Haunted Mirror: British Gothic Masculinity in Transatlantic Cinema

Abstract

This project follows the ghost of Gothic British masculinity across the ocean in the period of classical cinema. It examines the ways in which British stars were offered as an alternative to the American ideal of muscular, anti-intellectual, tough male identity. British men on film allowed Hollywood a glimpse in a mirror, a dark, haunted mirror, where identity might be fractured, damaged, liberated, queered or feminised. In a period dominated by two world wars and a Great Depression, identities of all types were being challenged and filmmakers used Britishness to allow this tension to seep into cinema. This project uses the lens of the Gothic as a method of uncovering the hidden history that is embedded in many films. The uncanny and the sublime, shadows and mirrors, portraits, decadent iconography and dark doubles all dominate in these cinematic texts. At a time when the Production Code made it necessary for subversive content to be well hidden, films contained embedded secret codes and invited possible alternative readings. Bringing together film scholarship with literary theorists this thesis offers fresh perspectives on historical cinematic meanings. This study presents a detailed analysis of British male stardom as it emerged in the period of early talkies. It details the ways in which the male stars, Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone and George Sanders were presented in fan publications. It presents the contradictions inherent in their fan discourse and allows for consideration of the queerness that American culture seemed to accept was part of British - and European - male identity