Complicit masculinity and the serialization of violence: notes from Australian cinema

ABSTRACT

This article argues for a revised understanding of 'complicity' as a undertheorised position and relationship within the social organisation of gender. The concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, developed by R.W. Connell and others, has been influential for understanding masculinities as shared ideals embedded within gender power relations, but scholars have paid less attention to Connell’s attendant concept of ‘complicity’, which does not require a shared ideal to be honoured or emulated. To develop a critical account of complicity, this article draws on Iris Marion Young’s distinction between series and groups and considers ways that persons with diverse relationships to masculinities may nevertheless contribute to collective forms of domination. Young’s approach is placed in dialogue with studies of mateship and violence in contemporary Australian cinema, noting the ways that complicity and coercion can be masked through the language of mateship. As key examples, the article considers two Australian true crime films that explore the complicity of adolescent boys with the collective violences of men: David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom (2010) and Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown (2011).

KEYWORDS:

• Masculinity
• violence
• film studies
• Australian cinema
• feminist philosophy

Acknowledgments

I work and live on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, and would like to pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. I would also like to thank the Australian Research Council team on the ‘Australian Boys’ project and associates for their ongoing support and feedback for this research, including Catherine Driscoll, Sarah Graham, Liam Grealy, Jessica Kean, Finola Laughren, Grace Sharkey, Tim Steains, and Shawna Tang. The article has also benefited from two thoughtful peer reviewers and from generous discussions at events hosted by the Sydney Screen Studies Network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I take this acronym from Jeff Hearn’s recent survey of CSMM literatures in Hearn (2019). An alternative shorthand of ‘men and masculinity studies’ (MMS) is suggested by Chris Beasley (2015).

2. Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

3. On aggregates, associations, and groups, see also Young (1990, 42–45).

4. Important studies on these lines have already been undertaken by Dolgopolov (2021), Mattes (2017), and Heller-Nicholas (2011), among others.

5. Iris Marion Young adapts this term from Martin Heidegger.

6. See Low (2019, 644) on the logic of ‘counterviolence’ used to ‘forestall what is perceived to be greater violence’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [GA137280].

Notes on contributors

Timothy Laurie

Timothy Laurie is a Senior Lecture and Graduate Research Coordinator in the School of Communication at the University of Technology Sydney. His current research is focused on Australian boys and cinema, as part of his role as a Chief Investigator on the Australia Research Council grant ‘Australian Boys: Beyond the Boy Problem’ (2021-2023). Timothy has also recently co-authored The Theory of Love: Ideals, Limits, Futures (Palgrave, 2021) with Hannah Stark and co-edited Unsettled Voices: Beyond Free Speech in the Late Liberal Era (Routledge, 2021) with Tanja Dreher and Michael Griffiths.