Buffoon men : classic Hollywood comedians and queered masculinity / Scott Balcerzak.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Balcerzak, Scott.

Series:

Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series

Contemporary approaches to film and media series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Comedy films--United States--History and criticism.

Comedy films.

Motion pictures--Social aspects--United States.

Motion pictures.

Masculinity in motion pictures.

Queer theory.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (270 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Detroit, Michigan : Wayne State University Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Film scholars and fans have used distinctive terms to describe the Classic Hollywood comedian: He is a trickster, a rebel, or a buffoon. Yet the performer is almost always described as a he. In Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity, Scott Balcerzak reads the performances of notable comedians such as W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello through humor and queer theory to expose a problematic history of maleness in their personas. He argues that contrary to popular notions of Classic Hollywood history, these male comedians rearranged or, at times, rejected heteronormative protocols.Balcerzak begins by defining the particular buffoonish masculinity portrayed by early film comedians, a gender and genre construct influenced by the cultural anxieties of the 1930s and '40s. In chapter 1, he considers the onscreen pairing of W. C. Fields and Mae West to identify a queered sexuality and drag persona in Fields's performance, while in chapter 2 he examines the two major constructions of Fields's film persona-the confidence man and the husband-to show Fields to be a conflicted and subversive figure. In chapter 3, Balcerzak considers the assimilation and influence of Eddie Cantor as a Jewish celebrity, while he turns to the cross-media influence of Jack Benny's radio persona in chapter 4. In Chapters 5 and 6, he moves beyond the individual performer to examine the complex masculine brotherhood of comedy duos Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey.Buffoon Men shows that the complicated history of the male comedian during the early sound era has much to tell us about multimedia comedic stars today. Fans and scholars of film history, gender studies, and broadcast studies will appreciate Balcerzak's

thorough exploration of the era's fascinating gender constructs.

Contents:

Introduction: "Someone like me for a member": classic Hollywood comedians and buffoonish masculinity

"Novelties and notions": Mae West meets W. C. Fields

Con men and henpecked husbands: W. C. Fields as masculine icon

"Whitefacing" the nebbish: Eddie Cantor's assimilation and influence

Queered radio / Queered cinema: Jack Benny's mediated voice

Queering the fraternity: Laurel and Hardy and heterosexual brotherhood

Military disservice: Wheeler and Woolsey and Abbott and Costello join the army

Conclusion: Beyond classic Hollywood /beyond buffoonish masculinity.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780814339664

0814339662

OCLC:

864685869