Margaret Robinson - writer. researcher. activist - Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Making and Breaking Manhood

Masochistic Masculinity in
The Passion Of The Christ and Fight Club.

It isn’t surprising that reviewers of The Passion have evoked films such as Raging Bull or Rocky. Alastair McKay justly dubbed the film “Fight Club in sandals” (McKay, 2004). Both films have remarkable similarities, with their masochistic masculinity and proliferation of religious symbolism, a similar blue-black lighting, and use of warped sound to focus on the physicality of violence.

The first rule is: you do not talk about The Passion.

With its lack of English dialogue, The Passion’s message takes place primarily in visuals, almost like a silent film. This emphasis on action, rather than words is a foundational part of the masochistic masculinity. In the world of Fight Club, talk has effeminised men, and wrongly empowered the weak. Both Tyler Durden’s reiterated decree “you do not talk about Fight Club,” and Jesus’ refusal to verbally defend himself or his movement are emblematic of the image of the masculinity of silence.

From the masochistic masculine perspective, masculinity is not something “natural” to men, but something one must achieve. Achieving masculinity requires a “breaking” of the natural man, through rigorous training or punishment, and an earning of the status of manhood through sacrifice. As Tyler Durden explains to Jack , “Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing.” In Jack’s first fight with Tyler, his revelation lies in the experience of being hit, not in hitting. In the Fight Club circle, one stage of entry into manhood is symbolized by the gift of a stigmata-like scar on the hand - only one of a profusion of Christian religious symbols throughout the film.

Similarly, Gibson’s Jesus is distinguishable from other men by his ability to persevere through physical suffering. The physical abuse of Jesus begins immediately, as he is struck repeatedly and nearly dies en route to the high priest. The Passion portrays Romans soldiers driven to more and more sadistic tortures, by Jesus’ refusal to surrender hid masculine dignity. At one point, after collapsing to his knees from a caning, Jesus sees his mother in the crowd and painfully stands again, drawing a scourging that nearly flays him. “So sustained is the brutality that Christ’s struggle takes on a gladiatorial hue. They beat him and they beat him, but still he stands.” (McKay 2004) Yet it is ultimately his manly refusal to admit defeat which earning the grudging admiration of the Romans. Similarly, at the end of Fight Club, Jack has earned his masculinity through sacrifice, garnering the admiration of the members of Project Mayhem: “I can’t believe he’s standing.” “One tough motherfucker.”

Angry young men

In discussing the hate mail she received after critiquing The Passion, theologian Mary Boys notes that the film has struck a chord with angry young men. “What these correspondents do reveal, however, is religion's capacity to justify and fuel anger, and it appears that Gibson, himself a schismatic Catholic, has tapped into a reservoir of profound cultural disaffection.” (Boys 2004:8)

As theologian Bjorn Krondorfer notes, Gibson’s film stands within a tradition which aims to "remasculinize” Christianity. “It is a kind of muscular martyrdom of the white man played out against an apocalyptic background of otherness.” This is a Jesus to whom Gibson can relate. As he explained to Rachel Abramowitz of the Los Angeles Times, "I'm subjected to religious persecution, persecution as an artist, persecution as an American, persecution as a man." (Abrahamowitz, 2004)

In Taking It Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture, David Savran points to a growing cultural heritage which presents the white male as victim. White middle-class men lack the sovereignty and power to which they feel entitled. To quote Tyler Durden, “We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.” To express this anger and explain their failure to achieve their manifest destiny they lash out randomly at those seeking empowerment: feminists, racial minorities, queer rights activists - those who seem to them less worthy of advancement than themselves.

Yet the solution of a white victim mentality is not an effective one, according to Savran. "Only a Marxist humanism can," he concludes "if not exactly abolish masochistic masculinity and femininity at least transform the material circumstances that produced both of them in the first place" (Savran, 1998: 292).

Masculinity appears to be the leash by which male workers may be controlled. The sense that masculinity must be earned through physical suffering makes it easier for forces to direct masochistic yearnings toward channels such as the military, or low-paying physical labour. Masculinity is the reward for participation in body-destroying low-paying fields of employment. This machismo enables the poor working classes to have a sense of one-upmanship on those who hold power over them - the invisible bureaucrats and industrial deal-makers gendered as effeminate by this system.

The portrayal of Jack before meeting Tyler Durden is just such an effeminised man, caught in a cycle of consumerism which tries to mend his sense of incompleteness by a constant sense for externally-defined selfhood. He tells the audience, “I would flip through catalogues and wonder, What kind of dining set defines me as a person?”

Masochism’s revenge and blood guilt

Those familiar with the pattern of typical masochistic masculinity films, such as Rocky, will note that The Passion is only the middle part of the traditional three act structure. The backstory and character introduction have been removed, appearing only in brief flashback pieces. The film ends at the end of the second act, when things have reached the lowest point for the hero figure. The Passion provides a brief resurrection scene in which Jesus is shown healed, save for the holes in his hands, as he exits the tomb to a rumble of drums that sound suspiciously like a war march.

Fight Club possesses a complete structure, which reveals that the last stage of masochistic masculinity is an act of aggression. The moral authority garnered from the strength of taking a beating is turned outwards and Fight Club’s members, transformed into a militia called Project Mayhem, bomb the headquarters of several credit card companies. Savran’s book includes numerous examples of the revenge of the victimized white male, in film as well as real life, such as the terrorist work of Timothy McVeigh. If The Passion has a third act, one must look to the attacks on synagogues and Jewish cemeteries which proliferated after the film’s release, as well as to the increasing acceptability of public expressions of anti-Judaism.

The masochists revenge, in order to appear justified, requires the attribution of guilt. Through self-victimization and the projection of guilt onto others, the white male again rises to power. In Fight Club Jack beats himself bloody, and when security arrives it is his boss who appears responsible. As Jack kneels before his boss, clutching his hands in a typical gesture of pleading, the act is in fact incriminating, as he wipes his blood onto the innocent man’s fists.
The parallel with The Passion is most disturbing to me as a theologian, in light of the reality of the historical sue of the blood libel to justify violence against Jews. In condemning Jesus Caiaphas utters the line from the Gospel of Matthew, “his blood be on us and on our children.”

Bibliography

Boys, Mary C. 2004. “"I Didn't See Any Anti semitism": Why Many Christians Don't Have a Problem with The Passion of the Christ” Cross Currents, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 8-16.

Griffin, Danél. 2004. “Fight Club Review.” In Film as Art: Danél Griffin’s Guide to Cinema. http://uashome.alaska.edu/~jndfg20/ website/fightclub.htm

Krondorfer, Bjorn. 2004. “Gibson's Alter Ego: A Male Passion for Violence.” Cross Currents, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 16-22.

Abramowitz, Rachel. Feb. 15, 2004. “Gibson's 'Passion': Film Maker Weathers Storm of Controversy.” Los Angeles Times, p. A1.

McKay, Alastair. Thu 25 Mar 2004. “Crime of passion. ” The Scotsman, http://thescotsman.scotsman.com.

Savran. David. 1998. Taking It Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.