Om Coen-brödernas "The Man Who Wasn't There"

Abstract (på engelska)

This essay analyses the quiet and unassuming central character Ed Crane, from the Coen Brothers’ 2001 neo-noir film, The Man Who Wasn’t There, as a highly problematic and hostility-inducing ghost of a man whose heteronormative not-thereness strikes fear and loathing into the film’s late 40s postwar environment, resulting in a morality tale of a society compelled to police its ranks, remove the contaminating element, and restore gender coherence. I position the barbershop where Ed begrudgingly works as a Foucauldian boys-to-men grooming station of biopower’s participatory panoptic gaze, and probe to what extent Foucault believed resistance to such power was a possibility. From a theoretical hub that weaves together concerns from masculinity, queer and Foucauldian studies, I will suggest keys to understanding enigmatic moments in Ed’s odd discoveries and self-debasing behaviours, and ultimately read his transgressive journey towards death row as a container for hopeful, passive resistance.

Bio

Marcus Richey comes from Wichita, Kansas, USA. He is PhD candidate in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Gothenburg University in Sweden. With a background in English and theatre studies, his research interests include American literature and cinema, popular culture, gender and queer studies, and almost any theoretical concern with a ‘post’ in the name. He has lectured, among other places, at Karlstad University in Sweden, and The Modern College of Business and Science in Muscat, Oman. His compilation dissertation, titled Man Down: Patriarchal Unworlding in Postmodern Fiction and Film, is due to be completed in 2025.