MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In Jeff Lemire’s Roughneck, hockey is a metaphor to illustrate the normalization of masculine behaviors both harmful to Derek and Beth Ouellette. Derek’s father inducts him into the violent world of hockey teaching Derek to see his body as a weapon to shore up power by hurting others. Derek’s father teaches him to be an enforcer on and off the ice; Derek learns to squelch his feelings and respond violently manning up to players that even dare the slightest physical contact. Although Derek’s father sees hockey as the vehicle to masculinize his son, Derek sees hockey as the means to escape the “Indian stuff” that is a part of his identity to become a successful hockey player. Derek sees hockey as a means of social mobility to overcome his self-loathing over his mother’s Cree heritage. As a hockey player, Derek achieves short-lived success as a glorified goon; his toxic masculinity leads to his expulsion from hockey when he violently deforms a player. Once expelled, Derek lapses into the self-destructive cycle of his parents, living out his days in his hometown Pimitamon, Ontario. A washed-out alcoholic like his father, Derek assumes his mother’s job as a short-order cook for a diner and lives in the janitorial closet of the local hockey rink where his father trained him to be a remorseless enforcer. Stuck in a cycle of monotonous days working in the diner and nights drinking to both flame and quell his rage, Derek’s life appears both purposeless and hopeless until Beth’s return. Fleeing an abusive boyfriend, Beth’s presence and vulnerability serve as a mirror that helps Derek understand the familial patterns that he repeats. Beth’s presence helps Derek imagine and even practice alternatives that keep him from the self-immolation of toxic masculinity.