“I Retract that Bit…”: Hypermasculinity and Violence in Martin McDonagh’s Films

Abstract

In a restaurant scene during the 2008 film In Bruges, after Ray punches a woman in the face who is defending her date, whom he has also punched, he deflects: “I would never hit a woman! I’d hit a woman who was trying to hit me with a bottle!” (33). The second statement immediately undercuts the first, retracting Ray’s stated values and calling attention to Ray’s idea of himself as the kind of man who would never hit a woman – a fiction that reveals its hypocrisy in the moment of its utterance. Significantly, Ray articulates a chivalric form of masculinity (claiming he would never hit a woman), which is belied by hypermasculinity (by punching the woman). This moment illustrates a key tenet of films written and directed by Martin McDonagh: embattled masculinity represented by an idea presented and then retracted. Thus, repetitive retractions in the films serve as a metaphor signaling the constructed, always-vulnerable nature of contemporary masculinity. Through feminist theories of masculinity as performance and accomplishment, this article addresses how hypermasculinity creates shame, which subsequently drives violence in McDonagh’s films In Bruges (2008) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017). In close-reading these two films, I argue that McDonagh’s technical and thematic use of repetitive retraction – placing an idea on screen only to undermine it – offers a subversive critique of how hypermasculinity propels a cycle of violence. Characters in the films must accomplish masculinity, an effort that becomes humorous when made visible. By conspicuously staging and then removing hypermasculine utterances, McDonagh’s films suggest the potential for alternative forms of masculinity that allow men to connect with others and exercise their emotional range, such as fatherhood and friendship. McDonagh built his career as an Anglo-Irish playwright, earning a following for writing black comedies set in Ireland including The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996) and The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001). He then turned to writing and directing films, notably winning an Academy Award in 2006 for