Compare and Contrast the Representation of Masculinity of John Wayne’s Rio Bravo (1959) and Die Hard (1988).

Narratives of the hero action has sustained the interests of audiences across the ‘changing space and time’ of popular culture and has become a ‘stalwart genre’ (Shimpach, 2010:30). This study will explore the construction of hegemonic masculinity by comparing the representation of heroic masculinity between John McClane (Die Hard, 1988) and John Wayne (Rio Bravo, 1959). It will examine: the framing of the physical body, the development of intelligence, the role of emotion and the depiction of heroes in relation to those around them. Die Hard and Rio Bravo depict heroic law enforcers, an American image of masculinity. Examining Rio Bravo and Die Hard diachronically will conceptualise the historical negotiation of hegemonic masculinity in response to gender issues such as first and second wave feminism. The overpowering assertion of masculinity in cop action films suggests that there are lingering cultural anxieties about the establishment roles of gender. To sustain hegemony requires the ‘poling of men’ and the ‘discrediting of women’ (Connel and Messerschmidt, 2005:837), hegemonic masculinity is a social construction and is a performance by an individual (Galdas, 2009).Social expectations collapse gender into individual sex differences, contrasting identities, fixed social role and physical appearance. This construction is aided by the representation of heroic masculinity in popular culture.

The representation of John Wayne in Rio Bravo (1959) is distinctly masculine and presents a stereotypical image of a ‘manly’ man. John Wayne’s most noticeable attribute is his unusual height at 6 feet 4 inches. In the opening scene, John Wayne is framed in a medium long shot that is positioned on the floor, emphasising his unusual heigh...

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