This blog observes how contemporary notions of masculinity in Greece have been stripped of their traditional interpretations by the ongoing economic crisis as seen through the eyes of the country’s youth/younger generations. I note this process through the lens of what I term re-assimilation, or the idea of having to acclimate and re-invent one’s concept of identity within their own culture once it has undergone catastrophe, catastrophe which has rendered that culture’s societal norms inoperable. Film, a medium reflective of the realities surrounding its filmmakers, is the tool I employ to view youth in re-assimilation, breaking down two pieces from this year’s Los Angeles Greek Film Festival submission pool: Sofia Exarchou’s Park, and Loukianos Moshonas’ Manodopera.
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It is often thought that culture is rooted in similarity, that to claim a people share a “common culture” implies their differences stem from the same origin of understanding of core values; a branching out. This view is incorrect, however, as it is in fact, a branching in. It is the thread that weaves together the varying individualisms, the particular things similar amongst all our differences, that we call culture; similarity rooted in diversity, not the other way around. These similarities are what Stuart Hall in his book Representation calls “[broad]… conceptual maps,” (Hall 2013: 4), or the like-methods of interpreting the world which overlap. The crossover is then navigated in our everyday lives by varying systems of representation, such as language, semiotics, etc., which allow us to communicate with one another, and from which meaning is extracted on the personal level. But what happens to a culture when the individualism, or the ability to make one’s own choices to pave their path, is taken from those within it? The result: a re-assimilation. Assimilation itself, or the process of being “[absorbed] into the cultural tradition of a population or group” (Merriam-Webster 2017), is arguably most referenced in regards to immigration in times of crisis. But when those unable to leave are stuck in a culture whose social norms are made null because of that crisis, then their identities, which are formed in relation to those social norms, are no longer able to develop. Thus, re-assimilation, where in order for identity to develop, they must discard the previously held conventions of their old culture, and re-craft themselves in this limbo-of-a new one within its place, one where conceptual maps are no longer relevant. A people undergoing such a process today are the native Greeks. This blog briefly examines how perceptions of the culture of masculine identity have changed in modern day Greece as a result of the ongoing economic crisis, which through complete upheavals of such basic necessities such as job/food availability, has decomposed the societal norms of the everyday around which masculine identities were once shaped. The lens through which I observe this change is film, a medium which historically has naturally reflected the fluxing societal/political/cultural contexts of its filmmakers, both on the grounds of passion and realistic necessity. The two films observed are Loukianos Moshonas’ Manodopera and Sofia Exarchou’s Park, present-day films and submissions to the 2017 Los Angles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF), each reflecting a modern take on masculinity in crisis. Before the crisis struck, however, it can be reasoned that the general understanding of contemporary masculinity in Greece was a continued combination of two extremely influential periods of male representation within then-Greek/American entertainment. The first was what Achilleas Hadjikyriacou, in his book Masculinity and Gender in Greek Cinema: 1949-1967, calls the Star System: a spike in Greek film heavily influenced by Hollywood in the 1950s/60s, where living icons such as Marlon Brando, James Dean and Elvis Presley widely appealed to a Greek youth questioning social reality post-Civil War. Gender relations, sexuality, patriarchy and femininity were defined by the characters these stars portrayed in their films and music, with Greek male youths “keen to imitate the rebellious behavior of their [idols], right down to the details such as [their haircuts]” (Hadjikyriacou 2013: 84) and dancing the Twist. It was around this same time that Michael Cacoyannis’ infamous Zorba the Greek was released, a picture notorious for its influential depiction and exoticization of the Greek machismo, a performative masculinity of acting out the man’s ability to be both “handsome and fearless [while] at the same time sensitive, emotional and good hearted” (Hadjikyriacou 2013: 89). The second period, emerging near two decades later and after the end of the military junta of 1967-1974, was what Richard Nixon within his chapter of Hall’s Representation entitled “Exhibiting Masculinity,” calls the “New Man.” A visual coding of manhood surfaced predominantly from print and menswear mediums of the American West, it was thoroughly centered around a close, fetishized observation of the man’s physique, framing his form as something of spectacle. This New Man, combined with the Star System, produced the pre-economic crisis male persona known as the “Street Style” (Nixon in Hall 2013: 302). This Style was by no means the only popular depiction of masculinity at the time, but is examined here as it is the portrayal referenced as masculinity’s shell most frequently among the 2017 LAGFF submission pool, and thus serves as an appropriate stage upon which to view the effects of the crisis. It is a combination of youthful “boyishness” and weathered “hardness”, an “assertive Masculinity” (Nixon in Hall 2013: 302), often cast in a model called “light-black” (referencing the skin tone and backed by a long history of pathologizing the black man’s sexuality/sensuality as hyper-masculine, connoting the outcast), and whose material iconography can be recognized in the classic white T-shirt worn beneath a rough outerwear of a jacket or boots, a wardrobe further emphasizing the labeled/embedded dichotomies of the boy underneath. When the crisis hit in 2008, all of the stereotypes, influences, and cultural representations of identity in Greek masculinity mentioned above were thrown into disarray. And with money for even the barest of essentials quickly depleting, funding for the arts, especially film, was significantly cut. Organizations such as the ‘Filmmakers of Greece’ (FOG) and the Hellenic Film Academy were established in the struggle for state funding, and their efforts “to modernize the institutional framework of Greek cinema so that it could function more effectively in a European and global context” (Papadimitriou 2014: 7), combined with the spotlight of mass media coverage Greece received from around the world, actually “turned ‘Greece’ into a keyword that made people who would not otherwise have taken notice of Greek cinema, do so” [http://filmiconjournal.com/journal/article/pdf/2014/2/2] (Papadimitriou 2014: 2). Within these films, hundreds of depictions of the effect the crisis has had on Greek culture/identity have been made, including those of masculinity. Park is an exceptional film to analyze as it is first and foremost told through the eyes of children/teenage youth. This is a lens which arguably provides the most intel on masculinity in its current state, as such an age range inherently exists as a stage of transition, encompassing the well-known motif of post-puberty “becoming a man,” or the trendy coming of age tale. Also, by this point in a boy’s life, and much like a young girl’s and what is expected of her in womanhood, he has soaked in and observed the idea of “man” through both the father-figure and popular media over the course of his most developmental years, all with the understanding that those depictions from which he is learning from are what he is meant to become in his future. It is the most receptive stage of life, where concepts such as gender perception are personally defined by the boy’s ability to navigate his societal stereotypes of masculinity. When combined with the fact that his body is simultaneously and quite literally undergoing a physical change into that of what he sees as “man,” such a phase makes him the rawest and most honest subject to study. But why this is most significant is that this natural transition parallels the transition of re-assimilation mentioned above of the crisis, for if we understand that identity is formed around one’s relationship to the stereotypes of society, and the stereotypes of that boy’s society are rendered useless, what would have been his ascension to the culture manhood becomes an assimilation into that of a masculinity never before trod. The film takes place in the abandoned Olympic park in Athens of the 2004 Games. This setting is substantial as it represents what even those most traditional and pride-carrying aspects of Greek culture (and arguably of the entire world, these roots having stretched back to those values of community, sportsmanship and diversity of antiquity) have had to endure, those which have been “neglected” due to immediate necessity of survival on limited resources, and which make history “disposable.” The audience follows a young Dimitri, 18-22 years of age, and his discovery of self in the miniature community he and his friends have established within the uninhibited park grounds. The film wonderfully portrays two particularly telling aspects of his grappling with masculinity in their world: the boys’ recreations of competition, and Dimitri’s sexual experience with the female character, Anna. At the beginning of the film, the boys, who make up almost eighty percent of the social group, take two of their youngest members and have them race barefoot on the old track of the stadium, causing their exposed feet to tear and bleed on the gravel and twig-strewn dirt. The older boys encircle them, hollering and shouting, and crown the victor with “the winner’s wreath” (Park 2016) of strung leaves, and denote the looser a “poor dog” (Park 2016). Immediately after, however, the victor is shown digging through a dumpster and foraging for food scraps, a masterful dichotomy with the notion of the young, fit, and state-fed Olympian victor of antiquity. Another competition: within the locker room, Dimitri is forced to fight a friend in a pseudo-wrestling match, the two mopping the ground with their blood. The circle forms here once again, where the boys rise beyond yelling and seem to go berserk, throwing themselves against the metal lockers and even getting down on all fours and barking like dogs, holding each other by their shirts like collars. Even though Dimitri wins, his triumph is made blunt, the scene then immediately cutting to him alone and hanging over the balcony of a highway overpass, alluding to suicide, with a look of lacking purpose and drive behind his hallowed eyes. While it is true self-harm and food scavenging can be immediate effects of the crisis depleting these children of nourishment and material necessity, they can also be interpreted as a loss of identity grasping for stability. In terms of masculine identity, the circle and almost mad behavior of the boys composing it is reminiscent of the most aggressive stereotypes associated with a once-known-to-them Street Style; the “edgy”, rebellious half of the coin turned extreme in their no longer having societally defined boundaries to contain it. The idea of the locker room, a private space of commonly assertive athletic culture, or even the isolation of the abandoned park, becomes a space of release for the children, a “purge-esque” environment, where they can experiment with definitions of masculine identity from its recent tradition no longer relevant; an inverted catharsis releasing something no longer contained. This notion is exemplified when taken out on Anna, who, caught in the locker room after a euphoric group-shower of the boys, is defined by them as a femininity pegged far below their extreme masculine high, them threatening to pull her hair, physically handling her, and forcing her to “pirouette for us” (Park 2016) as they mock the (once)-stereotypical femininity. But Anna’s character is also used to exhibit the other side of the Street Style, in her leveling of traditional gender norms while having intercourse with Dimitri. The scene begins with Anna lying on the floor and Dimitri lingering over her, connoting the stereotype of the dominant/hyper-sexual male as instigator. From that point on, however, “traditional” models are greyed. For instance, when Dimitri is about to climax, he pulls out and turns away from both the camera and Anna, putting his back to them. He seems confused and conflicted; a reaction notably divergent from the sexual apex of the Greek machismo. Anna then becomes the instigator herself, when in an effort to bring him back, she switches places with and stands above him, flashing her body and controlling his desires. The camera positioning during this transition is noteworthy, for when she stands, she takes up the entire frame, with Dimitri lost below her waist and out of view. She is holds the audience’s attention, and is far more confident than Dimitri’s instigation, not only because she refused the beer he offered her before sex (which he had already been drinking, allowing her to retain more intellectual/physical control), but because she had to, for his sake and lacking. When he reaches up from the ground to grab her jeans, the camera sinks to him on the floor, him reaching his hands above him like a child to a desire, her then kneeling to his level. The camera rapidly switches back and forth between these two depictions, which when compared with both their bodies being fully depicted as he was in control at the beginning, breaks down the gender roles both play, and serves as a kind of equalizer. These norms are also inverted when the intercourse turns into anal sex. This in no way implies that straight couples experimenting, or those engaging regularly in such sexual behavior, are anything but normal. But in the context of conventional machismo, however, where such actions commonly chastise homosexual males as a degraded effeminate for the exact same practice, it is interesting to note this dichotomy now deconstructed, as both Dimitri and Anna accept the position change, knowing its association, without question, discussion, or even a word. This seems another equalizer, as where the machismo most usually maintains the most control, what is exhibited between the two teens is an engagement similar to what members of the same gender, (once again) in terms of the older notions of instigation, would partake in. However, while such a sameness would seem a light in the tunnel of economic catastrophe, their being able to sustain a fair relationship ideal, the possibility is undermined by the reality of their connection having been seemingly stripped of emotion entirely. The fact that the scene (and the entire film) is absent of a single kiss between the two, for instance, indicates their inability to recognize the selves in the other necessary to create what they are missing; lack of identity by crisis once again the cause. Each of these examples in Park, the competition and the sexual experience, suggest to an interpretation of masculine identity that there is no longer a sense of defined understanding, and that an experimentation, an assimilation within a once-known culture (re-assimilation), is taking place. Without a society to define what roles of manhood they are to adopt, the extremes of the Street Style manifest themselves for the children as the everyday. Park, while impressively thorough in its illustration of the contemplative struggles Dimitri and the boys suffer, largely communicates these battles through physical representation (mock Olympic games and sex), as can be expected with young boys. Manodopera, on the other hand, succeeds in shifting focus to the same masculine displacement, in a slightly older group of friends, bringing about a more intellectually stimulated reception of change in crisis. One method by which the short approaches masculinity’s shift is by cleverly examining the discrepancies of modern-day notions of success and failure. The film describes today’s Greek mindset as an examination of the real, rather than of the everyday real, a notion that takes observation beyond what is typecast as authentic in the idealized visual culture, and focuses on the unspoken truth of living in need. For instance, towards the beginning of the film, one of the characters notes of “a guy who works in Austria, who presses his keyboard’s buttons, which in turn [creates] money, is considered productive in our society. A guy who lives on a rooftop in Greece, and draws, thinks, talks, [and] flirts is considered unproductive. That’s not reality. But that is reality!” (Manodopera 2016). This character, his friends, and their struggles with identity, are appropriately shown through Moshonas’ own unique version of the Street Style man, one reminiscent of the rural to urban transition in Greece of the 50s-60s, which similarly responded to shifts in economic/occupational upheaval (post-Civil War), arguing that “[masculinity], instead of being measured mainly in relation to the traditional sex-linked virtues, [depended] on the display of a lifestyle similar to urban prototypes (e.g. innovated material culture...)” (Hadjikyriacou 2013: 30). The interpretation of a fading Street Style at the hands of a non-existent yet masculine-defining material culture today is brilliant, and is symbolized in the characters’ occupational situations, the title of the film literally translating from Italian to “labor” or “manpower.” The entirety of the piece is composed of a cutting back and forth between their day jobs as construction workers and a deep, ongoing discussion of the meaning of life they share at dusk atop a hill on the outskirts of town. The fact that they work construction alludes to the remnant “toughness” and appropriate wardrobe of the Street Style, their faces pouty and silent, while their evening dialogue embodies their being forced to redefine as a result of the crisis: what one does when everything material, societal, and personably identifiable is stripped of you, or a retreat to your core to recreate yourself through philosophizing. The film opens on a man silently breaking down a wall with a hammer and peering into the darkness of the hole. He stares into the emptiness, almost as if looking through a mirror. The fact that the men then reconstruct the walls they knock down, while simultaneously reconstructing their notions of masculine identity through success and failure just hours later, is a perfect statement of the stagnant, re-familiarizing state the lack of identity has placed on Greek masculinity since its arrival, the film ending on a shot of their newly constructed apartment complex erected from a sea of outdated homes. The camera work complements and furthers this contrast as well, as was the case with Park, and plays a major role in providing the viewer with an almost poetic visual aid. For example, during the day, the cracked, worn, and expressionless faces of the characters are made visible in harsh lighting with minimal dialogue, almost like the purposelessness of the abandoned Olympic grounds. At night, however, or within the confines of the secluded locker room/Olympic field, as the characters debate the significance of accomplishment versus passion, their faces are shrouded in darkness, physically unidentifiable to the audience, indicating how the reconstruction requires a dialogue from within the privacy of the self to combat stagnancy.
Together, both Park and Manodopera demonstrate the necessary relationship between identity and culture essential when observing the change economic crisis in Greece has brought to modern masculinity. Through exemplifications of the loss of society’s once-traditional prescriptions of manhood, both the physical and mental lack of direction in Greece’s children/youth showcase a Greece learning once again to become herself; a re-assimilation. |
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