Setting the Scene: Masculinity, Jealousy and Contemporary Culture

Abstract

This book offers a new understanding of the relationships between masculinity and male jealousy. Its focus is the representation of jealousy in contemporary cinema as a marker of the relationships between masculinity, fantasy and cultural change. Jealousy has played a key role in the shaping of masculine identities and provides a useful focus to explore the tensions and contradictions of Western masculinities, within the shifting and uncertain terrain of late modern culture.¹ Historically, male jealousy and its relationship to the shaping of men and masculinities remains under-researched within cultural and psychosocial studies. The main debates around jealousy tend to unfold with reference to either psychology or sociology. Psychologically, jealousy is closely related to envy, but whereas envy involves two people, jealousy involves three. Sociologically, the emphasis generally distinguishes between envy and jealousy. As sociologist Van Sommers suggests, ‘Envy concerns what you would like to have but don’t possess, jealousy … concerns what you have and don’t wish to lose’ (1988: 1). This book carves out a space in which to consider the psycho-cultural manifestations of heterosexual jealousy by exploring key images of its themes of loss and anxiety as well as its emotional significance.