The Getaway, a love story about a broken couple by Sam Peckinpah

Steve McQueen as a symbol of machismo

There is another interesting passage about ``The Getaway.'' Film critic Christina Newland's essay "Those Blue-eyed Boys" from She Found It At The Movies (Red Press Ltd). She Found It At The Movies is an anthology collection of writings by women about film and sexuality published in the UK in 2020, and Newland also edited the book. Based on the history of women in movies having always been exposed to the sexual gaze of men, this book is an attempt to express that women should be allowed to write about their desires for men. Various female writers write about the movies in which they first became sexually aware, their desires for actors, and the sexual roles of male actors/idols, challenging the history of film criticism based on the male gaze.

Newland mentioned ``The Getaway'' in her essay because it was a movie that strongly stimulated her sexual desire. You can definitely smell the misogyny here. Despite this, she does not hide that her sexual desire was strongly aroused by Steve McQueen, who starred in the film.

“The Getaway” ©2007 Warner Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.

To begin with, the actor Steve McQueen is an icon of macho/cool men. Not only on screen, but in his private life as well, he was a manly man who held the ridiculous and stupid idea that wives should stay at home and do their best for their husbands.

It's not just McQueen. Same goes for Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood. Newland confesses that he can't deny that he is attracted to them, even though he frowns at their behavior in their private lives, their attitude toward women, and the strong whiff of machismo they emit. It's ` `Bad Feminist '' (translated by Momo Nonaka, published by Aki Shobo), in which a woman who hates songs by Robin Thicke and Kanye West (especially the content of their lyrics) but still hums them and sways her body. Just like Roxanne Gay confessed that she can't quit.

What is the “masculinity” that McQueen emits?