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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Masculinity, American Modernity, and Body Modification: A Feminist Reading ofAmerican Eunuchs
Contributor:
Weber, Brenda R.
imprint:
University of Chicago Press, 2013
Published in:Signs
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1086/668552
ISSN:
1545-6943;
0097-9740
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<label>Abstract</label>
<p>
<italic>American Eunuchs</italic>, a 2003 documentary made by Italian directors Gian Claudio Guiducci and Franco Sacchi, offers a set of possibilities about men and the male body that may lead a viewer to believe that masculinity can be strengthened in the absence of the dominant signifier that is male genitalia. The documentary features a series of what the film terms “surreal” and “bizarre” portraits of biological men who voluntarily choose to be castrated or to have nullification surgeries so that they might reinvent their psychosexual identities for reasons other than sex reassignment. Guiducci and Sacchi pointedly identify these anomalous males as American, and in the referencing of their subjects’ altered male bodies, the filmmakers also offer commentary on a broader concept of Americanization, particularly the way in which “America” circulates as a master signifier of wealth, progress, freedom, and modernity. Their combined fascination with and disgust for the documentary’s subjects mirrors a similar regard for American masculinity and a mediated zone ripe with meaning for feminist theory.</p>