Black and White Masculinity: In Three Steven Soderbergh Films (Out of Sight, Traffic, Full Frontal ) (Critical Essay‪)‬

[1] Steven Soderbergh, director of both experimental films and big-budget genre films, has been unusually candid about racism in Hollywood. In a June 2003 New York Times profile of African American actor Don Cheadle, Soderbergh bluntly states that Cheadle would have advanced further at this point in his career if he were white (Hochman, 13). Soderbergh's assertion of racially discriminatory hiring practices in the film industry allows Cheadle to avoid making the case himself and thereby drawing the charge that he is attempting to benefit professionally by "playing the race card." [2] However, despite Soderbergh's vocal stance on industry discrimination, and despite the progressive politics consistently advanced in his films, Soderbergh's films themselves perpetuate a long-standing tradition in U.S. cinema of representing black men as predators intent upon victimizing women, particularly white women. A close reading of Out of Sight (1998), Traffic (2000) and Full Frontal (2002) suggests that these stereotypical figures indicate neither an investigation of black masculinity nor, finally, an effort to demonize black men. Instead, the dangerous black men who recur in Soderbergh's films function as villainous counterparts to the non-traditional white men in whom the films are deeply invested. Ultimately, the rapacious black men in Out of Sight and Traffic are caricatures that serve to emphasize the heroism of the white protagonists. The films posit white men, even the alternative white men Soderbergh returns to repeatedly, as agents of rescue and valor. Soderbergh validates the thoughtful white men in his films by demonstrating their accordance to traditional forms of white masculinity, such as the use of vigilante violence to protect white women. Drawing upon feminist film theory, critical race theory, and analyses of popular U.S. cinema, I argue in this paper that the inclusion of stereotypical black masculinity in Soderbergh's films provides the threat that mobilizes otherwise non-macho white men, thereby rehabilitating their active masculinity.