MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In response to recent mass shootings and the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, social commentators have considered the role toxic masculinity plays in promoting bigotry and violence. Appropriately for this cultural moment, the two most recent Best Picture Oscar winners have examined the theme of toxic masculinity in their narratives. The Best Picture of 2016, Moonlight, depicts the alienating effects of abuse and isolation on its protagonist, a young gay black man named Chiron who grew up in Miami. The Shape of Water, the most recent Best Picture Oscar winner, presents a villain who embodies toxic masculinity, a federal agent who treats women as sexual prey, values success over compassion, and brutalizes the mysterious creature in his care. While there is already value in these films’ depictions of gendered pain and cruelty, it is especially important to consider the ways that The Shape of Water and Moonlight conceive of alternatives to such noxious approaches to masculinity. Although the films cover wildly divergent subject matter—drug dealing in a predominantly black community in contemporary Miami and Cold War research in an early-1960s secret government lab—they share common motifs in their conceptions of a masculinity free of domination and cruelty. Most notably, these films associate water with healing and kindness, and to some extent, as a means to unite people in a romantic or filial love. In my essay, I analyze the audio-visual and narrative work of these two films to reject toxic masculinity and imagine gendered identities built on mutual affection and respect.