Under-dressed: Vests as representations of White, liminal masculinity and the transnational body in Saturday Night Fever and Raging Bull

Abstract

The 1970s is often considered a period in which masculinity was in crisis. This article considers that through cinematic representation and the use of the white cotton vest as a motif of hegemonic and working-class masculinity, masculinity was not in crisis, but in transition. The focus on films Saturday Night Fever and Raging Bull, is used here to exemplify discussions surrounding primarily hetero-normative masculinity, nationhood, tradition and the White working-class male body both dressed and undressed, and how these provide spaces through narrative and mise en scène to discuss notions of flux, change and fluidity that maps and arcs ‘masculinity’ to masculinities. The male body is deconstructed and reconstructed through the vest and becomes public spectacle. The centrality of the vest and its purpose within these (and many other) films during the period, acts as a means of revealing more than just the body of the wearer. In particular, the ethnicity of the protagonist and the repurposing of stereotypes through the vest as motif, underpin the credibility of the narrative and can be understood as a means of simplifying or coding approaches to shifting masculinities.