The Representation of Celtic Tiger Irish Masculinity in Hollywood Cinema: 1994-2008

Abstract

By analysing the careers of three Irish actors in the U.S. during the Celtic Tiger period— Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers—this thesis explores the representation of Celtic Tiger Irish masculinity in Hollywood cinema. It considers the “Celtic Tiger” as an economic phenomenon that had cultural ramifications and affected the meanings attached to Irishness at a local and global level. Each chapter takes a trope or stereotype connected to the representation of Irish masculinity in cinema. Chapter One, “Tiger Celts”: Irishness, Whiteness, and Masculinity, considers the way that Irishness registers as a form of enriched whiteness in popular culture while still laying claim to a victim status that has extended from Ireland’s former colonization. It argues that as both film stars and characters, Farrell, Murphy, and Meyers avail of the cultural currency of whiteness, but remain inseparable from their ethnicity. They are seldom cast as actors but as Irish actors in Hollywood, and the contention that the Irishness of Farrell, Murphy, and Meyers lingers as a watermark that remains present regardless of the accent or ethnicity of the characters they play underlies the arguments made throughout the thesis as a whole. Chapter Two, “Gael Gore”: Hollywood Representations of Irish Violence, considers the extent to which the stereotype of Irish violence continues to guide discourses of Irish masculinity in Hollywood. Chapter Three, Fathers, Sons, and Irish Masculinity, looks comparatively at Irish masculinity by considering the characters played by two successive generations of Irish actors. Finally, Chapter Four, Sexuality and the City: The Irish Metrosexual, looks retrospectively at the careers of Farrell, Murphy, and Meyers to argue that the type of metrosexual characters they have represented can be traced to the shifting emphasis between rural and urban Ireland that formed the bedrock of discourses pertaining to the Celtic Tiger