any teen, but especially a black teen.
3.3 The confrontation
Close to the end of the film, Dadier confronts West with everything he has done, and things
get violent. It starts when the class is doing a test, and West and his friend Belazi are causing
trouble once again. West is unashamedly copying the test of one of his classmates, and
continues to do so even when Dadier orders him to hand in his paper. Miller then tries to
convince West to listen to Dadier, but West calls him a nigger. This enrages Miller, and he is
showing signs of wanting to attack West, but Dadier asks him to sit down again, to which he
complies. Then Dadier sends West to the principal’s office, but he refuses and pulls out a
knife, which makes it obvious that West is not just a rebellious boy, but a dangerous
delinquent.
The moment West shows his knife, most of the students jump up and stand against the
walls of the classroom. Dadier, however, decides he will not put up with West any longer and
slowly approaches him. Miller tries to warn him that West has clearly lost it, and that he
should be cautious. West backs up when Dadier approaches him, but he is still holding his
knife at the ready. Miller then notices that Belazi is getting ready to attack Dadier from
behind, and he pushes him out of the way. West attacks at the same time, and grazes Dadier’s
hand with his knife. The rest of the class now wants nothing to with him anymore, and even
36
his friends do not respond to his requests for back-up. Eventually Dadier manages to back him
into a corner near the blackboard and overpowers him. Belazi picks up the knife, which has
fallen to the floor during the struggle, and is attempting to leave – he is deserting West as
well, stating that he should save his own skin – but Miller, Morales and Stoker block the
doorway. Then Santini attacks him with a flagpole and Morales grabs the knife and breaks it.
With both guys effectively taken down, the rest of the class immediately focuses on tending to
Dadier’s wound. Dadier’s first priority is to bring the boys to the principal, a decision he
wants to defend against the rest of the class, which turned out to be unnecessary, since they
were in complete agreement with him about the fate of the two delinquents. Miller even offers
to escort the two down there. When they walk off, Miller asks Stoker – a former friend of
West and Belazi – what made him change his mind. ‘Them’ is his answer, which marks the
end of the idea that they represent the ‘cool’ form of masculinity and rebellion. Even their
own friends changed their behaviour for the better, because they considered the actions of
West and Belazi to be too horrendous to condone.
Blackboard Jungle did not receive a positive response in many countries when it was
released, but this only helped in making it famous and turning it into the classic it is now
(Doherty 58). Women were treated with little respect by most of the male characters in this
film, and the viewer is encouraged to view them from a voyeuristic perspective as well.
According to Neale it is possible to look at men with a similar voyeuristic gaze too, on the
condition that they are actively engaging in an activity. Race starts out to be one of the main
issues in this film, but the movie ends up sending out a positive message about race. Miller is
not only not a delinquent, he is actually one of the nicest characters in the entire film. West,
the actual delinquent in this film, has little hope of a bright future, which is common for
delinquents. In the end Dadier’s authority overpowers the delinquents, with help from
Gregory Miller. In the next chapter I will discuss Rebel Without a Cause, where the teens also
clash with the authorities – mainly with their parents – but which lacks a true delinquent like
West.
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9.
00:23:47 Murray gazes at Miss Hammond's leg
10. 00:53:05 Dadier accuses Miller
11. 01:30:19 Confrontation between West en Dadier , with Miller warning Dadier
38
4. Rebel Without a Cause: the middle class rebel
What sets Rebel Without a Cause apart from the other movies from a cinematic point of view,
is that it was shot in widescreen, which offered a dimension to the movie that television could
not offer. This was important in a society that was increasingly staying home to watch TV,
instead of going out to the movies. The problem with this was that later, when it would be
aired on television, or much later on when it would be released on VHS, it would look
different, because the format had to be altered. Rebel was shot in Cinemascope, with an aspect
ratio of 2.55:1, while televisions could only handle 1.33:1. This meant a choice had to be
made in editing the film for television: either the entire width of the film would be visible,
which meant an empty top and bottom of the screen, or the sides would be altered, so the
entire screen of the television would be filled. The latter option was chosen (Belton 1992,
216). This technique is known as ‘panning and scanning’, and it requires either that cuts are
made, or that there will be movements from one side of the screen to the other, within one
shot. This way, the shots are framed differently and parts are re-edited, and stills and moving
images might be put in a different order. ‘It thus re-composes films made in and for
widescreen formats in at least three different ways: by reframing shots, by re-editing
sequences and shots, and by altering the pattern of still and moving shots used in the original
film’ (Neale 1998, 131). By doing this, part of the image disappears, which has its effect on
the end result of the film.
In this chapter I will discuss the forms of masculinity that appear in Rebel Without a
Cause. First I will discuss the fathers in this film, and how they use their masculinity in
raising their kids. Then I will show how Jim is trying to express himself, by discussing the
scene that involves the Chickie Run and its consequences. Finally I will take a look at the
relationship between Jim and Plato and the alleged homosexuality of one or more of the
characters.
4.1 Fathers
The first scene I will discuss focuses on the relationship between Jim and his dad, and Judy
and her dad. Both of them have issues with their fathers and the role their dads play in their
respective families, but these issues are vastly different (00:37:00-00:43:26). Plato does not fit
into this analysis, because both of his parents are absent.
39
The scene starts when Jim’s dad drops a tray loaded with food. Jim decides to take a
look, assuming it must be his mother who he has heard, and is surprised to find his dad
crouching on the floor, wearing an apron, and collecting all the food that has scattered. The
railing of the stairs covers Mr. Stark’s entire body, calling to mind the bars on prison cell (fig.
12). He is literally on his knees for his wife, and appears to be hold prisoner by her. It is
obvious that Mr. Stark is afraid of his wife and he does not want her to know that he has
spilled the food. Jim tells him to just let her know, because it should not matter, but his dad
just continues to clean the food off of the floor. Jim approaches him after this, and lifts him up
by his apron. He is trying to communicate to his dad that he believes he should stand up to his
mother, and that the way he is behaving is inappropriate (for a man), but he cannot find the
words and walks away, clearly frustrated. His dad merely looks confused, but then continues
cleaning.
We then get a look at Judy’s family. The scene takes place at the kitchen table, while
they are waiting for dinner to be served. Her dad comes home and sits at the head of the table.
Judy gives him a kiss, to which he responds that she is getting too old to do that, and that he
thought she had stopped doing that a while ago. Judy responds with: ‘I didn’t wanna stop’,
and she wants to know why she is not allowed to kiss her dad anymore, but he does not want
to discuss the matter and tries to end the conversation with ‘Girls your age don’t do things like
that’. He takes his young son onto his lap, while Judy continues her attempts to get answers.
‘Girls don’t love their fathers? Since when? Since I got to be 16?’ She kisses him on the
cheek, and he hits her. This upsets Judy so much that she runs off. Her dad tries to call her
back, but Judy exclaims that this is no longer her home and leaves. The camera never leaves
the kitchen, allowing the viewer to see Judy run out from her parents’ perspective, and at the
same time noticing that her exit does not have much effect on her parents. They seem to think
her age must be the cause of her behaviour and they start dinner without her.
We return to Jim’s family in the next shot, and see his dad entering his bedroom, still
wearing the apron. Jim really wants to ask his father for advice about the ‘Chickie Run’, and
how to deal with a challenge like that. His father appears glad that his son wants to talk to
him, but he does not really know how to help him, except to tell him not to make any hasty
decisions. At that point he notices the blood stains on Jim’s shirt, from the fight with Buzz
earlier that day, which worry him. He asks what kind of trouble Jim has gotten himself into, to
which Jim responds that he was just telling him about that and he asks his dad for answers
again. His dad repeats that Jim should not make any snap decisions and that he should
40
consider the pros and cons of the situation. He helps Jim out of his shirt and gives him a cloth
to clean the wound. Jim knows he does not have time to make a list of pros and cons, so he
asks his dad: ‘What can you do when you have to be a man?’ Unfortunately, his dad lacks a
sufficient answer yet again. Jim gives up on getting anything useful out of his dad, and walks
out of the room, while Mr. Stark is telling him how all the stuff that seems important now,
will seem inconsequential in ten years, and that these things happen to every boy. Jim exits
through the back door, while his dad is under the impression he has gone out the front door.
When Jim’s mother realizes her son is gone, her first response is to get mad with Mr. Stark for
letting Jim leave.
Jim has issues with the way his dad expresses his masculinity. This is evident even in
the scene at the police station, early in the film, where Jim discusses his parents with police
officer Ray Fremick. He complains about his bossy mother and grandmother, and the way his
dad seems unable to stand up to them, both for himself and for his son. Jim lacks a strong
male role model, which bothers him immensely. Jim tells the police officer that he does not
ever want to be like his father.
This can be seen in the scene I just described. The lack of masculinity is even apparent
in the way Mr. Stark looks. When Jim finds his dad, he is crouching on the floor, wearing a
yellow floral apron. At first Jim is slightly amused by seeing his father like this, but this is
quickly overshadowed by his embarrassment for, and frustration with, his dad. By crouching
low down on the floor, he seems to lower his status as well. And the main reason he is
cleaning up, is because he is afraid of his wife’s reaction to the mess he has made. Jim cannot
stand the sight of his father in such a feminine apron, literally on his knees for his mother, and
he tries to communicate this to his dad, but this appears to have little effect, leaving Jim
frustrated. Father and son are completely unable to communicate with one another and are
baffled by the other’s behaviour. Their issues with each other all seem to lead back to their
issues with masculinity. Jim does not know how to best express his masculinity, and he is
looking for a role model, for a man to teach him how to behave, but his dad is unable to fill
this role, and Jim blames him for this. But Mr. Stark is dealing with his own problems
regarding his masculinity. As Jon Lewis points out, he was raised in a time where marriage
was seen as a means to acquire masculinity, and where not getting married was seen as
evidence of having a weak personality and lack of masculinity. But as it turns out, getting
married was not exactly what Mr. Stark had been looking for either (147). Now that he has
41
married a strong, dominant woman, and is left doing chores, he feels less masculine and is
unsure of how to deal with this.
Judy’s dad, on the other hand, is an almost stereotypical male. He seems to consider
showing his teenage daughter affection a sign of weakness, perhaps inappropriate, but
certainly something a man should not do. His inability of dealing with affection and emotions
even extends to the emotions his daughter displays to him, so much so that he even hits her
when she gives him a kiss. He seems fine when it comes to showing his young son affection,
but apparently he does not know how to deal with a teenage daughter. He shows this in quite
an offensive way, which leaves her feeling hurt and unwelcome. Instead of seriously
considering their daughter’s response to her father’s rejection as a sign that he might have
gone too far, Judy’s parents blame it on ‘the age that nothing fits’. And even though there is
definitely a connection to her age and her behaviour – the teens in Rebel Without a Cause are
standing up to what their parents’ generation considers normal masculine behaviour – her
father’s actions play a pretty significant part in this as well. He does not attempt to explain
himself to his daughter, or to understand her feelings, or even to make a compromise.
When we are back at Jim’s place, we hear Mr. Stark call him ‘Jimbo’, as if Jim is still
his little boy, showing him to be the polar opposite of Judy’s distant, unemotional father. All
Jim is really hoping for at this point, is some advice from his dad on how to get out of the
Chickie Run, without coming off as a coward. When his dad fails to come up with any useful
answers, Jim seems lost and defeated. These feelings are shown physically when his dad helps
him with his wounds and takes his shirt off. Without his shirt, looking down, Jim looks more
like a little lost boy, than like the tough teenager he tries to be. Because he is placed in the
middle of the screen, and the widescreen shows us a lot of the room behind him, he looks
smaller, and his posture makes him appear insecure (fig. 13). He seems to have lost some of
his own masculinity in letting his effeminate dad take care of him. He makes one last attempt
to get some useful advice out of his dad, when he asks ‘what can you do when you have to be
a man?’, but his dad disappoints him yet again. He dresses himself, looking tough in his new
shirt, jeans and red leather jacket, a much more masculine look than his dad is sporting. Jim
leaves, much like Judy did, because his father has upset and disappointed him. Mr. Stark is
then once more shown to be the weaker one in his marriage, when his wife gets angry at him
for letting Jim leave.
Both Jim and Judy leave their parents behind, sending a clear message that they do not
agree with their parents’ behaviour. They both want to feel at home with their parents, but
42
they cannot. The atmosphere is tense, and Susan White mentions how it even seems
impossible for both of them to get a decent meal at home (69). (Jim declines the lunch his
mother made him, and Judy never even gets to eat dinner because of the fight with her father).
Jim’s dad is not masculine enough, while Judy’s dad seems overly masculine. It is up to Jim
and Judy to find a compromise when it comes to masculinity, because it is made clear in this
scene that they are not going to get any help from their parents in this. Together the teens
discuss what masculinity is, and Judy explains to Jim what girls are looking for in a man:
Judy: ‘What kind of a person do you think a girl wants?’
Jim: ‘A man.’
Judy: ‘Yes. But a man who can be gentle and sweet.’
Jim: ‘And?’
Judy: ‘Like you are. And someone who doesn’t run away when you want them. Like
being Plato’s friend when nobody else liked him. That’s being strong. (01:22:25)
This quote from Judy can be linked to the citation of Peter Biskind on page 19, where ‘men,
(…) were becoming more like women. They were becoming ‘feminized’. When they put
down the gun, they put on the apron’. Showing your feelings became a more accepted practice
for men as well – just like Judy says – which may have made men more feminine, but they
could still be considered tough by women. The definition of strong and masculine simply
changed, only perhaps not for all generations. This new form of masculinity, mainly accepted
by teens, was compared to the old form of masculinity within films, which defined the new
generation of actors, like Dean and Brando, as masculine in their own way.
Judy is actually explaining to Jim what she would like her own father to be like. She is
tired of being rejected just for showing affection, and hopes that Jim will treat her differently.
In saying this, she manages to help Jim with his own issues as well, because she is essentially
giving him permission to show his feelings, while still being considered strong and masculine.
At the same time, she is validating Jim’s father’s behaviour, by praising being gentle and
sweet as strong and admirable behaviour. Judy’s words here are helpful to Jim and his dad at
the end of the film, when Jim is mourning Plato’s death and seeks comfort with his dad, who
promises to be as strong as Jim needs him to be. At least Jim and Mr. Stark manage to find
some common ground and grow closer together, while Judy and her own father are never seen
working things out.
When looking at the life of Dean – and Brando – off screen, there are many
similarities. Teenagers looked up to Dean and identified with him (Springer 99-100). The
43
tough guy rebel image was mixed with the image of a sensitive guy, not in the least because
of the parts both Dean and Brando portrayed on screen, which showed a vulnerable side to
them (especially Dean). This new form of masculinity also caused gossip and rumours about
their sexual preference, referred to by Cohan as ‘sexual uncertainty’ (203). This gossip was
then again used in creating the image of the actors, because all available images and stories
about celebrities help shape how we picture them. Richard Dyer calls this the ‘star
phenomenon’ (2004, 2). The ideas on masculinity changed because of this, since Dean and
Brando were still considered cool and masculine, while they also showed a sensitive side to
themselves. This combination of masculine and feminine characteristics in actors like James
Dean, is another example of Cohan’s transvestite effect. Both Dean and his character Jim
were stuck between the traditional female and the traditional male gender roles, and because
of this, society needed to redefine their definition of masculinity (259). Dean and Brando,
were – among others – responsible for the upcoming form of masculinity that combined both
male, and previously exclusively female, personality traits.
12. 00:37:04 Mr. Stark crawling on the floor, wearing an apron
13. 00:42:07 Jim looking boyish and insecure with his shirt off
44
4.2 Chickie Run
The Chickie Run is all about masculinity. It is about getting yourself in a dangerous situation,
and not backing down until you absolutely have to. The first one who jumps out of the car that
is speeding towards the cliff is a chicken, hence the name of the game. Being considered a
chicken would mean being seen as less masculine, something that worries Jim, who has got
enough trouble trying to figure out his masculinity as it is. To make matters worse, the race
turns out to be a catastrophe in which Buzz is killed and Jim is left feeling more confused and
racked with guilt (00:46:46-00:52:45). This is the most significant scene of the film. Jim is
worried about it beforehand, as we have seen in the scene with his father. Prior to Buzz’s
challenge he had never heard of a Chickie Run, and he obviously has his doubts about the
merits of this practice.
Before the race, Jim and Buzz share a cigarette on the cliff they will be driving their
(stolen) cars towards later. For a moment it seems as if Jim might be able to get out of it,
when Buzz seems to reach out to him. ‘You know something’, Buzz says, ‘I like you. You
know that?’ Jim sees an opportunity to make amends, to call a truce, and answers: ‘Why do
we do this?’ ‘You gotta do something, now don’t you?’ Buzz answers, and walks off. Jim
follows a moment later and they get in their cars to get ready. Buzz has some sort of a prerace ritual, and asks Judy, his girlfriend, for some dirt which he uses to ‘wash’ his hands with.
After Buzz has explained the rules once more, Jim also asks Judy for some dirt, emulating
Buzz. Judy is already preparing to signal the start of the race, while Buzz nonchalantly drags a
comb through his hair. Jim is much more nervous, rubbing his hands on the steering wheel
and eyeing Buzz, envious of how laid-back he appears. Buzz is obviously more experienced
at this than Jim. Early on in the film he and his friends were talking about a race where
‘nobody chickened’, and they mentioned how ‘they always live’, a statement that Buzz would
sadly prove wrong during this race.
Plato, who has come to watch, nervously crosses his fingers and closes his eyes. Once
the race starts, Jim constantly checks whether Buzz has jumped yet, and eventually decides to
take the leap anyway, even though Buzz is still in his car. The reason that Buzz has not even
opened his door yet, is that a strap on his sleeve has gotten stuck behind the door handle of the
car. Where Jim had checked his door beforehand, Buzz had been too busy looking cool and
calm, something that cost him his life. Jim is at first unaware of what happened to Buzz, and
only notices something is wrong when all the onlookers run towards the edge of the cliff.
45
Plato has not seen what happened either, and only opens his eyes when everybody runs past
him. When he sees Jim sitting on the ground, the relief in his face is plain to see. Everybody
gathers at the edge of the cliff, staring in shock into the abyss that Buzz has disappeared in.
Most of the kids leave quickly though – although not before laying some of the blame on Jim
– leaving just Jim, Plato and Judy. Jim eventually manages to convince the distressed Judy to
leave, by offering her his outstretched hand. Plato helps her get into Jim’s car.
The whole point of the Chickie Run was to show that you are not a coward, something
Jim cares greatly about. Being called a chicken had caused him problems before they moved
as well. To defend his honour – and to rebel against his dad – he shows up for the race, even
though a large part of him does not want to go. His father appears weak to him, and not
masculine enough, and Jim wants to prove – mainly to himself – that he is different from his
dad. Jim’s way of rebelling is all about honour. He does not just want to defend his own
honour and reputation, he is also determined to tell the police what happened to Buzz, to do
him justice, even though his parents tell him no good can come of that. Instead of rebelling
against the authority of the police, he rebels against the lack of authority and the lack of a
sense of responsibility of his parents. He rebels against the middle class, by wanting to do
what is right, instead of what is easy. David Baker calls him the perfect example of a ‘rebel
who rages against the everyday middle-class life that imprisons him’(45).
Buzz’s behaviour right before the race surprises Jim. He had no idea Buzz liked him,
and this confuses his thoughts about the upcoming race even more. When he asks Buzz why
they are doing this, he is really asking if there might be a possibility of calling it off. The race
is not really a big deal to Buzz though. It is something he does when there is nothing else to
do, and Jim being the new kid is a perfect reason to race him. He has his own pre-race ritual
and is not nervous at all. Jim is new to all this, and when he is not copying Buzz’s ritual, he is
checking if his car door works properly, to have something to do. While Jim is trying not to
let his nerves get the best of him, Buzz is showing off how relaxed he is, by paying more
attention to his hair than to his car. But the interior of the car looks dark, perhaps
foreshadowing the dangerous game they are about to play (fig. 14). In this scene, Buzz
functions as the role model Jim has been looking for. He is calm, cool, and collected,
something Jim is aspiring to be as well, but which eludes him. He would like to copy Buzz’s
behaviour fully, but is both lacking a comb and the self-confidence Buzz has. Buzz seems to
be able to be the role model Jim has been looking for, at least when it comes to being tough
and confident, but he ends up at the bottom of a ravine, taking whatever Jim could have
46
learned from him with him. Most teens quickly abandon the scene, leaving Jim to have to be
strong for Judy, who just lost her boyfriend. Plato is still there as well, but his only concern is
Jim, who he admires and looks up to. Jim is his role model. His interest in Jim seems to be
partly attraction, and partly as a surrogate father figure. When they get home after the race, he
nervously invites Jim to sleep over at his house because his parents are out of town, which
implies that he might be attracted to Jim, while declaring that he wishes Jim was his dad right
after this. One thing that is clear is that he looks up to Jim, and considers him to be the perfect
male role model, even though he will eventually fail to act like Jim.
Alyssa Costa’s interpretation of the relationship between Jim and Buzz is interesting,
because it confuses the forms of masculinity in this film even further, but I find it based too
much on vague and indirect mentions of homosexuality to use it in my own analysis. I will,
however, discuss it here, as it shows yet another way of interpreting the masculinity in this
film. According to Costa, it is not just the relationship between Jim and Plato that can be read
as showing signs of homosexuality. She interprets the pre-race conversation between Jim and
Buzz as a conversation about what to do when trying to hide homosexual feelings. ‘You gotta
do something, now, don’t you?’ is explained by Costa as follows:
‘While most critics have taken this statement to be a symbol of the teens’ need to
rebel against something, I find it to mean that they need to “do something” about their
homosexual urges, findings ways to mask it by proving themselves to have a “steelyhard masculinity”’ (29).
This is not the only reference to the possibility that Buzz might be gay, according to Costa.
Earlier on, when Jim and Buzz fight at the planetarium, Jim says: ‘I thought only punks used
knives’, insinuating that Buzz is gay, because ‘punk’ used to be slang for ‘gay’. When the
boys share a cigarette right before the Chickie Run, Costa considers this an intimate gesture,
one which Jim accepts, smiling, and which can be seen as another example of the homoerotic
tension between the boys (29). Personally, I do not agree with Costa’s interpretation of these
acts. Using this kind of reasoning, it is possible to read signs of homosexuality into every
male character. Just because Buzz does not say exactly what he is referring to when he says
‘you gotta do something, does not mean he is hiding something. And sharing the cigarette
could be an act of kindness, an ‘I am only racing you because that is just what guys do, not
because I dislike you’ kind of gesture. When Jim calls him a punk, that does not mean that he
actually believes Buzz is gay. He is most likely using it as an insult, something that
47
(unfortunately) is still common, especially during a fight that deals with proving one’s
masculinity, in a time when being gay was seen as a definite sign of being weak.
14. 00:49:43 Buzz appearing unfazed by the upcoming Chickie Run
48
4.3 The character of Plato and the search for role models
The next point that I want to focus on, is not a certain scene, but a character. Plato is the
character that is most often described as being homosexual in analyses of Rebel Without a
Cause. He is a very interesting character, mainly because the relationship he has with Jim can
easily be interpreted in several ways, and he is an interesting example of one of the ways
masculinity is represented in this film. Both Jim and Plato are looking for a decent male role
model, something I will also discuss in this chapter.
Plato is an outsider at school. Before meeting Jim, he does not seem to have made any
friends there. One of the reasons for his status as an outsider, seems to be that he has trouble
hiding his feelings and emotions as well as the other guys in school. When they are at the
planetarium, the sound and light effects scare him so much that he hides underneath the seats,
where Jim finds him when the show is over. These same quirks, however, make Jim take an
interest in Plato, as early as at the police station, where he offered him his jacket. Perhaps
Plato represents to Jim his own vulnerable side, which he hides, but which makes him feel
connected to Plato. During the Chickie Run Plato is shown in a close-up, so his emotions are
clearly visible to the viewer, and the fear and relief are obvious in his face and in the way he
crosses his fingers (fig. 15 & 16). Plato is an unstable boy, something that shows itself
increasingly towards the end of the film. He sees in Jim and Judy a surrogate mother and
father, and panics when he believes they have left him, just like his real parents have. His
panic turns him into a danger to himself and others, and he uses his mother’s gun to threaten
first Buzz’s buddies, and eventually even Jim. Jim manages to talk him into giving him the
gun, and removes the bullets, to make sure he cannot (accidentally) harm anyone. He
convinces him to come outside with him, where there are people willing to help him, but Plato
is so upset that the headlights of the police cars are enough to make him panic again, which
gets him killed when the cops think he might fire his gun.
It is easy to associate Plato with femininity, which in men is often linked to
homosexuality, especially in the 1950s, because of, among other things, the colours pink and
gold that are present in his bedroom (Costa 20). Plato’s feelings for Jim are very ambiguous.
His own dad is never there for him, and he sees a perfect father figure in Jim, the one guy who
treats him kindly. Jim is his role model, and he is also very protective of Plato. And when they
go up to the deserted mansion, Jim and Judy pretend to be Plato’s parents. It is just a game
they play, but Plato does wish that Jim was actually his father, something he even tells him.
49
This explanation of the relationship between the two guys was, besides being evident in the
film, a very acceptable explanation of their closeness in the fifties, unlike the other
interpretation of their relationship. Other aspects of Plato’s behaviour show definite signs of
homosexuality. He develops some sort of obsession with Jim, from the moment he first sees
him. He tries to be close to Jim at all times, and even asks him to spend the night at his place.
Other things that hint at Plato’s homosexuality are the picture of Alan Ladd in his locker
(having a picture of a man in your locker is/was uncommon for guys), and his nickname Plato
(his real name is John). 2 The framing of many shots and the mise-en-scène also work to
strengthen the idea that Plato might be gay. Alyssa Costa points out that Plato and Judy are
often shown in the same frame, for instance while they are watching Jim and Buzz fight, and
during the Chickie Run. By showing them in the same frame while they are watching Jim,
they can be considered as sharing the same feelings. Judy is starting to get feelings for Jim,
which in turn reflects on Plato (19).
Christopher Castiglia suggests that the feelings Plato has for Jim, might be
reciprocated. At the very least, Plato offers Jim an alternative to the ‘boy meets girl’ story
(32). But instead of commenting on a love triangle between Plato, Jim and Judy – which
seems obvious since Jim is very close to both of them – Castiglia argues that there is a love
triangle of sorts between Plato, Jim and Jim’s dad. His father is the authority figure that Jim is
trying not to disappoint, even though he disappoints Jim by not being a good role model. Plato
is the lover in this story, and Jim is faced with the choice between his father, who stands for
conformity and the option to receive the patriarchal power, and Plato, who represents
homosexuality, and with that the inability for Jim to follow in his father’s footsteps (in being a
married man). How this turns out depends heavily on the strength of the father (31).
Castiglia also argues that Jim looks more androgynous towards the end of the film,
partly because he is wearing the famous red jacket. The colour red can be associated with
Judy, who has bright red lips, and thus the colour red is also associated with femininity,
linking Jim to this through his red jacket (32). Jim also shows more emotion at the end of the
film. When Plato dies, he turns to his dad for comfort (fig. 17). Showing emotions can be seen
as feminine, and as weak, something Jim had thus far avoided. This could be seen to make
him more feminine, yet Castiglia argues that Jim actually becomes less feminine in the last
moments of the film, because not only does he introduce Judy to his parents – implying that
2
The Greek philosopher Plato wrote about homosexuality in his work Symposium.
50
she is his girlfriend – but he also covers Plato with his red leather jacket, leaving his feminine
side behind with his lost friend (32). In my opinion, Jim finally found a healthy way to deal
with his issues with masculinity. Judy helped him realise that it was okay to show his feelings,
something he is now comfortable doing around his father, helping the two men to reconnect.
His ability to show his emotions sets an example for the other men in the film, and perhaps
even for the male spectators of the time. He is at this point the perfect example of the new
masculinity.
Jim has been struggling with his feelings since we first see him on screen. He has been
taught that men need to be tough and should never show their emotions, but at the same time
this is not what he witnesses around him. His father is constantly emasculated by both his
mother and his grandmother, two very strong women who run the Stark household. Jim has
trouble finding a good, strong role male model, because his dad disappoints in this capacity.
Biskind mentioned that men are trading in the gun for the apron (see page 16), which seems to
be almost literally the case with Jim’s father, who can be seen crawling around the floor in a
flowery apron. Mr. Stark is part of the old generation, but shows signs of the new form of
masculinity by being sensitive, especially when it comes to dealing with his son. He may not
have the answers that Jim is looking for, but he cares deeply for his son and he worries about
him. We see him clean Jim’s wounds and even help him undress, something that shows Mr.
Stark’s affection for Jim. These are things often done by women, yet we hardly ever see Jim’s
mother in a caring capacity. Jim’s dad fills this role, which is not exactly masculine, so
despite his good intentions, he is not the role model his son is looking for. Yet at the end of
the film, when Jim is more ready to show his emotions and embrace the new form of
masculinity, his dad might turn out to be a suitable role model after all.
Jim does not know how to deal with this father, who he considers weak. He rebels
against him, distances himself from him, by accepting dangerous challenges, like the Chickie
Run. Trying to be tough, like Buzz, is his way of rebelling against his weak father and his
strong mother. Buzz is much more like the old, tough generation of men than Jim’s father is.
He does not show any emotions, is laid-back and talks tough. Jim barely has time to consider
him as a role model though, because Buzz’s behaviour is punished by death. He ends up at the
bottom of a ravine because of his laid-back attitude. Buzz is not the only one who has to pay
the ultimate price for his behaviour. Sweet, unstable Plato also loses his life because of how
he acts. Buzz and Plato represent two opposite forms of masculinity, and by killing them off,
both forms are deemed wrong. Jim is forced to find a compromise between these two forms of
51
masculinity. He learns, through the deaths of his friends, that there are many ways to express
your masculinity, but that some can cause dangerous situations which should be avoided. At
the end of the film he grows closer to his dad, and closer to finding a way to expressing his
masculinity in a healthy way.
The relationships between parents and their teenaged kids in this film are very
troubled. Plato’s parents are always absent, Judy’s dad is incapable of showing her any kind
of affection anymore, and Jim’s mother and grandmother are so dominant that his dad appears
weak in Jim’s eyes. Jim rebels against everything that stands in the way of honour and
honesty, which makes him a different rebel than Johnny Strabler, who just rebelled against
everything. Plato is a troubled kid, who is struggling with his feelings for Jim, who he sees
both as a father figure, and as a potential love interest. Jim does not know how to deal with his
masculinity, and is looking for a good role model, but he keeps coming up short. Not until the
sad conclusion of the film does his father seem able to fill this role for him.
The influence of Rebel can be seen in movies of later date as well. In Back to the
Future, the character Marty McFly considers his dad to be weak, and they too have trouble
communicating. Marty’s red down vest is reminiscent of Jim’s red leather jacket, and Marty is
equally scared of being called ‘chicken’. The troubles between teens and their parents that are
shown in Rebel still resonate with teens today, because since the emergence of youth as a
separate culture, there has been a gap between generations that is kept open, due to the
constant changes in popular culture and technology.
Plato is a complicated character, who is often interpreted as being gay, both because of
how he acts around Jim and the fact that he shows his emotions. He is in need of a father
figure, and wishes Jim could fill that role, but at the same time, he seems to be attracted to Jim
in a different way. He wants to be close to Jim, but Jim is having trouble finding a role model
for himself. His father is too effeminate, and Buzz, the only tough guy Jim met, has died. It
takes Plato’s death to make Jim and his father come closer together. This gap between the
generations, and the influence of Rebel Without a Cause, are still visible in movies of later
decades.
52
15. 00:50:47 Plato during the race
16. 00:51:24 Plato is relieved when he sees Jim after the race
17. 01:43:33 Jim turns to his father for comfort after Plato’s death
53
Conclusion
The definition of masculinity underwent some serious changes in the 1950s. A new, young
generation of actors emerged in Hollywood, who challenged the image of masculinity the
previous generation of actors had established. Young men, like James Dean and Marlon
Brando, who were not rough, tough or even wearing suits, garnered fame. They were boyish,
clad in jeans and a t-shirt, and insecure. Older actor John Wayne disapproved of this new
generation. He considered them to be too weak and too insecure, traits that he felt were
inappropriate in men. They looked and acted boyish, they were rebels, and, above all, they
were more in touch with their feelings than what had thus far been deemed appropriate for
men. There were a lot of pre-conceived notions on how men ought to behave, and these boys
defied almost all of them. This caused some people to believe that they were gay, because up
until then, showing one’s feelings had strictly been a feminine quality, and men who shared
this quality were often homosexual. This new generation of actors had certain traits that were
usually more prominent in women, and were therefore seen as being between genders, in a
way. This is what Steven Cohan calls the transvestite effect.
The Wild One, Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause are all movies in which
this new form of masculinity is demonstrated, although it presents itself in various ways in
these films. The stars of these pictures, Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier and James Dean, added
their own off screen reputation to the way their characters dealt with their masculinity. This is
especially strong in Dean and Brando’s performance, since their fame preceded their roles of
Jim Stark and Johnny Strabler. Cohan and Richard Dyer both write about authenticity and its
relation to stars, a topic relevant when discussing the effect of the star’s reputation on their
character. Cohan even focuses on Brando’s reputation as a weird, neurotic, rebellious boy.
The Wild One displays several forms of masculinity among the male characters in the
film. On the one hand we see the small-town men, and on the other there are the two
motorcycle gangs, who are actually quite different from each other as well, both in looks and
in behaviour. While Johnny’s gang seems wild and misbehaving at first, Chino’s gang turns
out to be even worse. Both can be considered rebels, but the real problems, and violence, did
not start until Chino and his Beetles showed up. Brando’s character is a good example of the
new form of masculinity that John Wayne dislikes so much. It is obvious that he has feelings
for Kathie, but he does not know how to deal with them. He hides behind cool and tough
behaviour, but his discomfort is written all over his face. His insecurities are what makes it
54
easier for even the female spectator to sympathise with him, because he is the only one of the
men who shows any kind of feelings, and a reason to like him, at all.
Johnny takes pride in being a rebel. He mainly rebels against people who doubt his
authenticity as a rebel, and his rebellion does not have much purpose other than that. He has
no real need to rebel, he only goes out to ‘have a ball’ on the weekends, and he has the
freedom and mobility to decide where to go, and what to rebel against. This makes him an
‘outlaw rebel’. He may cause trouble, but not with the intention to hurt anybody. He feels bad
when he upsets Kathie, and definitely never meant for old Jimmy to get killed. The film ends
with a truce between both gangs and the townspeople, and neither form of masculinity
triumphs over the others.
Blackboard Jungle does not limit its focus to the issues with masculinity, it also deals
with racial tension. Sidney Poitier’s portrayal of the tough, but respected, Gregory Miller, put
his acting career into high gear. Miller is the first to be accused of all the problems that
teacher Richard Dadier has to deal with. This turns the first half of the film into a story about
racism and prejudice, until Dadier is proven wrong, and it becomes clear that Artie West is
really to blame for everything. Blackboard Jungle actually has a positive message about race,
because Miller is shown to be a respectful, hardworking guy, and the first student to take
Dadier’s side when West attacks him. West is not a rebel, but a delinquent. He is violent,
asocial, and shows no remorse. His mentally disturbed form of masculinity is eventually
defeated by the more stable type of masculinity that Miller represents. This shows the rest of
the class that they do not need to fight every authority figure they come across, and that it is
okay to take the teacher’s side and treat people with respect. This film differs from the other
two, in the sense that there are no real rebels in it. Miller takes the side of the authorities when
things get tough, and never had the freedom or mobility that are required for (outlaw)
rebellion to begin with. West did not have these options either, but unlike Miller, he refuses to
accept any kind of authority, and would rather go to jail than go to school or opt for a career
in the military. Blackboard Jungle shows a relationship between teens and adults that many
people feared could be reality.
Another issue that is apparent in Blackboard Jungle, is the inequality between men
and women. There are barely any female characters to begin with, and the few that we meet
are treated differently from the male characters. Miss Hammond receives stares, whistles and
yells on her first day as a teacher at North Manual High School, and is even assaulted by one
of the students. Dadier’s wife is shown as a weak and insecure, and her health seems to
55
depend on her husband’s behaviour – or what she is made to believe about him. This is quite
telling on how women were perceived in those days, as weak and passive, depending on
strong men to save them and take care of them.
Rebel Without a Cause is most likely the film that is most extensively discussed in
film theory of these three. A large part of these texts deal with the relationship between Jim
and Plato. The three teens in this film, Jim, Plato and Judy, are all searching for good role
models, because their own parents are unable to fulfil these roles. Plato’s parents are almost
completely absent from his life, and he tries to replace them with his new friends, Jim and
Judy. His relationship with Jim is even more complicated though, because he wants to be
close to Jim in a way that has nothing to do with seeking a role model. He shows signs of
(sexual) attraction towards him. There are several love triangles that can be found in this film,
for instance the one between Jim, Plato and Judy, but also the one between Jim, Plato and
Jim’s father, as described by Castiglia. One thing that is for certain, is Jim’s struggle with his
masculinity. He wants to fit in and be tough and self-assured, but he is unable to ignore or
hide his insecurities, and ends up being the odd one out in school again. This, in combination
with his father’s inability to provide him with advice, or a role model, is what drives his
rebellious acts. It takes Plato’s death, and Judy’s kind words, to eventually bring Jim and his
father closer and help him deal with his masculinity.
Jim is the kind of rebel who does not exclusively rebel against the authorities, but who
wants to do justice to the truth and honesty, even if this means turning himself in to the
authorities. He rebels against the middle class, against his parents and their generation, but
only because he feels they do not support/understand him the way they should. He does not
have any issues with the middle class in itself, and even seems to aspire to belong to it, as is
evidenced when he and Judy pretend to be Plato’s parents and take care of him. All the men in
this film seem to have issues with their masculinity, but they all deal with them in different
ways. The movie ends on a hopeful note though, when Jim and his father finally manage to
connect and may be able to find a better way to deal with their masculinity. This hopeful note
comes with a dark side though, because it took the death of the two most important other male
characters to come to this.
Dealing with issues concerning masculinity clearly is the common denominator
between these films, but the characters are wildly different. Jim Stark and Johnny Strabler are
both rebels, although of a different kind. Jim is middle class and stands up to people who are
dishonest, while Johnny is working class and will rebel against anything or anyone that he
56
feels does not respect his authenticity as a rebel. They do share their inability to deal with
their feelings and their insecurities about their masculinity. West and Miller are different from
Jim and Johnny, because neither of them is actually a rebel. They do not have the freedom and
mobility Stark and Strabler have, and they deal with this in different ways. Miller decides to
adjust to what society expects of him, while West fights everything society stands for,
whatever it takes. West uses violence to do this, and does not care who he hurts, which makes
him a delinquent who will most likely end up in jail.
This new generation of Hollywood actors managed to change the ideas on masculinity
both in their on screen roles, and in their real lives. Not everybody liked this development.
John Wayne disapproved of their weakness and insecurities, but this might just be because he
himself had never felt comfortable enough to act like this. His generation simply never
showed their emotions, so it is impossible to know how he felt, and where his criticism of this
new generation came from. This new generation of young, boyish, men, changed Hollywood
youth cinema by being wildly different from their predecessors, both in looks and in
behaviour. They influenced all subsequent youth cultures, and these films set the tone for how
the gap between generations would be represented in movies to come. Each of the films
discussed is now considered a classic, and gives us a good idea of the zeitgeist and this new
generation of men. It also shows us what today’s youth culture is based on, as all generations
since have had their own youth culture, each slightly different from the last, but originating
from the one that was depicted in these films.
57
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Springer, Claudia. James Dean Transfigured: The Many Faces of Rebel Iconography.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007
White, Susan. ‘“You Want a Good Crack in the Mouth?” Rebel Without a Cause,
Violence, and the Cinema of Nicholas Ray’. Rebel Without a Cause:
Approaches to a Maverick Masterwork, ed. John David Slocum. Albany:
SUNY Press, 2005
Articles
Baker, David. ‘Rock Rebels and Delinquents: the Emergence of the Rock Rebel in
1950s ‘Youth Problem’ Films’. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural
Studies. Vol. 19, No. 1, 2005: pp. 39-54
Costa, Alyssa. ‘“What it Takes to Be a Man”: A Comparison of Masculinity and
Sexuality in Rebel without a Cause and River’s Edge’. Honours Projects
Overview. Paper 30, 2008
Neale, Steve. ‘Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream
Cinema’. Screen. Vol. 24, No. 6, 1983: pp. 2-17
Other media
Films
Blackboard Jungle. Dir. Richard Brooks. MGM, 1955
Rebel Without a Cause. Dir. Nicholas Ray. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1955
Wild One, The. Dir. Laslo Benedek. Stanley Kramer Productions, 1953
Figures
1. Laslo Benedek. The Wild One. B.R.M.C (00:34:58)
2. Laslo Benedek. The Wild One. Chino and The Beetles (00:27:13)
3. Laslo Benedek. The Wild One. Dancing motorcyclists, dressed up as women
(00:46:43)
4. Laslo Benedek. The Wild One. Motorcyclists surround Kathie (00:49:19)
5. Laslo Benedek. The Wild One. Johnny struggles with his feelings (00:54:22)
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6. Richard Brooks. Blackboard Jungle. Miss Hammond (00:07:19)
7. Richard Brooks. Blackboard Jungle. The male teachers judge their female colleague
(00:07:25)
8. Richard Brooks. Blackboard Jungle. Murray attacks Miss Hammond (00:24:34)
9. Richard Brooks. Blackboard Jungle. Murray gazes at Miss Hammond’s leg
(00:23:47)
10. Richard Brooks. Blackboard Jungle. Dadier accuses Miller (00:53:05)
11. Richard Brooks. Blackboard Jungle. Confrontation between West and Dadier, with
Miller warning Dadier (01:30:19)
12. Nicholas Ray. Rebel Without a Cause. Mr. Stark crawling on the floor, wearing an
apron (00:37:04)
13. Nicholas Ray. Rebel Without a Cause. Jim looking boyish and insecure with his
shirt off (00:42:07)
14. Nicholas Ray. Rebel Without a Cause. Buzz appearing unfazed by the upcoming
Chickie Run (00:49:43)
15. Nicholas Ray. Rebel Without a Cause. Plato during the race (00:50:47)
16. Nicholas Ray. Rebel Without a Cause. Plato is relieved when he sees Jim after the
race (00:51:24)
17. Nicholas Ray. Rebel Without a Cause. Jim turns to his father for comfort after
Plato’s death (01:43:33)
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