It’s Good to Talk? Language, Loquaciousness and Silence Among Irish Cinema’s Men in Crisis

Abstract

Given the apparently traumatic nature of Irish boyhood and fatherhood, as they have been articulated in the Irish films discussed so far, it might be reasonable to assume that, by and large, the makers of these films agree that Irish masculinity has long been undergoing some form of crisis. However, even though these films are essentially about men in crisis, there is no indication of a masculinity-in-crisis discourse at work within them. On the contrary, they have tended to direct a largely feminist-inflected attack on patriarchy and its ‘frontline troops’ (Connell, 1995), inviting sympathy for the young boys who have suffered at its hands. In a later slew of films, however, there was a shift away from a preoccupation with men as perpetrators of violence and oppression, toward a concern with men, including adult men, as victims. These films, which include Disco Pigs, Kings, Swansong: the Story of Occi Byrne, Ailsa, On the Edge, Eden, Garage, Small Engine Repair, Parked, The Looking Glass and Eamon feature male characters who are excluded from male hegemony. Powerless, misunderstood and emotionally adrift, the protagonists of these films are either depressed or deeply frustrated, manifested in an inability or reluctance to talk about their feelings, the creation of alternative linguistic universes (Disco Pigs, Kings) or, in the case of The Guard, In Bruges and Intermission, in the use of words to draw protective discursive boundaries around a fragile or threatened sense of masculinity.