Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David A. Gerstner is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island.

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"Through a consideration of such seemingly disparate figures as Edwin Forrest, Theodore Roosevelt, Oscar Micheaux, Paul Strand, and Vincente Minnelli, David A. Gerstner subtly and cogently outlines the complex ways that literature, theater, cinema, and other arts created a fragile definition of nation: one predicated on white, working-class, masculine norms but also inflected by African American masculinities and queer subjectivities. Original and innovative, "Manly Arts" is sure to be a significant and lasting contribution to the fields of gender studies, film studies, and American arts and aesthetics."--Paula J. Massood, author of "Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film"

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MANLY ARTS

Duke University Press

Contents

Preface...............................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments.......................................................................................................xv1 Nineteenth-Century Formulations of Masculinity and Realism: The Body of Edwin Forrest...............................12 The Battle Cry of Peace and the Spectacle of Realism................................................................513 African American Realism: Oscar Micheaux, Autobiography, and the Ambiguity of Black Male Desire.....................834 Manhatta: A National Self-Portrait..................................................................................1195 The Queer Frontier: Vincente Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky............................................................165Epilogue..............................................................................................................212Notes.................................................................................................................215Bibliography..........................................................................................................281Index.................................................................................................................305

Chapter One

On the evening of May 10, 1849, American art came into its own through an act of masculine bravado and violence. Outside the Astor Place Opera House in New York City, 31 bystanders were left dead and 150 persons were wounded in a clash between an estimated 10,000 to 24,000 civilians and around 200 members of the military and the police force. At center stage of this momentous affair were the bodies of two men, two actors-William Macready of England and Edwin Forrest of the United States. As the story is usually told, the Astor Place Riot was the cumulative effect of the trans-Atlantic rivalry between these two Shakespearean artists. For several years the actors had taunted one another, and a virtual publicity mill was generated from the insults and pejorative remarks that flew not only between the two actors but also between the international presses. What began because of a public "hiss" over what Forrest described as Macready's "fancy dance" in his performance of Hamlet in 1846 turned into a contest over the terms for masculine and American democratic art.

Things came to a head when in different venues Macready and Forrest simultaneously (and competitively) performed Macbeth in New York on the evening of May 9, 1849. On the following night, the night of the riot (with Macready in the role of Macbeth and Forrest in his favored role of Gladiator), the stage performances of these actors quite literally collided with and spilled over into the arena of the spectators. With these performances the "friendly rivalry" between the two internationally recognized actors escalated into a night of violence in the streets, which was followed by weeks of tension among various political and creative spheres regarding the national interest of the arts. The effect that these two male bodies had on this historical affair, along with the role that their nationally and masculinely defined bodies played in the discourses preceding and subsequently following the riot, cannot be underestimated. These two distinct artistic bodies ushered in the terms for a national sensibility of the American arts. In the end, the situation surrounding Forrest and Macready sharpened the contours and parameters of what would have a resounding impact on the shape of American creative practices and aesthetics.

A tense atmosphere developed throughout Macready's and Forrest's New York theatrical run-especially regarding Macready's performances and his public remarks about Forrest and Americans in general. On the stage, Macready encountered the taunts and jeers (as well as the eggs and vegetables) of America's burgeoning working and immigrant classes. According to most accounts, the groups that caused the most noise at Macready's performance on the night of the riot, as well as in the street prior to it, were led by protonationalist "nativists" who organized under such propagandistic banners as "America for Americans" and the "American Committee." Moreover, these nationalist-led movements were largely composed of groups of recently landed Irish immigrants. Indeed, the Irish American national fervor of the period is key to envisaging much of the anti-British energy leveled against Macready the evening of the riot. Following decades of heinous imperialist rule and domination in their homeland, the Irish placed great stock in the ideological promises of America's economic and political future. The privileged status accorded to the British actor Macready by wealthy and in some cases loyalist Americans did not sit well with the immigrants, who easily recalled memories of the Great Famines and the infamous Penal Colony restrictions of the nineteenth century. This was emphasized all the more by Macready's body and acting style, which were perceived by the Irish as the antithesis to the corporeal form presented by Forrest, whose brash and virile performances were read as thoroughly American. For the young rebellious Irish Americans, Forrest channeled the necessary creative and manly attributes that they identified as American.

The bodies of Macready and Forrest thus became the stage where both ire and nationalist sentiment were rehearsed by those who touted "America for Americans." Forrest represented "democratic" masculinity as the richest and the most ideally "real" form of American representation. And since Macready's body encapsulated a British spectacle -both on stage and on the street-it did not appeal to the Irish and other disenfranchised descendents of the British Empire who sought to carve a national identity outside of Old World sensibilities. For these new Americans, an arrogant display of Britishness was the last thing they wanted to see as they earnestly established themselves in the New World.

Masculine Bodies, Equality, and National Art

Hayden White writes that in times of "sociocultural stress," and particularly in the contested arena of democracy, a "technique of ostensive self-definition by negation" is not unheard of. "If we do not know what we think 'civilization' is," he writes, "we can always find an example of what it is not ... It appears as a kind of reflex action in conflicts between nations, classes, and political parties" In this case, manufacturing a virile America-separate from England-and faith in the dream of a manly and democratic civilization finds an apt point of negation in the body of Macready. For the young "America for Americans," Macready's dilettantish arrogance registered unmanliness and thus, in effect, un-Americanness.

In 1849, at the point of "sociocultural stress," nationhood, class, and masculinity were negotiated through a simple strategy that negated the body of Macready. The British actor certainly did not help matters for himself by wittingly or unwittingly fanning negative flames. His inflated comments about his own self-worth and the intellectual capacity of the American spectator were, to draw out the metaphor, fuel for the quickly burning cultural fire....