Jane Dark posted a call for papers on her blog and I thought I’d take a crack at the three primary topic areas by generating three thesis proposals in under ten minutes.


Three thesis in ten minutes or less:

Topic One: Brad Pit and the Western – American archetypes of masculinity have long been drawn from and reproduced in the Western film genre. As a visual narrative form the use of space and landscape are ideal in projecting a masculinity that straddles the fence between European ideals of manhood expressed by academic accomplishments in the arts and refined, ornate speech contrasted with a more primal masculinity projected onto Native Americans and later Cowboys by the likes of Rousseau; constructing as he did the cultural locus of the noble, and often silent, savage. Pit has been used by modern directors to refine and reinvent the westward progress of masculinity first seen fully articulated in the cinema classic A Man Called Horse.


Topic Two: Brad Pit and Postmodern identity struggles

The plot device in which Brad Pit’s Character in Fight Club is revealed to be a figment of the central character’s imagination explores the contemporary identity crises faced by individuals in society where gender roles have at long last become fluid. Unfortunately this cautionary tale is used by the director not to celebrate the breakdown of outmoded social constructs, but rather to force members of his audience back into the embrace of sexist and violent stereotypes.

Topic Three: The Reifying Pit: Brad Pit as James Dean

It is part of the social construction of stardom that performers who wish to have a sustainable career are constantly forced to reinvent themselves, progressing from quasi rebellion towards more traditional roles. From bell hooks’ exploration of the career of Madonna, in which a new public self emerges from the ashes of the old like a clockwork phoenix, we can extrapolate a pattern by which Brad Pitt may be seen as the current cultural resurrection of the bad boy with the heart of gold and abs of steel first embodied by the young James Dean.