Deviating from the Deviant: The Masculinity of Brando in "Julius Caesar" (1953)

Abstract

The cultural iconography of Mark Antony has, in the two millennia since his death, been heavily informed by the revisionist historiography of his political rival (and conqueror) Augustus Caesar. Political expediency in the early principate reconfigured Marcus Antonius’ actions in the final years of his life in such a negatively gendered light that the projection of Antonius into Antony-on-screen can be considered a vehicle for the negotiation and exorcism of socio-cultural anxiety surrounding the performance of masculinity. So predictable and repetitive is the iconography of Antony-on-screen that its absence – indeed, its inversion – in Joseph Mankiewicz’ "Julius Caesar" (1953) requires detailed investigation. This essay interrogates the non-diegetic discourse of masculine performance brought to Mankiewicz’ movie through its star, Marlon Brando, and situates the movie in line with the socio-cultural and socio-political anxieties enacted in the Hollywood historical epic of the 1950s.