The Redundant Male: Representations of Masculinity in Polish Postcommunist Cinema

Abstract

old is dying and the new cannot be born. Antonio Gramsci AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM in 1989, men dominated the Polish film industry-more so than any other period in its history (Jankun-Dopartowa, Stachowna, Sadowska). Between 1990 and 2002, men directed over 90 percent of the films made in Poland; there are virtually no female producers working in the Polish film industry today. More important, the majority of films made in the postcommunist era are male-oriented genres, specifically criminal/police dramas and the heritage film, which focus on the experience of serving in the army orthe secret police and fighting enemies of the state. Consequently, film stardom in Poland is almost synonymous with male stardom. Scripts are written specifically for certain male actors, and film budgets are adjusted to accommodate their personal interests and financial demands. By comparison, female actors, with few exceptions, must be content to play secondary roles and earn only a fraction of a male actor's salary. The majority of critics believe the male dominance of the Polish film industry is the sign of a healthy male ego and a testimony to the strength of patriarchy in Polish society. Surprisingly, however, the male subject in Polish postcommunist cinema is in crisis. In the criminal/police drama and the heritage film, this crisis is evident in three key ways: their nostalgia for a golden age of masculinity; their fear of and aggression towards women; and their depiction of the demise of patriarchal power within the family. Rather than providing a comprehensive analysis of post-1989 Polish cinema, this study will outline some general tendencies in the representation of the male subject in two popular genres-the gangster film and the heritage film.1 Masculinity in Crisis: Men and Women in Postcommunist Poland The concept of in crisis is as widespread as it is vague. Some critics argue that the term is used so carelessly that it is methodologically useless (Beyon 75-97). Before discussing the concept in relation to postcommunist Poland, several points are worth noting. First, the concept must be examined within a specific historical context. As Kenneth MacKinnon observes, ... gender ideals vary with a passage of time (3). For example, male aggression and homophobia might be regarded as a sign of male strength and good health in one society, while in another considered a testimony to male weakness and crisis. second, is defined in a culture by a multitude of behaviors; some may support the claim that the male is in crisis, and others may contradict it (MacKinnon 11-15). Third, even in a society in which men are in crisis, there are men who do not suffer any problems. The reverse is also true: every male in a healthy environment is not necessarily the picture of health. Consequently, an analysis of men in crisis calls into the question the traditional concept of masculinity. Following Teresa de Lauretis' call to replace the term woman, which she regards as an abstract term distilled from diverse but congruent discourses dominant in Western cultures, with (real) (5), many scholars propose that we think of masculinity in the plural, as masculinities (Mac An Ghaill, Clatterbaugh, MacKinnon). In the context of modern Polish history, the collapse of really existing socialism and the shift to postcommunism that took place in 1989 had a profound effect on male and female citizens, who both experienced gains and losses in virtually all spheres of social life.2 In economic terms, women were the first to lose their jobs in the early 19905, when the government began cutting all jobs deemed unnecessary. Many women also lost their jobs when certain industries that had depended on female labor, such as textiles, relocated to poorer countries of the old Eastern block (such as the Ukraine or Belorussia); this affected the economy of todz and other large cities. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 10 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.