Gender; A Cultural Construction by Alexandra Lederman
Canadian Cinema is a representation of the nation and its cultural constructions. Gender, a cultural construction, is a major and reoccurring theme in Canadian film. Clear-cut lines and boundaries that define gender are blurred and lacking. Males and females are portrayed in the cinema as more similar than different; men with feminine qualities and females with masculine qualities. This represents Canada’s loose definitions of what is masculine and feminine, unlike American cinema and culture. Canadian cinema depicts men as emotional creatures that can fail and women as accomplished and sexually dominant persons.
Gender identity “is not an innate, natural, eternal characteristic…but rather a product of imagination, a fantasy, a historical constructions based on economic, political and cultural power…that is open to historical change, hence always potentially unstable, fragile and insecure”6
Christine Ramsay describes Canada’s outlook as a ‘will to loose’ while in America the ‘will to win’ dominates the culture, creating the victim or loser in Canada. The victim/loser in America is never male, or the male fails spectacularly and in terms larger than life, creating a hero6.
Canadian film does not glamorize failure the way American cinema and culture; this reveals Canada’s will to lose and compliance to the victim label, creating a notion that Canadian culture is feminine. Gender identity is now intertwined with nation identity, constructing the effeminate male identity and masculine female identity portrayed in Canadian cinema. The American male indulges in “fantasies of aggressively masculine self-realization” while the Canadian male busy themselves with anxious dreams of defeat and failure4 . The Canadian male does not blame his defeats and faults on external conditions and others, specifically females; unlike the male American4. Women are praised in Canadian cinema and depicted as direct and truthful.
The Canadian female heroine tend to exhibit masculine qualities, including;
self-reliance, social authority, physical strength, and freedom to explore
beyond the domestic sphere2 .
The vague boundaries that define masculinity and femininity in Canada permit
gender confusion and the ability to possess both masculine and feminine
traits simultaneously. This simultaneous possession is prominent in the
characters that engross Canadian cinema.
David Cronenberg displays the loose constraints of gender in Canada with the
traits of his characters along with visual and physical manipulation.
Gender, as stated before, is a cultural construct; female and male.
Cronenberg divides reality into two perceptions-subjective and objective, or
internal and external5 . Gender can
be defined by internal organs or how a human presents his or hers character
traits.
David Cronenberg’s *Videodrome* plays with gender in obvious and
subtle ways. The main character, Max Renn, begins the film with energy and
exerts dominance over other men and women; he is a successful businessman.
As time passes he becomes involved ‘in a web of intrigue that results in his
death/suicide” resulting in his loss of power over others and himself and
becomes dominated by others .
Max transforms from a thriving businessman in the television industry to an
emasculated male physically and mentally. Gender confusion is displayed
within the traits of the characters; males tend to make the decisions while
the females do as told. This is not the case for the characters in *
Videodrome*. The domination of Max begins with Nicki, for she is the one
who takes the initiative in their sexual relationship. Nicki “guides Max
across a barrier of prohibition and inhibition” during the sadomasochistic
sexual acts they perform5 . Being
the external source that leads towards the enjoyment of sadistic sexual
acts, Nicki successfully deprives Max of control and making him female and
herself male. Max is also led, instructed and manipulated by Bianca; she is
the dominant power over the male, submissive character. The domination of
Max continues with Convex, he becomes submissive to the hallucinations they
initially create and physically as well.
The male being dominated by the female is not the only gender
topic Cronenberg touches upon. The relationship between Harlan and Max can
be argued as a repressed homosexual desire. Harlan arrives at Max’s
apartment and begins flirting, “deliberately seductive in his cute little
way”, and asks Max if he wants to be a centerfold5.
The dialogue begins to contain sexual double entendres containing “Fuck
you’s” and “asshole’s” implicating a homoerotic desire between Max and
Harlan. One line that exemplifies this homoerotic desire is said by Harlan
in response to Max : “Well, fuck you! I’m not just a servomechanism you can
turn on and off when you want to. You want me to fall out of bed at 7 a.m.
and act like an asshole, you tell me what I’m doing it
for.”5
Cronenberg goes beyond the dialogue and the transformation of
Max as dominant to being dominated by men and women sexually and
non-sexually. Cronenberg portrays the theme of gender in Canada with
shocking visual, physical transformations of the characters. Max begins to
hallucinate, unable to differentiate reality from fantasy in regards to the
pleasure created by his male sadistic enjoyment. One hallucination involves
Nicki’s lips protruding from the T.V. screen, and Max responds by thrusting
his head into them, “a penis into a waiting
vagina”5.
Holding points out that this can be described as Nicki giving Max head,
except it is Max who gives his head to her. Max is surrendering in this
scene and is enjoying being dominated. After this scene there is a
noticeable change in Max, he becomes extremely passive and dominated as the
film goes on. His hallucinations culminate in the “invaginated, raped,
manipulated and programmed” Max by other sadistic
males.
Max being invaginated is the result of his hallucinations. He hallucinates
a slit in his stomach that opens, throbs and can be penetrated; Max has a
vagina. Max has successfully been enfemaled and invaginated; completely
crossing gender boundaries. Max’s slit is raped a few different ways.
Convex tells Max to open up, involuntary his shirt rips open and his
vagina-like slit appears in his stomach. Holding states this involuntary
opening of Max’s slit is like a sadistic rape scene; the slit is opened and
penetrated forcibly by Convex with a videocassette. The gender boundaries
are crossed once more when Max is provided with a new penis; the fleshgun.
The gun invokes the slit to open by simply scratching at the slit. Max then
penetrates his own slit and fully inserts the gun, a phallic symbol. Max
begins the film as the male figure; females then dominate him, making him
feminine and the female’s masculine. He then hallucinates a slit, a vagina,
which transforms Max into a female and then penetrates himself with his new
penis- the fleshgun. Cronenberg’s physical and mental portrayals of gender
in *Videodrome* successfully represent the cultural construct of gender in
Canada.
The similar traits of females and males in Canada can be described as
females with masculine traits and males with feminine traits. This shared
femininity and masculinity between both genders is clearly represented in *
Videodrome*.
Canadian film successfully displays the non-gender constraints
of the culture, for feminine and masculine ‘qualities’ and ‘traits’ are
exhibited and shared in males and females.
Alexandra Lederman
Film Music Writer
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