Review: Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era by Susan Jeffords

The Caravan Of Hate: The Cautionary Tale of Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers and Alternative Spaces for Masculinity On-Screen

“…Some of the most famous examples of this are the action heroes of the 1980s and 1990s, where exaggerating the body, power, strength, and victory for mass audiences around the world placed the traditional roles of masculinity once again front and centre, and only the price of a ticket was needed to bask in this return to glory. The fact that the 'hyper-masculinity and hard body of Sylvester Stallone came to represent a national mastery over foreign and domestic enemies" (Tomasulo, 1995) is a clear example of how exaggerated and distorted representations have in some instances been celebrated, leading to victorious outcomes for the characters on screen and at the same time reviling the audience in the dark. To restrict this glorification of hyper-masculinity to the action films of one or two decades is limited, but i cannot be denied that many of the films from this era do exploit hyper-masculinity to promote and assert more traditional ideologies, which is the total opposite of Sightseer's relationship with the concept and the notion of masculinity in general.…”