by Nick Thomson © 2024
N.B. The following is a tweaked version of an essay that I wrote in November 2004, titled “From the idealised homosociality of Swingers to the problematic male bond in Shaun of the Dead”, for a third year course called 'Gender & Genre in Contemporary Cinema', during my BA degree in Film & Television Studies at the University of East Anglia. Considering that 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of Shaun of the Dead, I figured it was worth revisiting.
Do also note that the following contains SPOILERS for the films discussed.
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“For boys, the male gang is more important than one-on-one friendship, but the gang members require little closeness and rely on their abilities for membership”i. This essay will explore the idea of homosociality – or male friendship – as it is represented in film; most specifically in Swingers (Doug Liman, 1996) and Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004). The former is an American film, part of what could be called the 'friendship movie' or 'hang out' genre, while the latter, a British film, was sold as a 'rom-zom-com' (romantic zombie comedy), underneath which lies a potent subplot concerning male bonding.
Both films depict homosocial behaviour differently, yet also similarly. As Wyatt explains, gay male friendship is more inclusive of emotional intimacy, unlike the typical heterosexual counterpart; there has been a softening of this exclusivity in the past twenty years, but broadly speaking the status quo remains. The very idea of homosociality, of the male bond, denotes at least a certain level of intimacy shared between straight men – indeed, as Wyatt notes in his title, this 'straight intimacy' can be interpreted as “queerness”. However, to analyse these films, we must first consider what 'homosociality' means...
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