Losing Visibility? The Rise and Fall of Hypermasculinity in Science Fiction Films

Abstract

Science fiction films of the 1980s, including The Terminator and RoboCop, seem to foreground hypermasculinity as a new ideal of masculinity, relying on the display and promotion of muscular white male bodies. However, the films also highlight the negative aspects of hypermasculinity, embodied especially by the Terminator, the terrifying antagonist of the first film of the franchise. Already in the 1980s, hypermasculinity was indeed associated with a loss of humanity, so that it became incompatible with the cultural prominence of the sensitive and nurturing ‘New Man’ of the 1990s. Hypermasculinity was thus revised in Terminator 2 to present the formerly fearsome Terminator as a protective father undergoing a process of humanization, paving the way for new representations of masculinity and more equal gender relations in The Matrix, which plays on traditional gender roles by matching a beautiful passive hero and an athletic action heroine. The evolution of science fiction films in the 1980s and 1990s thus underlines a striking change in the representation of masculinity, from very visible and differential hypermasculinity to gender-blending androgyneity.