2001

23.3

Michelle Y. Janning

Party On, Be Excellent, and Be Ignorant: Depictions of Masculinity in the Idiotic Duo Film Gentre

The male hero in contemporary American movies has shaped and is shaped by visions of masculinity. Implied by the very term hero are ingredients of a certain masculine role, one that consists of the strength of Superman, the charisma of James Bond, the sex appeal of Indiana Jones, and the determination of Rocky. Heroes are not the only masculine images we see on the big screen, however. For example, what about the male comic anti-hero, where strength is lacking, charisma and sex appeal are accidental, and determination is inconsistent? More specifically, what about the comic anti-hero duo, where the main character is split into two inseparable idiotic anti-heroes? What do a pair of male idiots in the movies mean in terms of men’s power and friendships specifically? When we think about how power is measured in our society, as manifest by the success of our heroes, we think of physical strength, intelligence, maturity, and wealth, all of which are results of the hard work of the hero. I propose that the comic anti-hero duo, or idiotic duo as it is termed in this essay, serves as a useful marker of variations in masculine power and friendships in American society. Further, the depictions of masculinity in the idiotic duo genre represent the contemporary postmodern male as a fractured self—one that feels powerless in at least some part of a world that tells him that he has power, and one that is incomplete individually.

The movies analyzed here that fit into the idiotic duo genre are: Strange Brew (1983), Spies Like Us (1985), Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), Wayne’s World (1992), Dumb and Dumber (1994), Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), and Gone Fishin’ (1997). These seven films illustrate numerous conventions that did not exist earlier in the century when other comedy duos entertained past audiences. Focused on two immature males who are relatively ignorant loners and are often dubbed as “losers” in the game of social acceptance and success, these films display physical and intellectual comedy that degrades the main characters while portraying them as eventually achieving success and acceptance, though not at the cost to their comic antihero status.

The idiotic duo has not yet been analyzed as an emerging film genre. Past genre analyses have ranged from Parley Ann Boswell’s essay about weddings in movies (6-20), Greg Metcalf’s analysis of Christmas conventions in films (100-113), and Clinton Sanders’ discussion of conventions in horror cinema (143-159), to works such as Will Wright’s structural study of the Western and John Cawelti’s exploration of story formulae in crime and detective stories and Westerns.

Emerging as a potpourri of other genres, the origins of the idiotic duo can be traced to slapstick, films about rebellious individuals, and physical comedy. But although the idiot is far from new in the movies, the pair of idiots is a phenomenon that has emerged in the post-Vietnam era. The last two decades especially have witnessed the surfacing of this hidden genre. What makes this genre different from past comedic duos? Unlike past straight man-funny man comedic duos such as Abbott and Costello, Rowan and Martin, Burns and Allen, Martin and Lewis, and Laurel and Hardy, the examples in the present analysis involve both characters as idiots, both playing the ignorant funny man of the past at the same time. Even if, in past comedic duos, both members displayed idiocy to the audience, there was always some semblance of one member’s being more serious, smarter, or more sane. This contrast is still in existence today, with straight man-funny man comedic duos found in the recent films Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, 48 Hours, and countless films with contrasting qualities in police partners.

It is in their childlike nature and their abundant leisure time that the male idiotic duo most vividly manifest their individual powerlessness. Characteristic of the childlike nature of these duos, and especially significant to them as a pair of characters, is physical comedy in the form of clumsiness. Numerous examples of physical comedy are shown in these movies, mostly involving such things as kicking, spitting, farting, tripping, making messes, breaking things, and pretending to fight. These occur without exception, although some movies include physical comedy more than others. The fact that they are an idiotic duo, as opposed to the solo comic anti-hero, is necessary in this physical comedy. The two are kicking, tripping, fighting, and spitting at each other, and they make twice the mess of a solo character. Almost more inexcusable than when a solo character makes a mistake, the fact that two of them do it, that one cannot prevent the other from doing idiotic things, makes them doubly idiotic.

A childlike nature is portrayed by all idiotic duos, no matter what age the characters are. The boyishness of the idiotic duo is portrayed in their innocence, lack of sensibility, and clumsiness. The characters are adults (or young adults) between the ages of fifteen and fifty trying to function in the hectic modern world, but their knowledge and experience are lacking, usually because their intelligence is that of young children. Their behavior follows their mentality: they cannot think like adults, and so how can they act like adults?  If their focus is on leisure time and they are not successful in terms of intelligence or work, acting immature is the next logical step. They are a team of idiots, and are often seen by other characters as a unit, two brother-like characters who cannot function on their own, and can barely function together.

Examples of childlike fighting and pretending are countless in these films. The McKenzie brothers, in Strange Brew, spend much of their time fighting like antagonistic siblings. From “Dad, Bob broke your beer,” to blaming each other for their near deaths, Bob and Doug fight like children and do not face problems in an adult manner.

A childlike ignorance is characteristic of both members of the idiotic duo. Bill and Ted are still in high school when they have their Excellent Adventure. They are ignorant about the goings-on in the world and especially about history. They dress unprofessionally in T-shirts and shorts, they go to convenience stores to search for answers to their history questions, they are primarily concerned with being rock stars, and they cannot pronounce the names of the historic figures they are recruiting for their history project (So-crayts, Bee-thoven, Sigmund Frood). The boyishness of all of these characters emasculates them, even if they are grown men.

Teasing, joking, and acting immature are present in all seven films, though most clearly portrayed in Wayne’s World, Dumb and Dumber, and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Wayne and Garth joke about a police officer while standing next to him (“I smell bacon”) but are still friendly. They are old enough to go to a dance club, but they are immature enough to ask a man in a neighboring car if he has any Grey Poupon. When their show moves into a big studio, they don’t hesitate to play with the equipment and make fun of the show’s sponsor (holding up cards that say “This man has no penis” to the camera without the sponsor’s knowing). Garth is sensible enough to think something is fishy with Benjamin, the exploiting producer. But when he reads in Benjamin’s appointment book, “Thursday: purchase feeble cable access show and exploit it,” Garth is unaware that he and Wayne are the ones being exploited.

None of the stupid antics of any idiotic duo compares to those of Beavis and Butt-Head, however. This idiotic duo is perhaps the most immature of them all, constantly mooning people, masturbating in their neighbor’s camper, and neglecting any self-monitoring skills when it comes to language, respect for elders, or discretion (“We’re gonna get paid to score”). Clearly one of the reasons for their exaggerated immaturity lies in the fact that they are indeed children. Nonetheless, they represent, at the very least, early representations of masculinity as it is socialized into young people, which in turn has an effect on adult masculinity. Their childlike nature, in this sense, is at its most pristine and primitive, anxiously awaiting its manifestation in the two characters’ adult lives. It becomes clear in all of these examples that if men’s individual power is partially defined by maturity, the idiotic duo have very little power.

The characters involved are created to be lazy and dependent on leisure time activities. Since there are two characters, as opposed to the single comic anti-hero common in the early twentieth century, they reinforce each other, perpetuating a cycle of laziness, lack of motivation to work, and consequent abundant leisure time, as if their relationship has built-in peer pressure to be lazy. Whether it is through love of sports, television, jobs that require little skill and less than forty hours a week of work, or rock music, the idiotic duo share abundant leisure time and laziness as crucial components in their relationship. It is in the characteristic of abundant leisure time that we see the characters set apart from society as “losers,” because they are seen as lazy males who cannot hold jobs, have a low grade point average, or hold dead-end jobs. Measures of success in America are based on an individualistic ethos of hard work paying off with rewards of money and fame. In none of these movies do the characters start out as successful; they are only successful at the end, but they still have abundant leisure time. The stereotypical hero in American society works hard and is intelligent, and so it is obvious that the idiotic duo are just the opposite of heroes along these lines.

Each movie exemplifies this characterization well. In Spies Like Us, Emmett attempts cheating during the Foreign Service exam, and gets Austin to do it, too. Emmett asks Austin, “What does KGB stand for?” and has obviously not studied for the test, exemplifying laziness. Such remarks clearly illustrate a lack of focus on scholarly work. Perhaps the most vivid example is in Wayne’s World, where Wayne begins the movie by talking directly to the audience from his vaguely middle class home in Aurora: “I’ve had plenty of ‘joe jobs,’ but nothing I’d call a career. Let me put it this way: I have an extreme collection of hairnets and nametags.” Still living with their respective parents, Wayne and Garth do not represent the stereotype of hard-working individuals, at least as it is measured in a meritocratic American society. In sum, the characterizations of the idiotic duo as immature and lazy illustrate just how powerless these men are.

Conventions of plot also lend insight into the discussion of male power. Though each of these movies is about a completely different topic, common plot conventions emerge. The clearest illustration of the lack of these men’s stereotypical power is in their winning by naiveté. With the exception of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (where, instead of naiveté as a guide, they have a man from the future named Rufus), this plot convention has two offshoots: one in which the villain is defeated and knows all along that the two heroes are dumb, and the other in which the villain is under the impression that the pair are careful, professional, and deliberate in their actions, while the duo actually only accidentally triumph over evil.

The first offshoot is exemplified in Spies Like Us when Emmett, obviously an ignoramus in the eyes of the Soviet officers, unknowingly tosses an activated hand grenade back at the officers, blowing up their headquarters. Similarly, in Wayne’s World, the evil TV producer knows the ignorance of Wayne and Garth. They receive many clues about his exploitation of them and do not get the hint, and yet they triumph over him in the end. In Gone Fishin,’ the villain is aware of the ignorance of the idiotic duo from the first moment he cons them out of their car.

Regarding the second offshoot, in Strange Brew the Brewmeister is initially under the impression that Bob and Doug are smarter than they actually are. Every step that leads them to defeating the villain is accidental, from turning on a video game that displays the villainous scheme to grabbing a random diskette out of Smith’s computer that turns out to be crucial to his evil plans. Beavis and Butt-Head are erroneously considered to be “two criminal masterminds” by the head of the FBI in their journey to find their television. These examples all show that winning by naiveté, a plot convention that illustrates an emasculation of the idiotic duo, is a vital component of this film genre. The men in these movies, therefore, have little power as defined by this component.   

The final conventions used to illustrate the issue of men’s power for the idiotic duo are material world and setting. The tangible material world and setting that make up the environment in which these characters live are important. Material objects give us clues about the roles, hobbies, lifestyles, and social class of the characters in these films, which in turn serve as the cultural indexes for audience members. Setting is important because it provides a social class and national background upon which to place the idiotic duo’s character and plot conventions. Seemingly unimportant objects in these films play important roles in character, plot, and thematic development.

There are several measures of the material world in these movies that account for the character convention of the idiotic duo. If stereotypical heroes have at least some measures of success financially, the idiotic duo lack them throughout the films. If we look closely, we see that the types of clothing (T-shirts that have heavy metal bands on them) and bumper stickers (“Beer lovers”) tell what sort of marginal characters these men are. The beer bottles themselves serve as part of their material world. Further, several of these stories consist of the idiotic duo’s desire for the ownership of some material product that they otherwise could not afford: for Bill and Ted & Wayne and Garth it is a nice guitar. For Bob and Doug it is beer. For Lloyd and Harry it is the briefcase full of money. For Beavis and Butt-Head it is money and sex. For Gus and Joe it is a nice boat and lots of fish. The objects serve as rewards of sorts when the characters succeed in defeating the villain or in taking steps to begin to defeat the villain, even if the defeat is entirely accidental. 

The idiotic duo plot takes place in an urban or suburban setting. Elements of American life in general also appear. For instance, the fact that these movies take place in North America (all in the U.S. except for Strange Brew, which takes place in Canada) allows many modern American material world conventions to fit in. Shopping malls, convenience stores, drive-in restaurants, cable television, breweries, and MTV are all elements of the American culture industry, and all are represented in these movies. Further, these plots are meant to take place in capitalist countries, and conspicuous consumption, or desire thereof, is evident in every film.

The neighborhoods, activities, and possessions of the members of the idiotic duo are characteristically working class, and any exceptions are not of anything higher than middle class. Their lack of financial and/or social success is displayed in the clothes they wear, the houses they live in, and the cars they drive. Although looking a certain way does not guarantee identification in a certain social class, stereotypes abound. Looking unprofessional or sloppy, living in a modest house (sometimes with parents), and driving a less-than-desirable car (from Garth’s Pacer to the McKenzie brothers’ rusted orange van) all represent aspects of the “loser” status of these characters at the beginnings of the movies. If a stereotypical hero is powerful because of wealth or financial security and material possessions, the idiotic duo as a pair of comic anti-heroes are far from it.

In terms of depictions of men’s power, the idiotic duo manifest the opposite of strength, intelligence, maturity, and wealth. A sort of heroism is attained for these men: after all, they demonstrate, in all cases, the triumph of good over evil. This heroism is achieved, however, through naiveté. And although the men in these movies try to avoid being “sissies” and attempt to show strength, their power is accidental and is not measured according to stereotypical standards.

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Also depicted in these films are male friendships and the interweaving of those friendships with the characters’ relationships with women. When we think of the stereotypical male friendship, we think of competitiveness, lack of intimacy, and avoidance of emotion. Conventions of character and plot are used here to illustrate that the nature of the idiotic duo does not exemplify stereotypical male friendships.

Common to all idiotic duos in these films is a basic frustration in life, especially in relationships with women. Since these movies have two main characters, it is interesting to see the dynamics regarding their respective relationships with women and with each other. The relationship between the two members of the idiotic duo is often affected by one or both of the characters’ interest in women. These films contain numerous examples of the initial frustrations and ultimate success one or both of the characters have with women. A secondary result of these relationships deals with the inequality portrayed between the two characters when one gets a woman and the other does not. In some cases, the men seem to compete with each other for attention from women. The end result is not always this simple, however. The films that include the idiotic duo’s relationship with women can be divided into two broad categories: those in which one or both have eventual success with women, and those in which they do not.

Eventual success with women comes for Emmett and Austin in Spies Like Us, and for Bill and Ted. In Spies Like Us, the two men are not married and do not have girlfriends. When they become “spies,” Emmett is the more outgoing of the two, is distracted by women more often, and flirts overtly with a female spy. Austin accuses Emmett of “thinking with his dick,” and remains somewhat asexual and task-oriented until the end of the movie. It is at the point when they think that the world is going to end in forty-two minutes that Austin finally gets together with a woman. However, even in the scene of them together, Austin is distracted about the events surrounding him.

In Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in the fifteenth century, Bill and Ted meet two princesses whom Rufus brings to San Dimas to be their girlfriends (“These are historical babes”). Though subtle, Ted is more overt in his relationships with women. For instance, when they see the girls, Bill asks Ted, “Okay, you’re the ladies’ man; how are we gonna meet ‘em?” At the end of the movie, Bill gets a peck on the cheek and Ted kisses his girlfriend on the lips.

Also common are the idiotic duos who are not successful with women. Both characters in Dumb and Dumber have had bad luck with past women. Lloyd is portrayed as more aggressive in going after women, while Harry’s experiences with women seem more accidental or passive. Both end up without women in the end. Although Beavis and Butt-Head constantly desire success with women, they have a strong fear that they will never have sex (“We’re never gonna score”). They do have an obsession with sex, however, and make reference to it in most situations. They, too, are without female companionship in the end. Gus and Joe, though they have wives at home, develop a flirting relationship with two younger women in Gone Fishin’ but do not “get the girls” in the end, unless, of course, one counts their wives waiting for them in New Jersey. These unsuccessful depictions illustrate a small sense of competitiveness between the men of the idiotic duo. At times they do become jealous of one another, and this mild competitiveness fits with stereotypical men’s friendships. It is only through their relationships with women, successful or unsuccessful, that we can see how close to the stereotype the idiotic duo fits in terms of competitiveness in friendships.

Although the previous examples lend support for the idiotic duo’s portraying the stereotypical male friendship, more evidence exists that supports the opposite. The dynamics of the male friendship that are not related to relationships with women show the audience the extreme dependence these characters have on one another, a characteristic that goes against the stereotypical male independence. Interestingly, in many of these teams one member has high technical abilities even if he cannot succeed in most other areas of life. Usually, the duo consists of one technical expert and one social expert. Doug McKenzie has knowledge of electrical wiring and can open a locked gate and turn on power in a hidden fusebox in the brewery. Austin Milbarge is extremely knowledgeable in the areas of codebreaking and Russian paraphernalia. He saves the world in the end because of his technical expertise in shifting the path of the missile. When Bill and Ted’s time travel machine (a phone booth) gets damaged, Bill fixes it with metal pudding cans and chewing gum. Gus has technical skills because he is a construction worker and knows much about fishing lures. Garth Algar is perhaps the best exemplar of technical expertise. He not only possesses technical knowledge of small gadgets (that often serve as protection for him), he is also able to intercept a satellite dish in order to carefully program the famous record producer’s limousine television for their show. It is this feat that gets Wayne’s girlfriend a record contract and creates a happy ending.

Thus, with the exception of Dumb and Dumber and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, there is at least some hint that these teams can only exist in the outside world if they work together. If they were one person, they would have both the social and technical skills to survive. However, since they are two people, one often has each of these characteristics, thus reinforcing the necessity of togetherness and fear of separation. It is as if the two halves of the idiotic duo do not have enough skills individually, but together they make a complete man who is able to succeed in the end and survive in the modern world, both technically and socially. One member of the idiotic duo is an incomplete self, but together they make up a whole self. This extreme dependence on one another strays from the stereotypical distant and independent nature of male friendships. While competition is present, especially for some idiotic duos in terms of women, it is never enough to ultimately threaten the strong male friendship that exists.

Underlying each of these male-male relationships are dynamics of friendship and antagonism. Unlike past television sitcoms with two very different male lead characters (The Odd Couple and Chico and the Man, for example, as discussed by Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik), the idiotic duo is made up of two characters who are similar to each other. Although it is more difficult to establish antagonism between the two since they are both portrayed as the same type of person, the relationships are not completely harmonious. Yet, the two remain best friends, inseparable in the end. Unlike past duos where there is a straight man, the idiotic duo films abandon the comic formula of characters’ playing off of each other. Instead of tension between the characters, as is often seen in straight man-funny man duos of yesteryear, the idiotic duo lacks enough difference to warrant tension in many of the scenes. Except for the differences in social and technical skills, the idiotic duo is made up of interchangeable members, not an “odd couple.”

The plot convention of a together-separated-together sequence is present in all of the films, which most clearly illustrates the dynamics of the male-male friendship. All of the films portray some ambiguity in at least one of the characters regarding their sexuality. Is the relationship between the two men homoerotic? Is it platonic? These questions are difficult to answer, but it is clear that although all of the male characters are interested in women, an element of a homoerotic bond creeps in. This is found most clearly in the scenes where the idiotic duo separates for a period and then reunites, often realizing they cannot live without each other, but preventing too much closeness.

The idiotic duo is a new version of the American solo comic antihero, times two. Wes Gehring describes the solo male comic antihero as having “abundant leisure time, childlike nature, urban life, apolitical outlook, and basic frustration (especially in relationships with women)” (15). The same author continues with a discussion of the historical basis of the male comic antihero in screwball comedies. Historically, this character blossomed in the 1920s after appearances in New England and Southwest fictional humor, newspaper comic strips, slapstick farce, and vaudeville. These earlier versions often had one or more characteristics of the five described above, but it was not until the twentieth century that the comic antihero took center stage in American humor with the teaming of Laurel and Hardy, the emergence of antihero screwball comedies, and increased visibility in The New Yorker magazine, all of which began in the 1920s. The five characteristics are applicable to films in the idiotic duo genre even though they were originally used mostly to classify individual characters.

Since the idea of the idiotic duo is reserved for movies about a team of characters as opposed to the individual comic antihero of the 1920s, it is important to consider the dynamics of that teamwork. In every example here, the characters’ rapport is strengthened when they are reunited after a separation. Further, the mere anxiety associated with the separation reinforces the notion that each character needs the other to function properly in the world. They must be a team and cannot ever be separated. The presentation of the close male friendship in these films, as exemplified by character and plot conventions, is one of co-dependency. 

For example, when Bob and Doug McKenzie are separated during a chase in Strange Brew, Bob starts crying, lamenting the fact that he and his brother have never been apart. In Spies Like Us, after Emmett and Austin are separated at the Soviet border, they get into serious trouble. Once they are reunited, they are able to defeat the Soviet police and move on to their more important mission. In the Excellent Adventure, Bill is most sad when he thinks his best friend Ted has died after falling down the stairs in a suit of armor. In the case of Wayne’s World, the duo fights, resulting in an intentional separation. Garth becomes upset that he is only considered a sidekick of Wayne’s, introduced as “Jim to your Marlon Perkins” or “and with him as always, Garth.” Thus, for a short while (Wayne eventually apologizes), Garth risks his identity as part of a duo to express his dissatisfaction.

In sum, the team in all cases is strengthened because it withstands the test of conflict and separation. The male-male friendship, homoerotic or not, withstands all adversity in every film and is one of extreme co-dependence. Men’s friendships in these movies are not stereotypical, except for some brief competition, because they are highly emotional, co-dependent, and relatively intimate.

In men’s friendships we see a chasm between the unwritten rules of emotional distance for the stereotypical male and the constant breaking of those rules for the idiotic duo. It is in this division that the true meaning of male friendship emerges. I propose that the main reason that the friendships can be depicted as intimate and dependent as they are is because the depiction is diffused through humor. Kristin Walker has shown that real men’s friendships do not necessarily fit the stereotypical rules of lack of intimacy and emotional support (38-55), but the ideology of men’s being less open than women with their same sex friends remains. Because this ideology is so strong, the only way to portray serious male friendships in popular culture is by experiencing them with a dose of jokes and silliness. By diffusing the serious relationship that exists for these men with humor, men’s emotional closeness with other men is stunted. The closeness that is depicted is not a result of men’s true need for companionship, but is a manifestation of the lack of individual power of men in patriarchy. That is, having a close male-male friendship is not only laughable, but it exists only because men need it to complete their fractured selves. In this sense, men’s power and friendships truly converge in these films into a unified co-existence as indicators of a fractured postmodern masculinity.^*     

Michelle Y. Janning

Department of Sociology

Whitman College

Walla Walla, WA 99362.

* The male role in society is multifaceted and complex. Although relatively tricky and sometimes contradictory, delineating the various components of the stereotypical male role (that is, the set of expectations to which men are supposed to conform), usually falls into two main areas of discussion: men’s power and men’s friendships. For example, Scott Coltrane discusses men’s power and friendships theoretically (39-60). Myriam Miedzian devotes an entire book to discussing men, power, and violence. Kristin Walker explicitly examines how men’s friendships are different from women’s (38-55). Douglas Gillette examines men and intimacy (52-59). Finally, Terry Kupers’ book examines research on how intimacy and power are linked in men’s lives.

References

Beavis and Butt-head Do America. Dir. Mike Judge and Yvette Kaplan. Paramount Pictures, 1996.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Dir. Stephen Herek. Warner Brothers, 1985.

Boswell, Parley Ann. “The Pleasure of Our Company: Hollywood Throws a Wedding Bash.” Loukides and Fuller 6-20.

Cawelti, John. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1976.

Coltrane, Scott. “Theorizing Masculinities in Contemporary Social Science.” Theorizing Masculinities. Ed. Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994, 39-60.

Dumb and Dumber. Dir. Peter Farrelly. New Line Cinema, 1994.

Gehring, Wes. Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance. New York: Greenwood P, 1986.

Gillette, Douglas. “Men and Intimacy.” Wingspan: Inside the Men’s Movement. Ed. Christopher Harding. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1992, 52-59.

Gone Fishin’. Dir. Christopher Cain. Caravan Pictures, 1997.

Kupers, Terry. Revisioning Men’s Lives: Gender, Intimacy, and Power. New York: Guilford, 1993.

Loukides, Paul. “Plot Conventions in American Popular Film.” Loukides and Fuller 1-5.

Loukides, Paul and Linda Fuller, eds. Beyond the Stars II: Plot Conventions in American Popular Film. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1991.

Metcalf, Greg. “‘It’s (Christmas) Morning in America’: Christmas Conventions of American Films in the 1980s.” Loukides and Fuller 100-113.

Miedzian, Myriam. Boys will be Boys: Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence. New York: Anchor Books, 1988.

Neale, Steve, and Frank Krutnik. Popular Film and Television Comedy. London: Routledge, 1990.

Sanders, Clinton. “The Armadillos in Dracula’s Foyer: Conventions and Innovation in Horror Cinema.” Loukides and Fuller 143-159.

Spies Like Us. Dir John Landis. Warner Brothers, 1985.

Strange Brew. Dir. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1983.

Walker, Kristin. “‘I’m Not Friends the Way She’s Friends’: Ideological and Behavioral Constructions of Masculinity in Men’s Friendships. Masculinities 2 (1994): 38-55.

Wayne’s World. Dir. Penelope Spheeris. Paramount Pictures, 1992.

Wright, Will. Sixguns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western. Berkeley: U of California P, 1975.