When looking at the star image of Kevin Costner we see a very different set of
discourses being initiated. Although Kevin Costner does appear in action films and does incorporate the need for the action hero to defeat the villain and restore order through physical combat, his masculinity is not situated in his physical form in the way that it is with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the biography Kevin Costner : Prince Of Hollywood (Caddies 1992 ) Kelvin Caddies describes Costner as a clean-cut hero in the tradition of
Gary Cooper and Henry Fonda. In Costner’s most successful, and therefore most visible films he has played an individual with a cause which is pursued despite mass objections. In The Untouchables (1987 De Palma) he played Elliot Ness, the incorruptible agent working to defeat the Mafia. In Field O f Dreams (1989 Robinson) he played a farmer who hears voices telling him to build a baseball field on his land. He does so despite the derision of neighbours and the nearly ruinous financial cost. In Dances With Wolves (1990 Costner) as well as directing and producing this film he plays a cavalry officer who abandons his post to live with a community of Sioux. After playing Robin Hood, Costner plays Jim Garrison, the former New Orleans District Attorney who pursues a theory that there was a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy in Dallas, in Oliver Stone’s JFK (1993). Although Kevin Costner’s films often do include action and violence Costners heroes are identified more with moral superiority than with the innate physical superiority associated with Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Comparing Costner to Henry Fonda seems apt as long as we are associating Henry Fonda with specific films such as, The Grapes O f Wrath 0 940 Ford), Twelve Angry Men (1957 Lumet), and The Young Mr Lincoln (1939 Ford) and if we associate Kevin Costner with the films noted above. Both actors have appeared in a wider range of films but it seems that both are
associated with the honourable good guy role.
Referring back to the work of Mishkind on male archetypes ( Kimmel 1987 ) what he identifies as increasingly obsolete archetypes such as the frontiersman and the lord have been resurrected in the films of Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves and Prince of Thieves. Brian de Palma, who directed Costner in The Untouchables said of the actor
“Kevin is one of those actors who can make all the old cliches seem real again.” ( Caddies 1992)
suggesting that Kevin Costner has re-vamped the old fashioned hero in his roles.
However, we are living in a time when the morality of many recognised hero types ; for instance cowboys, pioneers and cops is no longer unquestionable. Richard Dyer (1990) talks about stars operating around contradictions and that their ability to reconcile or balance these contradictions is part of their appeal. Kevin Costner operates around the
contradiction of the appeal of hero images of the past that pleasurably work through a construction of an ideal male identity and the obsolescence of such images. In the case of Kevin Costner’s most famous heroes this contradiction is managed not by abandoning those hero types, but by repositioning the hero on the side of a modem liberal morality without dispensing with the need for action on the part of the heroic character. For instance Costner’s cowboy sides with the Indians. The requirements of a hero of the action/adventure genre and the requirements of modern liberal morality may seem incompatible. Managing this contradiction without giving a sense of jarring is the particular talent of this star.
I would argue that Costner is as influenced by a post-feminist, post-imperialist and post gay rights world as Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am not suggesting that Costner’s
characters represent a right-wing backlash, but that Costner’s films adapt to these changes by attempting to rewrite the history of the U.S. A and U.K. An examination of the narrative of Prince Of The Thieves will show a self conscious attempt by the film makers to avoid a charge of sexism and racism. This reclamation of mythic heroes from a less than politically correct past allows the audience the more simple pleasures
afforded by the ego-ideals of a world where gender is more clearly defined. It also allows a discourse on appropriate masculine behaviour that is defined by actions and attitudes. The particular success of this film can probably be attributed to its ability to present politically correct medieval knights without dispensing with the need for action and violence that is so central to the pleasure of the masculine subject position.
Compared to the stars I will examine below Kevin Costner’s appeal to a masculine subject position is positive and unambiguous. He portrays the fantasy of being able to act out of moral certainty. I shall demonstrate that stars mostly do not portray such an unambiguous response to the demands of hegemonic masculinity.