Response Paper 5, Marit Anderson

            According to Heather Addison, John Carpenter’s The Thing laughs in the face of masculine assertion; there are no females in the movie for the men to romance and the only attempt at a “homosexual encounter” (Bennings in the corner engulfed in the tentacles of the Thing) proves to be deadly. Addison’s article paints a rather hopeless picture of the male’s plight, but there are elements of the film she seems to ignore. Though the male has no agent over which to assert sexual dominance in the film, the character of MacReady seems to assert himself over the other characters through use of flame throwers, flares and dynamite. The prolific use of phallic weaponry in the Thing indicates that, in the absence of sexual conquest, MacReady is still able to assert himself sexually through the use of his “own member.”

            The use of shaft-like weapons, especially the flame thrower, are brought out by MacReady to visually intimidate the Thing as well as other members of his crew. When faced with the to-be-copied dog, MacReady’s first instinct is to call for Childs to “bring the flamethrower.” When Childs finally arrives he hesitates to shoot it, much to the chagrin of MacReady and, afterward, MacReady claims the flamethrower for his own, using it for the rest of the film. He uses it to torch the creatures, excessively most of the time, and to intimidate the crew during the blood test (must he really heat up the wire with such a large instrument?). It is clear from this possessiveness over the flamethrower and its subsequent uses for both domination and intimidation identify it as phallic, not to mention the fact that it is visually so: It’s a shaft which releases an emission from the end. The way MacReady uses the flamethrower throughout the film, mainly in a masturbatory fashion, shows that he does not need a heterosexual or homosexual union to assert his masculinity; He can do it all by himself.

            However, MacReady’s overzealous torching of the Thing reaffirms Addison’s identification of it as female. MacReady uses the flamethrower to overpower the thing more times than he uses it to overpower his crew, indicating that it’s destruction via flamethrower is the more important goal. This image is sexually violent, no matter the gender-identity of the target but, when coupled with the gaping vaginal holes (especially the vagina dentata that devours Docs hands) the Thing sprouts, this penetration seems to be male toward female. If, however, this interaction can be identified as a rape, Addison’s argument that there is no target for sexual conquest, male or female, becomes false. If the Thing is female and the male asserts himself on the female, via use of a long shaft-like object, then there is indeed an instance masculine sexual assertion in the film, and a violent one at that.

This encounter would then annul Addison’s statement concerning a lack of an outlet on which males can assert their masculinity in the film, specifically, the style of masculinity the Reagan era was based off of. In its place, I posit that The Thing serves to show that the Reagan-Era-Style male will, even in a wasteland, find a target on which to assert his preferred masculinity.

 A film I think would be a great addition to the class is the Blair Witch Project (Even though it's from 1999 and, therefore, after the 1990 cut-off). It's the first film to really capitalize on the "found footage" idea, which becomes an important tool in later horror films.