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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