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Gender and Desire in Polo Ralph Lauren, continued... |
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Notes 1. In asking this question, I am inspired
by Diana Fuss's article, "Fashion and the Homospectatorial Look,"
Critical Inquiry 18 (Summer 12992), 713-737. I will consider
Fuss's article later in this paper. 2. Robert Murray Davis, ed., Owen Wister's West: Selected Articles (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 38, 39. 3. R.W. Connell, Masculinities, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 45. 4. Davis, 37. 5. Susan Lee Johnson, "'A Memory Sweet to Soldiers': The Significance of Gender," in A New Significance: Re-envisioning the History of the American West, ed. Clyde A. Milner II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 257. |
Fig. 4 |
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6. Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996 [1995]), 85-6. 7. Quoted in Barbara Will, "The Nervous Origins of the American Western," American Literature 70 no. 2 (1998), 301. The original quote appears in S. Weir Mitchell, Nurse and Patient; and, Camp Cure (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1877), 45. 8. In some cases, instead of an aesthete, the cowboy or rancher was positioned against a Mexican. See Enrique LaMadrid, Ig/noble Savages of New Mexico: The Naturalization of "El Norte" into "The Great Southwest," Working Paper Series 121 (Albuquerque: Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, 1992). According to LaMadrid, Mexicans were frequently portrayed as "lazy, oversexed, filthy, vicious, thieving, violent, and cowardly, with a tendency to carry knives," (13). Among his examples, LaMadrid cites Romaine Fielding's film, The Rattlesnake: A Psychical Species. 9. Although there are many examples of this character, two that immediately spring to mind are the characters of Sam Beasley (played by Arthur O'Connell) in Man of the West (1958), and Mr. Peacock (played by Donald Meek) in Stagecoach (1939). 10. Martin Pumphrey, "Why Do Cowboys Wear Hats in the Bath?" Critical Quarterly 31, no. 3 (1989), 83. 11. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 77. 12. Not all western films position a hypermasculine cowboy against an urbanite, however. In some films, even the cowboy's masculinity, when positioned against that of another character, such as a cattleman, comes into question. In his book, Masked Men, Steven Cohan examines the interaction between John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in the film, Red River. In this film, Clift plays Matthew, a young cowboy unskilled with guns who is the foster son of Dunson (John Wayne), an aging, unmarried cattleman. The film reproduces (perhaps unintentionally) some of the actual gender and class ambiguities of cowboys in the West. As Cohan notes, "In nineteenth-century Western society the cattleman and the cowboy were just what their names designated: a man and a boy occupying vastly different economic positions within a ranch's class structure," p. 209. They occupied different gender positions as well. As noted further in this paper, cowboys slept with other men, cross-dressed and routinely castrated bulls. Ranchers, on the other hand, managed the cowboys, oversaw their work and in general enjoyed a more stable and privileged position within the community. Red River lays open some of these gender ambiguities. First, there is the fact that the cattle that the two herd is the product of Matthew's cow and Dunson's bull (one masculinity is impregnated by another). Second, there is the point in the film where Dunson disarms Matthew of his gun. Matthew is emasculated and castrated, just like the cattle he tends. See Steven Cohan, Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1997). For the castration metaphor, see chapter two of Blake Allmendinger, The Cowboy: Representations of Labor in an American Work Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 13. Paul H. Carlson, "Myth and the Modern Cowboy," in The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History and Culture, ed. Paul H. Carlson (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2000), 1-10. 14. Carlson, 3. 15. Carlson, 3. 16. Carlson, 5. 17. Carlson, 7. 18. Blake Allmendinger, The Cowboy: Representations of Labor in an American Work Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 19. Allmendinger, 55. 20. Allmendinger, 66-7. 21. Allmendinger, 60. 22. Dee Garceau, "Nomads, Bunkies, Cross-Dressers, and Family Men," in Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West , eds. Matthew Basso, Laura McCall, and Dee Garceau (New York: Routledge, 2001), 149-168. 23. Garceau, 154. 24. Garceau, 154. 25. Both Garceau and Allmendinger note that written references to homosexuality or homoeroticism among cowboys are extremely rare. See Garceau 155-59, 167 (note 36), and Allmendinger, 51. However, just because something was not recorded does not mean it did not happen. 26. Allmendinger, 51. Allmendinger also points out that cooking was a task usually performed by black, Native American or Hispanic cowboys, 53. Race and ethnicity in the West are important issues in Polo Ralph Lauren's collections as well, but a discussion of those issues here would take me too far afield of this particular project. 27. Allmendinger, 53. 28. Garceau, 149-153. 29. How subversive these categories really were, however, is open to debate. Both Garceau and Allmendinger describe gender-bending activities in the West, but their description of these activities still seems to reinforce, rather than rupture, the gender binary of masculine/feminine. 30. Hal Fischer, Gay Semiotics: A Photographic Study of Visual Coding Among Homosexual Men (San Francisco: NSF Press, 1977), 15. 31. Fischer, 18. 32. Fischer, 18. 33. Shaun Cole, "'Macho Man': Clones and the Development of a Masculine Stereotype," Fashion Theory 4 (2000), 125-6. 34. Quoted in Alex Shoumatoff, Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest (New York: Harper Perennial, 1999), 20. This quote originally appeared in Jeffrey Hogrefe, O'Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend (New York: Bantam, 1992). 35. When I say "created by Ralph Lauren," I mean those individuals hired by Ralph Lauren or by his company officials, or Ralph Lauren himself. 36. The spelling of Lauren's original surname has been variously reported as Liphshitz, Lipschitz and Lifschitz. 37. Joan Juliet Buck, "Everybody's All-American," Vogue, Feb. 1992, 204. 38. Some reports suggest the name change was his father's idea; others suggest it was the idea of his older brother, Jerry, who claimed that "Lifshitz" was "a burden," see Stephen Koepp, "Selling a Dream of Elegance and the Good Life," Time, 1 September 1986, 57. 39. Jesse Kornbluth, "Ralph Lauren: Living the Dream," Vogue, Aug. 1982, 306. 40. Indeed, Lauren's wide ties were one of the important sartorial contributions to the "Peacock Revolution," a fashion moment that began at approximately 1960 and ended in 1972 and that was characterized by a supposedly sudden interest in fashion by men. According to Thomas Frank, "The word 'peacock' became suddenly pervasive as the flamboyant, overstated, and brightly colored looks of Mod were snapped up and displayed by department stores across the country. [. . .] And, as in the advertising industry, a parade of creative heroes known as 'designers,' passed across the nation's sartorial stage—one of them, Ralph Lauren, bringing with him the loudly decorated, four-inch-wide tie" (190, 192). See Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997). Michael Gross has also commented on Lauren's contribution to the Peacock Revolution, see Michael Gross, "The American Dream," New York, 21-28 Dec. 1992, 71. 41. Buck, 204. 42. I acknowledge that I run some risk of essentializing here. Looking "traditional" or "heterosexual," or "homosexual" depends on who's doing it, when, where and why. 43. Roland Barthes, Image - Music - Text, trans. Stephen Heath (new York: The Noonday Press, 1977), 33. 44. Buck, 204. 45. Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988), 194. 46. Several personal interviews with fashion buyers indicate that women often buy men's clothing for their fathers, husbands, brothers and boyfriends. 47. Diana Fuss, "Fashion and the Homospectatorial Look." Critical Inquiry 18 (1992), 713. 48. As a frequent reader of Vogue and The New York Times, I have found very few advertisements or articles that specifically cater to the needs and interests of gay readers, unlike the gay-specific advertisements and articles I have found in magazines such as The Advocate, Out and Genre. 49. Kornbluth, 264. 50. For accounts of Lauren's marital/family life, see, for example, Michael Gross, "The American Dream," New York, 21-28 Dec. 1992, 71-2; Bernadine Morris, "Eclectic Approach by Ralph Lauren," The New York Times, 25 April 1981, 21; Jay Fielden, "The Jewel of Jamaica," Vogue, Dec. 2000, 320-331, 394; Bettijane Levine, "Ralph Lauren: Riding Out His Fantasies," The Los Angeles Times, 1 June 1979, part V, 4; Jesse Kornbluth, "Ralph Lauren: Living the Dream" Vogue, Aug. 1982, 262-9, 306. 51. Paris is Burning, prod. and dir. Jennie Livingston, 76 min., Prestige, 1991, videocassette. 52. Vogue, "It Was Made to Be Worn" (Advertisement), Sept. 1979, 20-1. 53. Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 234. 54. Pumphrey, 83. 55. Cole, 128-9. 56. It is interesting to note that even Ralph Lauren doesn't wear his own jeans. Instead he wears Levi's. See Trachtenberg, 202. See also Jesse Kornbluth, "Polo/Ralph Lauren: Refashioning New York's Rhinelander Mansion," Architectural Digest, Oct. 1986, 220 and Kornbluth, "Ralph Lauren: Living the Dream," Vogue, Aug. 1982, 265. 57. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1988 [1972]),47. 58. Richard Dyer, "Don't Look Now," Screen 23, no. 3/4 (1982), 61-73. 59. I find the "active looking = male"/"passive appearing = female" dichotomy to be a dangerously essentialist one. It is the premise upon which much of Berger's book is based, and I suggest that it is only one way of seeing. How gay men look at other men and women and how gay women look at other women and men complicates this dichotomy considerably. Furthermore, race, ethnicity and even age complicate these activities as well. 60. Dyer, 63. 61. According to Laura Mulvey, male spectatorial pleasure works on a couple of levels: the voyeuristic pleasure of watching the interaction on the screen and the narcissistic pleasure of identifying with the protagonist. See Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Visual and Other Pleasures, ed. Laura Mulvey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 14-26. In a subsequent essay, Mulvey addresses female spectatorial pleasure. See Laura Mulvey, "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' Inspired by King Vidor's Duel in the Sun (1946)," in Visual and Other Pleasures, ed. Laura Mulvey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 29-38. In this essay, she suggests that a female spectator "may find herself secretly, unconsciously almost, enjoying the freedom of action and control over the diegetic world that identification with a hero provides," (29). What kind of spectatorial pleasure the female spectator gains, however, depends on the gender of the protagonist. In Duel in the Sun, the female protagonist, Pearl, vacillates in her affection for two men, Lewt and Jesse. The female spectator vacillates as well, between identifying with Pearl and identifying with what Pearl becomes when she is with these two men. For example, "[w]ith Lewt, Pearl can be a tomboy," (36). With Jesse, Pearl "learn[s] to be a lady," (35). Mulvey argues that it is this vacillation between identities that makes "the female spectator's fantasy of masculinisation at cross-purposes with itself, restless in its transvestite clothes," (37). For applications of Mulvey's theories to looking at magazines, see Sean Nixon's "Distinguishing Looks: Masculinities, the Visual and Men's Magazines," in Pleasure Principles: Sexuality and Ethics, eds. Victoria Harwood, David Oswell, Kay Parkinson and Anna Ward (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993): 54-70; and Sean Nixon's "Have You Got the Look? Masculinities and Shopping Spectacle," in Lifestyle Shopping: The Subject of Consumption, ed. Rob Shields (New York: Routledge, 1992): 149-169. 62. Fischer, 18. 63. Nixon 1992, 153. 64. The term "lesbian" is an all-encompassing, monolithic term as well. Here I employ it to generally mean women who desire other women, but I recognize the complications and costs associated with doing this. Halberstam has written on this subject at length. See Halberstam, 50-58. 65. Judith Halberstam, 1. 66. Butler 1990, 136. Bibliography: Articles/Essays About
Ralph Lauren - Brubach, Holly. A Dedicated Follower of Fashion. London: Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1999. -Buck, Joan Juliet. "Everybody's All-American." Vogue, Feb. 1992: 202-211, 284. -Fielden, Jay. "The Jewel of Jamaica. Vogue, Dec. 2000, 320-331, 394. -Gross, Michael. "The American Dream." New York, 21-28 Dec. 1992, 71-2. -Koepp, Stephen. "Selling a Dream of Elegance and the Good Life." Time, 1 September 1986: 54-61. -Kornbluth, Jesse. "Ralph Lauren: Living the Dream." Vogue, Aug. 1982: 262-9, 306-7. ------. "Polo/Ralph Lauren: Refashioning New York's Rhinelander Mansion," Architectural Digest, Oct. 1986, 134-143, 220. -Levine, Bettijane. "Ralph Lauren: Riding Out His Fantasies." The Los Angeles Times. 1 June 1979, Sec. V, 4. -Morris, Bernadine. "Eclectic Approach by Ralph Lauren." The New York Times, 25 April 1981, 21. -The New York Times. "Polo Ralph Lauren" (Advertisement). 25 Nov. 2001, sec. 6, 1-3. -Ralph Lauren Media. "Polo Ralph Lauren: History" (brochure). -Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988. -Vogue. "It Was Made to Be Worn" (Advertisement). Sept. 1979: 20-1. -------. "A New Tradition in American Western Wear" (Advertisement). April 1979: 70-1. -------. "Rough Wear" (Advertisement). Sept. 1981: 42-3. Consumption/Consumer Culture: -Edwards, Tim. Men in the Mirror: Men's Fashion, Masculinity and Consumer Society. London: Cassell, 1997. -Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997. -Nixon, Sean. "Distinguishing Looks: Masculinities, the Visual and Men's Magazines." In Pleasure Principles: Politics, Sexuality and Ethics, edited by Victoria Harwood, David Oswell, Kay Parkinson and Anna Ward. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 993: 54-70. ------. "Have You Got the Look? Masculinties and Shopping Spectacle." In Lifestyle Shopping: The Subject of Consumption, edited by Rob Shields. New York: Routledge, 1992: 149-169. Film Theory: -Cohan, Steven. Masked Men: Masculinity and Movies in the Fifties. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. -Dyer, Richard. "Don't Look Now." Screen 23, no. 3/4 (1982), 61-73. -Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." In Visual and Other Pleasures, edited by Laura Mulvey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. -----. "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' Inspired by King Vidor's 'Duel in the Sun' (1946)." In Visual and Other Pleasures, edited by Laura Mulvey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Gender Theory/Queer Theory - Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990 -Cole, Shaun. "'Macho Man': Clones and the Development of a Masculine Stereotype." Fashion Theory 4 (2000): 125-140. -Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. -Fischer, Hal. Gay Semiotics. San Francisco: NSF Press, 1977. -Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. -Paris is Burning. Produced and directed by Jennie Livingston. 76 min. Prestige, 1991. Videocassette. -Pumphrey, Martin. "Why Do Cowboys Wear Hats in the Bath? Style Politics for the Older Man." Critical Quarterly 31, no. 3 (1989): 78-100. Masculinity and Sexuality and the West -Allmendinger, Blake. The Cowboy: Representations of Labor in an American Work Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. -Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996 [1995]. -Carlson, Paul H. "Myth and the Modern Cowboy." In The Cowboy Way: An Exploration of History and Culture, edited by Paul H. Carlson. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2000: 1-10. -Davis, Robert Murray, ed. Owen Wister's West: Selected Essays. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1987. -Garceau, Dee. "Nomads, Bunkies, Cross-Dressers, and Family Men: Cowboy Identity and the Gendering of Ranch Work." In Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West, edited by Matthew Basso, Laura McCall, and Dee Garceau. New York: Routledge, 2001. -Hogrefe, Jeffrey. O'Keeffe: The Life of an American Legend. New York: Bantam, 1992. -Johnson, Susan Lee. "'A Memory Sweet to Soldiers': The Significance of Gender." In A New Significance: Re-envisioning the History of the American West, edited by Clyde A. Milner II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996: 255-278. -LaMadrid, Enrique R. "Ig/noble Savages of New Mexico: The Naturalization of "El Norte" into "The Great Southwest."" Working Paper Series 121. Albuquerque: Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, 1992. -Man of the West. Produced and directed by Anthony Mann. United Artists, 100 mins. 1958. Videocassette. -Nash, Gerald D. and Richard W. Etulain. "Introduction." In Researching Western History: Topics in the Twentieth Century History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997: 3-7. -Shoumatoff, Alex. Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999. -Stagecoach. Produced and directed by John Ford. United Artists, 1939. Videocassette. -Will, Barbara. "The Nervous Origins of the American Western." American Literature 70 (1998): 293-316. Spectatorship -Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1988 [1972]. -Fuss, Diana. "Fashion and the Homospectatorial Look." Critical Inquiry 18 (1992): 713- 737. |
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