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Grace Kelley 05571898 American Theatre N. Johnson MT 08

David Mamet and the Mythic Masculinity of Americas Frontier

"It should not be denied... that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led west." - Wallace Stegner*

Mamet and his plays (I stress both as separate entities) have been critiqued and criticised for their sharp focus on masculinity, and with it, its imbalance in the portrayal of femininity or lack there of. The worlds he creates bear an essence of remorse and longing. Remorse for the loss or misplacement of the concept of true masculinity; something fabricated by the myths of the old America, the forefathers of the frontier, the solitary bliss of the Wild West. And a longing for the upkeep of this idealised masculine space. It has become a liminal space, unattainable due to the limitations contemporary society has imposed on it. Mamet in turn creates male characters that struggle with these suggested social limitations whether they derive from feminism, single mother up-bringing, or gay rights. Indeed, the latter part of the twentieth century has brought with it a feminine invasion. In turn, this invasion has ignited a fear and mistrust within the masculine. And what is now portrayed, as in Mamets plays, is a disillusioned male searching for an identity, a validation from others males, or as Janet V. Haedicke notes, The desirefor power and for an

kelleyg@tcd.ie identity defined against a vanquished Other.1 C. W. E. Bigsby believes that Mamet is exploring the loss of that spiritual confidence which was once presumed to underpin individual identity.2 This sense of the spiritual was in the mythic American life of solitude and the never-ending prairies. Jack Kerouac, in his generation defining novel, On the Road, mentions throughout the book that, Id often dreamed of going West to see the country.3 Considering this book was published in 1955 (and again in 1957), it is plain to see the unrest of masculinity already being voiced in the twentieth century. Bigsby suggests that while these men search for identity within a masculine space and a desire for the solitary, they fear those who might neutralise their solitariness.4 Essentially, women or the feminine. And therefore, Mamets characters exclude everything that does not sustain the myth.5 This exclusion or marginalisation of the feminine in Mamets writing is hard to accept as anything but purposeful. He creates men trapped in worlds of contemporary America, dissatisfied with life, with women, and with themselves. Their confusion about identity is less in the loss of the old, idealised masculinity, but rather in the search for one to fit in contemporaneously. Mamet writes from a time when feminism was alive and kicking, suddenly women are invading their space; they had their own frontier to conquer and it happened to crossover onto the mans side. Ironically, womens equality caused an imbalance between the sexes. It created a threat to the male identity. There can no longer be a hierarchical system of patriarchy when there is equality. And with equality comes the eradication of female objectivity. But what Mamets male characters end up constructing is a separatist world, one side
1

Haedicke, Janet V., David Mamet: America on the American Stage, from A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama, ed. David Krasner, p. 409. 2 Bigsby, C. W. E., Modern American Drama, 1945-2000, p. 200. 3 Kerouac, Jack, On the Road, p. 1. 4 Bigsby, Ibid note 2, p. 205. 5 Bigsby, Ibid note 2, p. 201. 2

kelleyg@tcd.ie for the men, the other for women. Carla J. McDonough believes this masculine space is made dependent on the destruction or exclusion of female subjectivity.6 However, his characters continually evoke the feminine or female presence as they attempt aggressively to deny, attack, or degrade what they perceive as feminine qualities in themselves and others.7 This trait is evident in American Buffalo, one of Mamets business plays. The character of Teach obsesses over the two female characters, Grace and Ruthie, and their behaviour towards him. His introduction in the play is as such, Fuckin Ruthie, fuckin Ruthie, fuckin Ruthie, fuckin Ruthie, fuckin Ruthie.8 Grace and Ruthie never appear onstage, but their characters bear a weighty significance. They are the embodiment of the invasive feminine, the call for equality and neutralisation of solitariness. And most importantly, the reminder that female objectification is no longer acceptable in contemporary America. What Mamet brilliantly includes is their sexuality, which is female homosexuality. Not only does their female presence threaten Teachs male identity, but also without a sexual interest in him they are not giving him any power (as he would hope) to be a dominant male, full of authority, virility, and machismo. With the inclusion of lesbianism it acts as an additional threat to Teach. For as McDonough states, menseek to establish identities at the expense of other charactersparticularly a fear and hatred of women coupled with an intense physical desire for women or for what they can represent to a man.9 But Teach, or indeed Bobby or Don, have no sexual desire for the two women. However, for Teach this leaves only fear and hatred in order to define himself against them, and so his insecurity about his identity is heightened. Such is not the case for Bobby, who is
6

McDonough, Carla J., Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama, p. 71. 7 McDonough, Ibid note 6, p. 71. 8 Mamet, David, American Buffalo, p. 156. 9 McDonough, Ibid note 6, p. 76. 3

kelleyg@tcd.ie friendly with the two women. Because of the need for a separatist system, which Bobby has crossed, Teach begins to associate Bobby as a part of Grace and Ruthies side, and hence as an effeminate character. This is shown in the violence Teach targets towards Bobby in Act two. Teachs frustration and insecurity about masculine identity is thus expressed in the only way he is capable of, as physical violence. What poses as the greatest threat to Teach is the invasion of his space. For him, it is the junkshop, where he and Don can talk as derogatively as they like about women, gamble, and do business; a typically masculine setting. It becomes a sort of haven, a woman-free zone, for Mamet never lets the two women appear on-stage. Mamets male characters search for the ideal masculine is juxtaposed in American Buffalo with the use of the coin that portrays a buffalo. This is an animal that evokes the Wild West, the prairies, and the frontier. But what it also symbolises is the death of that old American way of life. Because of their forefathers masculine existence of hunting and conquering, there is nothing left for the contemporary male. So he turns to business, which the coin also symbolises; capitalism and wealth. But with the continual evocation of the buffalo and the West, the question of true or ideal masculinity proceeds, for it is a constant reminder that the old concept cannot work in todays society. This proves to be a constant struggle for Teach, and many of Mamets other characters, as they search for a modern masculine identity in a contemporary masculine space. In Mamets 1974 play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, he typifies the trait of the search for male identification within the character of Bernie. This character is desperate to portray himself as the alpha-male. Again, he is immobilised by the rigidity of the concept of masculinity, looking back to the past, to the old American masculinity, for answers. McDonough states, Berniedefines himself by sex and

kelleyg@tcd.ie women, yet he resents and even hates women as a result of his dependence on them for his own image.10 Not so dissimilar to Teach. Mamet is constantly bringing to the stage the separatist system where men try to create their own space, excluding women, yet through this intentional exclusion they are inevitably evoking the female by their crass and denigrating talk of them. As in American Buffalo, Bernie and Danny, in Sexual Perversity in Chicago, are given their own space, which is the office, again, another place of work and business, where men can exhibit their masculinity with talk of sex and women without the threat of a feminine invasion. But when their fantasy women begin to invade their space, no longer becoming a pair of boobs, the men become defensive and particularly aggressive towards the women, saying I mean who the fuck do they think they are all of a sudden coming out here and just flaunting their bodies all over?11 This aggression is provoked when the two men are rejected by one of their many objectified women, such as at the end of this scene. When a woman walks past without acknowledging their salutations, the men respond the only way they know how, by verbally degrading her, calling her a Deaf bitch (p. 98), as if she has risen above her place in the their imaginary patriarchy. This male aggression is revealing of the male characters insecurities and confusion.12 As I mentioned earlier, these men are stuck within the limitations of contemporary societies concept or construct of masculinity as they look took to the past, instead of trying to find a new answer to true masculinity that can fit into todays post-feminist age. And when we look at the causes for this rigid construct, we begin to notice a greater input from the feminine as to what masculinity should be like. Chuck Palahniuks novel, Fight Club, deals with a similar society to Mamet. His
10

McDonough, Carla J., Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama, p. 81. 11 Mamet, David, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, pp. 95&97. 12 McDonough, Ibid note 10, p. 76. 5

kelleyg@tcd.ie narrator remarks, What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.13 These men from the latter half of the twentieth century have been raised by a feminine, which has in turn become a suppressor of true masculinity. And as a reaction to this, they have reverted back in search of the masculinity their forefathers claimed. Again, it must be noted that these males are looking for validation from other males, but are receiving it from the female. This motherly influence creates a greater desire, what Robert Bly calls, father hunger, whereby men in this feminist age need to move on from motherly or female influences and find their fathers house.14 And so, what we see in Mamets plays are generations of men communicating their suppressed masculinity the only way they know how, through verbal and physical violence towards the feminine, which they see in themselves and others. And with this attainment of violence comes physical strength, or at least the need to appear strong, for physical strength is a huge part of masculine identity. Even one of Mamets many scenes in Sexual Perversity in Chicago takes place in a gym, with Bernie as the central figure talking to other male associates. It is just as Palahniuk describes, The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says.15 This notion of the suppressed male is utilised perfectly in one of Mamets later plays, Oleanna. The male character, John, a university professor, finds himself tied up in an undesirable series of episodes with a female student, Carol. What Mamet cleverly sets up is a system of hierarchy (patriarchy), which is being attacked by a woman and student, two factors that Mamet constructs as inferior. This hierarchical system is suitably set in Johns office. This is a recurring backdrop in Mamets plays, emphasising the office and a place of work to be the contemporary masculine space.
13 14

Palahniuk, Chuck, Fight Club, p. 50. Bly, Robert, Iron John, paraphrased theory. 15 Palahniuk, Ibid note 13, p. 50. 6

kelleyg@tcd.ie What gives John an additional boost on the patriarchal ladder is the tenure committee, which we learn is made up entirely of men except for one woman. The power struggle is already won, and a gender imbalance pursues. This play demonstrates an escalation and confliction of two ideologies, feminism and patriarchy. What is interesting is that it is feminism that provokes Johns sudden outburst of verbal and later physical violence. Carol, like many of Mamets female characters, gradually invades (quite literally) the professors space. It is as if after years of masculine suppression by the feminine, he can stand for it no longer. As Haedicke states, when frustration overwhelms, violence overtakes.16 This outburst of frustration is also portrayed in American Buffalo and Sexual Perversity in Chicago whether it is verbal or physical violence. In her essay A Few Good Men, Kellie Bean raises the question about the use of gender in Oleanna, in particular, could this play work with a male student. She argues no, and it is difficult to disagree. Gender on Mamets stage has become a Mametian trope. It carries many connotations about society, patriarchy, masculinity, and femininity. Had Mamet made Carol a man, the issue of gender difference and indeed, imbalance, could not arise. Bean elaborates, saying woman functions as the site at which masculine anxieties over power and gender are relieved through physical, and often sexualized, violence.17 Even though Johns initial act of physical violence does not carry any evidence of sexual violence, his verbal abuse does. By calling her You little cunt, he immediately and violently degrades her to a suggestively vulgar and sexually objectified part of the female anatomy.18 And it is the connotations that are evoked by the word cunt that highlight the gender difference
16

Haedicke, Janet V., David Mamet: America on the American Stage, from A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama, ed. Krasner, p. 416. 17 Bean, Kellie, A Few Good Men: Collusion and Violence in Oleanna, Gender and Genre: Essays on David Mamet, ed., by Hudgins and Kane, p. 112. 18 Mamet, David, Oleanna, p. 79. 7

kelleyg@tcd.ie in this play. John, a man of intellectual rank, financial and presumably marital stability is what Kerouac tries so hard not to be and drives further and further away from it, I was so drearily, a white man disillusioned. All my life Id had white ambitions.19 And Johns fear of the invasive feminine causes him to re-establish the hierarchy that Carol threatens by utilising a masculine trait that the feminine does not possess, physical strength. In fact, the use of the word cunt appears in the three plays being studied in this essay. Each time it is targeted at a female character, whether on- or off-stage. Teachs feelings towards Ruthie are apparent from his introduction in Act one, when he strongly rebukes her to be, a Southern bulldyke asshole ingrate of a vicious nowhere cunt.20 Both Deborah and Joan are labelled with the word in Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and as already seen, Carol too, in Oleanna. These men are so confused about their own identity, as they use women and sex as a means of self-identification, that they have narrowed their means of identifying women down to an anatomical reference. It becomes easier to reduce women to a derogatory term than to confront their own personal issues in the search for masculinity because through this act of degradation these male characters feel they are maintaining the status of patriarchy, and by keeping women in their place they simultaneously elevate themselves and their self-esteem. It is as Karen C. Blansfield notes, For both Bernie and Teach, denigrating women offers a means of asserting their own significance and power, of reinforcing their own sadly sagging egos.21 These cases exemplify the theory that Mamets male characters need the presence of the female in order to identify themselves by differentiation (man, strong; woman, weak) or define themselves by
19 20

Kerouac, Jack, On the Road, p. 180. Mamet, Davie, American Buffalo, p. 156. 21 Blansfield, Karen C., Women on the Verge, Unite!, Gender and Genre: Essays on David Mamet, ed., Hudgins and Kane, p. 129. 8

kelleyg@tcd.ie sex. The more women you can fuck, the more of a man you must be. The magic of sex is its acquisition without the burden of possessions. No matter how many women you take home, theres never a storage problem.22 And when it comes to the theatre and the stage, a place of representation, Mamet demonstrates effortlessly, and perhaps unintentionally, the idea that man acts, woman means. 23 In other words, woman carries the connotations, most often sexual, while man acts or reacts to these connotations. Man has the power, which Mamets men essentially do. Their power does not lie in nobility, chivalry, or respectability, but in their disillusioned selfperception of what it means to be a man. For if they had true power, surely the female characters would not be able to battle out the power struggle, but would be inherently submissive. Instead, the men maintain power by their physical strength, the one thing they possess a greater quantity of than the women. For when the feminine suppresses the masculine, invades the masculine space, and hence threatens the identity of the masculine, he reacts, as portrayed, with acts of violence. This is perfectly demonstrated in Oleannas closing scene with Carol on the floor, cowering submissively under the shadow of the enraged and dominantly masculine, John. It would be entirely wrong to accuse Mamets plays of being sexist. What he has done is created a world that essentially was constructed by men, an he represents this in his male characters. The worlds born are a result of the loss of the frontier. What was a place of solitariness, a place that bred ideal masculinity, was gradually destroyed by their own greed for more until there was no more land to conquer or no more animals to hunt. The loss of the frontier brought on the loss of a spiritual freedom. While the American way of life changed to become more industrial and entrepreneurial, and while the men swapped rifles for chequebooks, they still tried to
22 23

Palahniuk, Chuck, Choke, p. 42. Dolan, Jill, The Feminist Spectator as Critic, p. 52. 9

kelleyg@tcd.ie maintain the concept of this mythic American masculinity from the long ago. Unfortunately, social changes eventually prevented the practice of this quintessential masculinity. One presiding factor for this suppression was the acceptance of womens rights, which led onto the feminist movement. Suddenly, the latter half of the twentieth century brought on the threat of destruction of the patriarchal system that had prevailed for so long in centuries before. As it is portrayed in Mamets plays, the age of feminism was invading the masculine space, in the case of these plays, the workplace. Mamet cannot be deemed sexist, for we cannot just look at his male characters but his female characters too, even if they do not appear on-stage at all. He does not write women who are innately or instinctively subordinate. They stand up to the men, even blatantly knock them with a personal attack or rejection. Mamets women are embracing what it means to be a woman of the twentieth century. Oleannas Joan is an extreme example of his women identifying with femininity by joining a feminist group. But it is his men who are struggling with what it means to be a man in todays society. Mamet has not yet given them an answer because there probably is not one just yet in the world outside of the theatre. What he has given his male characters is a search for that sense of masculinity, and to create one that is apt for a post-feminist age that cries out for equality. It is during this search that Mamet depicts the frustrations and confusions that his male characters face, and their violent outbursts that result from it. His use of physical and verbal violence is emphatic of the regression and expression these men display after an oppressive, female-oriented up bringing. Instead of learning to advance from this violent reaction and break the limitations of modern masculinity, these men are creating more targets to channel their aggression towards. And so their concepts of masculinity in their contemporary world become narrowed by their own self-destructive behaviour.

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Bibliography
Mamet, David, Plays: 1, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, American Buffalo, (London :

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kelleyg@tcd.ie Methuen Drama, 1996.) Mamet, David, Oleanna, (New York : Vintage Books, 1992.) *Stegner, Wallace, The American West as Living Space, (University of Michigan Press, 1987, p. 22.) Bean, Kellie, A Few Good Men: Collusion and Violence in Oleanna, Gender and Genre: Essays on David Mamet, ed., Christopher C. Hudgins and Leslie Kane, (New York : Palgrave, 2001.) Bigsby, C. W. E., Modern American Drama 1945-2000, (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000.) Blansfield, Karen C., Women on the Verge, Unite! Gender and Genre: Essays on David Mamet, ed., Christopher C. Hudgins and Leslie Kane, (New York : Palgrave, 2001.) Bly, Robert, Iron John: A Book about Men, (Shaftesbury : Element, 1991.) Dolan, Jill, The Feminist Spectator as Critic, (University of Michigan Press, 1991.) Haedicke, Janet V., David Mamet: America on the American Stage, A Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama, ed., David Krasner, (Oxford : Blackwell Publishers, 2007.) Kerouac, Jack, On the Road, (New York : Penguin Books, 2003.) McDonough, Carla J., Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama, (North Carolina : McFarland & Company Inc., Publishers, 1997.) Palahniuk, Chuck, Choke, (London : Vintage, 2008.) Palahniuk, Chuck, Fight Club, (New York : W. W. Norton & Co., 2005.)

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