International Gay & Lesbian Review

He’s All Man: Learning Masculinity, Gayness, and Love from American Movies

• Nonfiction
• Publisher: New York: Palgrave
• Publication Date: 2002

John Clum’s book “He’s All Man” announces its necessity in its very title. Clum attributes the phrase here to an old Audie Murphy western, but it is a phrase and a concept that pervades American culture beyond Hollywood’s old west. The idea that a person might be “all man” and another less than “all man” is one which is taken for granted in popular culture. Exactly how one is supposed to be “all man” and what it means not to be are far less definite, and, as Clum illustrates, constantly in flux. Thus the problematic phrase is not only a reference to one of the film personae referenced in the Clum’s book, but an embodiment of the very contradictions and assumptions Clum seeks to identify in his book. Clum, a veteran of theater studies turns from stage to screen in this, his latest study of the male in popular culture.Through the lens of American cinema, Clum, a gay man himself, sets out to trace the changing cultural definitions of masculinity and where a homosexual might locate himself within or outside of these definitions. Clum takes for granted that whomever “all male” describes, it is certainly not a gay man, and this assumption is perhaps the single theme which remains constant throughout the entire book and all of the films he discusses. Clum divides his book into three sections: Learning Masculinity, Learning Gayness, and Learning Love. Each section addresses how the cinema teaches us about manhood. The first section looks at cinema’s attempts to establish a positive definition of masculinity, presenting an array of screen personae who might pass as “all man.” Clum traces Hollywood’s various attempts to define and teach masculinity throughout the twentieth century and effectively illustrates how each definition, whether it be the family man or the solitary tough guy, is extremely troubled. Masculinity is fleeting, transitory, and limited by the fact that it always must be safely distant from homosexuality. All of Hollywood’s attempts to solidify a definition of the male are in vain. All that Hollywood appears to be able to hold to is that masculinity, whatever it is, is constantly threatened by females and homosexuals. From here, Clum follows Hollywood as it, for lack of a definition of masculinity, tries at least to define masculinity’s adversary, homosexuality. Clum draws on films like Deliverance, Compulsion, Hitchcock’s Rope, and even gay-produced films to illustrate how screen gays have been crazy, sick, and threatening.

Finally, in perhaps the most empowering, hopeful section of the book, Clum looks at genres like the romantic comedy to see how Hollywood teaches us to love. While Hollywood does adhere fairly strictly to the ideal of ultimately reaching a lifelong monogamous relationship, it appears to allow more space for homosexuality, so long as it can work within these confines. Furthermore, Clum looks at romantic heroes like Cary Grant as potential sites for queer counter-readings and heroes. Clum concludes with a peak at the gay-created television show Six Feet Under, which was in its first season at the time Clum wrote and was one of the first popular shows not to ghettoize gays but to allow gay romances a space in the wide landscape of humanity. It is also primarily in this section that Clum is able to avoid the trap of intentionalism which troubles much of the book. In his analysis of classic romantic comedies, Clum, for once concentrates more on how an audience might read them than merely on what the author of the text might mean. Hence the section is more empowering than any other.

Clum’s basic premise is far from revolutionary. That mass media is largely heterosexist and has a vested interest in teaching and maintaining a hegemonic view of masculinity is hardly a new idea. Hence, Clum must rely on his style and method to make his work outstanding. The result is alternately tiresome and exciting, relentless and riveting.

Clum’s best moments are when he allows his own voice to come through. The introduction of the book includes a charming anecdote about a young Clum seeing a character named John Clum played by Audie Murphy on screen. In reading about the young Clum’s immediate attachment to the masculine hero, we not only grow to like Clum, but understand the real-world implications of the lessons Hollywood teaches about masculinity.

Clum returns to his own voice near the end of the book in his analysis of elder masculine heroes like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart who remained romantic icons well into maturity. Here Clum identifies the ageism pervasive in the gay community, particularly the gay film community. Once again Clum, an aging gay man himself, becomes a concrete, engaging example of a cultural phenomenon that demands attention.

Clum makes a point of locating his work within the “real world.” As he puts it, he was educated “Before Theory.” Thus his work is never bogged down by obtuse, abstract theoretical rhetoric. Instead, Clum opts for textual analysis, looking to films themselves, rather than theories of viewership or reception. Unfortunately his avoidance of the abstract becomes alienating in its own right. Clum’s insistence on almost exclusively textual analysis leads much of the book to read like a laundry list of films and stars rather than an engaging argument. So much page space is devoted to summarizing films and describing characters, that the purpose of our knowing so much about these texts often becomes lost. Losing a few examples could perhaps allow room for more depth in each analysis, and even a stronger ultimate
conclusion.

Clum clearly loves the cinema, and his passion separates him from many cultural critics who all too often take a condescending or condemnatory tone regarding Hollywood and popular culture. While this makes Clum more engaging, accessible, and believable than many scholars, his enamorment with the cinema may also be to blame for his insistence to include so very many films in his analysis. In the end, though, Clum’s charm and hope wins out and provides enough energy to keep readers going through the book which is, at its best, an insightful analysis of manhood and the movies, and even at its worst, a pretty interesting queer screening list.

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