Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era

In many respects "Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era" is a fascinating book. In other respects it is maddening; for every example that the author used to demonstrate a provocative and useful thesis there are counterexamples that could be used to refute it. In "Hard Bodies" Susan Jeffords, professor of English and director of Women's Studies at the University of Washington, offers an entree into the ideology of the Reagan era of the 1980s by unpacking several blockbuster film series, especially "Rambo," "Lethal Weapon," "Die Hard," and "Robocop." For Jeffords, these films display an underlying masculinity. As she put it: "The depiction of the indefatigable, muscular, and invincible masculine body became the lynchpin of the Reagan imaginary; this hardened male form became the emblem not only for the Reagan presidency but for its ideologies and economies as well" (p. 25). The incredibly "buff" bodies of the actors in these films, always on display, according to Jeffords stood for the aggressive militaristic and hard power strategies of the Reagan administration. At the same time, as these various film series unfolded over time Jeffords tracks the changes in the "hard bodies" involved and their place in the schema of the era. For example, in the first of "The Terminator" series Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg is a brutal, single-minded killing machine, the prototypical "hard body" of the Reagan era. Jeffords argues that in the second film in the series, Schwarzenegger's cyborg has become a protective, nurturing father figure for the young John Connor. In Jefford's characterization, the second film was reflective of a different version of masculinity as espoused in the George H.W. Bush administration (1989-1993). She concludes that the second film presented "male viewers an alternative to the declining workplace and national structure as sources of masculine authority and power--the world of the family" (p. 170). This is a powerful thesis which has much to recommend it. And Jeffords marshals strong evidence to support it throughout this intriguing book. At the same time Jeffords overstates her case in two fundamental ways. First, she fails to account for the very many other films of the Reagan era which do not support her thesis of masculine aggressiveness on display. The Oscar winners for best picture between 1981 and 1988 were "Chariots of Fire" (1981), "Gandhi" (1982), "Terms of Endearment" (1983), "Amadeus" (1984), "Out of Africa" (1985), "Platoon" (1986), "The Last Emperor" (1987), and "Rain Man" (1988). Of those, none displayed aggressive masculinity as epitomized by Jeffords as the dominant theme of the era. With this as the case, does Jeffords offer a convincing thesis of aggressive masculinity as a dominant theme of the Reagan era? A second concern is Jeffords suggestive relationship between the film and the Reagan presidential style of leadership. She seems to read Hollywood's interest in producing these blockbusters, an