From “Sigh Guys” to Psychos: The Postwar Crisis of Masculinity in Hollywood

By Cami Ekstrom-Sakata, Edited by Alexis Lopez and Sophia Fijman

Western icon John Wayne once protested, “Ten or fifteen years ago audiences went to pictures to see men behaving like men. Today there are too many neurotic roles” (Kelley 139). Funnily enough, Wayne would go on to play the unmistakably neurotic Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956). Throughout the 1950s, not even the manliest of men in Hollywood were able to escape the postwar crisis of masculinity and the evolving ideas of what it meant to be a man. This shift was reflected most evidently in cinema, as filmmakers recognized increasing anxieties regarding identity, sexuality, and particularly masculinity. One of the most notable ‘masculinity in crisis’ films was Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The film follows Jim Stark, played by ‘sigh guy’ James Dean, a troubled teen who moves to a new town and befriends a troubled boy, Plato (Sal Mineo), and romantically pursues a girl, Judy (Natalie Wood). The sensitive, sympathetic male archetype on screen was later warped into a disturbed, unsympathetic man. Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) epitomizes this shift. The film stars Jimmy Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson, an ex-cop who suffers from acrophobia and vertigo after a traumatic incident in the line of duty and is hired to investigate his friend Gavin’s (Tom Helmore) unusual wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak). In post-World War II America, the popularity of the sensitive, feminized ‘sigh guys’ in Hollywood such as James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause triggered homophobia and masculine anxieties thus resulting in the construction of the disturbed, unsympathetic man as played by Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo.

Following the end of World War II, passing anxieties about masculinity grew prevalent in American society. Professor Wendy Chapman Peek’s Cherchez La Femme: The Searchers, Vertigo, and Masculinity in Post-Kinsey America' explores the larger dialogue that surfaced regarding men, sexuality, and what it means to be masculine. Factors such as growing divorce rates, the tense public debate on homosexuality, and a new interest in psychoanalysis played a part in unveiling the faults of performative masculinity (Peek 74). Outlets such as Look magazine published numerous articles, for instance, “The Decline of the American Male,” while scientific studies like Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, pushed the boundaries of what constituted ‘normal’ male sexuality, as well as unearthed a shocking record of 50% of men who engaged in homosexual activity (Kelley 138). At the time, it was uncustomary for men to become objects of such scrutiny, especially in a clinical setting. Bringing public attention to these matters amplified masculine anxieties and fears as many attempted to reinstate the old distinctions between ‘normal’ heterosexuality and ‘abnormal’ homosexuality (Peek 77). Masculine achievement was once defined with a career and family, operating as a heterosexual performance that later proved insufficient after the Kinsey report came out. As Peek stated, “having guts and a girl are no longer the steady signifiers that they once were,” and heterosexuality became something that had to be performed rather than assumed (78). In addition, the practice of manliness did not reap sufficient rewards but rather led to psychological breakdowns among conformers. In Scholar Megan N. Kelley’s Projections of Passing: Postwar Anxieties and Hollywood Films, the evolution of masculine representation in 1950s Hollywood cinema is shown to reflect society at the time. The changing attitudes on masculinity were reflected in cinema with the emergence of ‘masculinity in crisis’ films starring ‘sigh guys’ such as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean. Both on and off-screen, these men exhibited conflicting ideas about sexuality and gender. These representations of ambiguous postwar masculinity were sympathetic, and a new kind of hero emerged. They were passive, emotional, and often in opposition to a male authority figure in their films; a masculine yet sensitive hero who took on the historically feminine characteristic of being both objectified and victimized. These personas resonated with cultural anxieties regarding the inherent instability of gender identities (Kelley 147). Rather than be defined by tough guy confidence and strength, these men were defined by sensitivity and alienation. 

Despite having only starred in three feature films, James Dean garnered cultural icon status for his representations of masculinity and postwar anxieties about identity in the fifties. In Professor Kenneth Krauss’ Male Beauty: Postwar Masculinity in Theater, Film, and Physique Magazines, Dean’s persona in the film Rebel Without a Cause is identified as one of the most significant performances of all time. With his sensitive, sexually ambiguous persona, Dean’s performances critiqued traditional masculinity while also personifying a contemporary counterpart (Krauss 176). As Krauss deduced, Dean’s failure to fulfill the rules governing manhood diversified his capacity for deep emotion, violence, tenderness, and even affection for other men (176). Often playing adolescents, there was a universal lack of identity in Dean’s characters. They were immature, lonely, isolated from others, and pitted against a patriarchal figure while finding solace in a female character. Rebel Without a Cause is no exception to these narrative elements. The film reveals the complexities and contradictions behind cinema’s representation of gender (Kelley 146). Jim Stark, played by James Dean, acknowledges how an individual’s personality is a complex construct, with a particular focus on how men perform masculinity. Dean’s youthful appearance enabled him to not only dissect and explore the complexities of gender but also maintain the image as an object of desire. Reinforcing the desirability of ambiguous masculinity in the film, Judy tells Jim that she wants “a man who can be gentle and sweet…someone who doesn't run away when you want them. Like being Plato’s friend when nobody else liked him. That’s being strong” (01:26:00). Crying out against the traditional enactment of manhood, Jim is placed between the masculine extreme of Buzz and the adoration of the sensitive and ostracized Plato. He maintains affection for Buzz but honors the very constructions that pit them against each other. To be viewed as men, they must remain competitive and distant. While Plato’s love for Jim is evident, Jim’s own sexuality is left as ambiguous as his masculinity is. The film places the majority of the blame for Jim’s actions on his parents, specifically his passive father who refuses to partake in performative masculinity. The plot resonated immensely with the youth of the time, with Dean's rebellion being emasculated by the regressive notion that strict authority can be a solution for a suffering adolescent’s search for identity (Krauss 195). Jim’s crisis of masculinity fit with postwar anxieties and, as Kelley stated, “None could claim, like James Dean in the fifties, to be speaking for and in the idiom of its own generation” (147). However, the idealization of the heroic, feminized masculinity represented by actors such as Dean did not last long. 

With men already insecure about their identities after the revelations of Kinsey’s report and public debate, there was an immense public backlash against such vivid depictions of the societal emasculation of men. According to Krauss, James Dean “would prove something of a threat to male spectators” (175). Anxieties sourced from perceived social categories resulted in physical overcompensation. As Kelley explained, “The more invisible the category of identity, the more intense the cultural desire to mark the body” (148). Actors like Dean posed a threat to male spectators who were familiar with actors that were not overly gorgeous such as John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. Wayne and Bogart were desirable to women, but men were still ‘allowed’ to like them as performers without having to admit their desirability. The undeniable beauty of ‘sigh guys’ proved too threatening for the heterosexual male audience who, as a result, questioned actors’ masculinity and circulated rumors about their sexuality. To this day, discussions of these actors’ sexualities persist. According to a heterosexual male spectator’s logic, if an actor was considered too pretty and inevitably provoked an attraction within other men, then he could not be a real man (Krauss 174). ‘Crisis of masculinity’ films were initially portrayed with sympathy and the actors were heroes of these films, rather than victims of their own toxic masculinity. But by the end of the fifties, ambiguous identities and sexual fluidity began to be perceived as a sign of pathological disturbance and personal failure, rather than something that offered new prospects. By 1960, sympathetic representations of masculine anxieties had completely vanished (Kelley 164). The new heroic masculinity was restored as tough and stoic, as seen with Andy Whitfield’s performance as Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). Until then, postwar films consisted of groundbreaking and destabilizing representations of gender with sensitive men, masculine women, and even homosexuality (Kelley 151). Signaling a new representational shift, Alfred Hitchcock released Vertigo, starring everyman Jimmy Stewart. 

Stewart had maintained a secure masculinity and heterosexuality in the public eye, with his heroic war past and his marriage and children with the beautiful model, Gloria Hatrick Mclean. Stewart became the epitome of traditional masculinity and, taking advantage of this, Hitchcock warped him to become a symbol of disturbed masculinity in Vertigo, which reflected the changing attitudes towards the ‘sigh guys.’ Hitchcock made Stewart’s character so deranged that the audience was incapable of identifying with him. It was because Stewart had such a solid reputation of heterosexuality that he, like James Dean with his looks, was able to deconstruct and explore psychologically ambiguous roles. In Vertigo, Stewart’s character, John “Scottie” Ferguson, is restored from a ‘sick’ male spectator back to a healthy masculine man. He is depicted as disturbed by his desire to mold a woman into his psychosexual feminine ideal. From the very start, Scottie is feminized by his donning of a corset, his being unemployed, and having his friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) show him a bra that she’s designing (Peek 74). Early in the film, he declares that “tomorrow he’ll be a free man,” as he no longer needs his corset (00:05:35). Ironically, it is the next day that he enters Gavin’s scheme. He is also immediately deemed a failure as the audience witnesses a police pursuit that results in his inability to save a fellow policeman’s life and his development of acrophobia, all while the suspect evades capture. Scottie also struggles to fit into some sort of financially masculine category – he is not rich enough to be a playboy, but not poor enough to be a bum (Peek 75). This too poses the question of what defines a man, which Scottie attempts to answer through chasing a woman that he has constructed with his mind. As the truth unfolds, Scottie’s self-image declines, and his masculine anxiety skyrockets as he fails to find his masculinity through the pursuit of an idealized, misrecognized woman. His lack of identity and lapse in judgment then result in a woman’s death, which he bears responsibility for. His ‘nice guy’ persona drops and Scottie becomes an unsympathetic character due to his cruelty towards women, transforming from a broken man to a psychotic murderer. Through violence against women, Scottie achieves masculine freedom and drags Madeleine up a tower, only for her to accidentally fall once they get to the top. As Peek states, the film exposes “the violence necessary to sustain that old model of masculinity” (84). It is only through Scottie’s excessive measures that his masculinity is secured, at the expense of a woman. 

While Dean’s character in Rebel Without a Cause and Stewart’s in Vertigo are characterized by several aspects of the archetypal male pursuit of masculine identity, the two ultimately symbolize two different periods of masculine representation in cinema and convey the transition from the ‘sigh guys’ to the disturbed, unsympathetic man. Though initially received favorably, society’s growing anxieties about gender obliterated any sympathetic portrayals in films of vulnerable masculinity. To reflect the pathologization of the crisis of masculinity, filmmakers like Hitchcock unsympathetically portrayed men questioning their identity as disturbed. As Kelley put it, “Dean’s Rebel became Perkins’ Psycho” (164). It is safe to say that without Jim, there would be no Scottie. The audience over-identified with heroic protagonists, so Hitchcock ensured that the audience would not be able to see themselves in his twisted male characters. The gender ambiguity Jim expressed became a sign of personal failure as shown by Scottie. Regardless of the different periods that these two characters represent, both express the downsides of the traditional models of masculinity as well as the desire and search for a definitive answer regarding identity. The fact of the matter is, this search has no end, as the answer continues to evolve. 

Works Cited 

Kelley, N. Megan. Projections of Passing: Postwar Anxieties and Hollywood Films, 1947-1960. University Press of Mississippi, 2016.

Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia. W.B. Saunders Company, 1948. 

Krauss, Kenneth. Male Beauty: Postwar Masculinity in Theater, Film, and Physique Magazines, State University of New York Press, 2014. 

Rebel Without a Cause. Dir. Nicholas Ray. Perf. James Dean, Natalie Wood. Warner Brothers, 1955.

Vertigo. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. James Stewart, Kim Novak. Paramount, 1958. 

Peek, C. Wendy. "Cherchez La Femme: The Searchers, Vertigo, and Masculinity in Post-Kinsey America." Journal of American Culture, vol. 21, no. 2, 1998, pp. 73-87. 

The Searchers. Dir. John Ford. Perf. John Wayne, Jeffery Hunter. Warner Brothers, 1956.

Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier. Universal Pictures,

1960.