Crumbling Masculinities

My thesis project, titled Crumbling Masculinities: Adaptations, Filtration, and the Crisis of Masculinity, addresses the construction of masculinity through what I label "filtration." By building on the work of gender scholars like Michael Kimmel, Judith Butler, and Eve Sedgwick, this thesis seeks to show that society teaches individuals to play gender roles by filtering either feminine or masculine traits accordingly. For example: in general, men are no less emotional than women, but society teaches that masculinity links emotion with weakness, so masculine figures filter emotion to create masculinity. The thesis opens with a discussion of David Mamet's original stage version of Glengarry Glen Ross and his subsequent adaptation of the piece to film. This chapter establishes that gender in religious representations, particularly traditional modes of masculinity, is in a period of flux following postmodernity. The following chapter uses a discussion of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief and Charlie Kaufman's adaptation of the nonfiction work to film in Adaptation to show that masculinity is constantly creating itself through the process of filtration. The final chapter in the thesis uses the discussion of filtration to show that socially constructed gender and biological sex are becoming disconnected, yet the masculine/feminine binary still exists and privileges masculinity. In conclusion, Crumbling Masculinities argues that gender is currently in a period of transition, and as such, the thesis attempts through an analysis of the adaptation process to explain the potential of this crisis to shape gender.