Like A Fox

by Fariha Roísín

I took the streetcar to the screening of Foxcatcher. Latte in one hand, bracing against a pole for support, I squashed myself in between a bro reading a newspaper and a young woman, small like me, rapidly scrolling through her Instagram. At a certain point a seat nearby me cleared up; a white man in an oversized t-shirt motioned for me to sit. I happily obliged. Even before I sat down, he immediately came and sat next to me, his eyes palpably lingering as the curve of my dress rode up my leg, baring my whole thigh as I sat.

For the whole ride he stared at my leg, then up at me, back to the leg — then again, back to me. At a certain point, after eyeballing me consistently for a few moments, he tried to talk to me through my headphones, tapping me on the shoulders to garner my attention. I diligently looked ahead, ignoring his advances, pretending as if I couldn’t feel his presence that was now very much, in my space, totally brutalizing my energy.

I knew I had to leave the streetcar. After Elliot Rodgers’ Isla Vista killings earlier this year, white men who feel persecuted by women must be avoided at all costs. I did not want to test my chances. With each moment my streetcar companion grew bolder, incessantly shifting next to me to create a conversation point. I was scared, I was uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to anger him. I only got up when I felt I could nonchalantly pretend that I was at my stop, pacing my instinct to bolt out the door. Irked by him completely I walked to the theatre after cruising down benign forgotten streets. Eventually I reached the theatre, a reprieve only of sorts — because as soon after I entered I remembered shootings that happen so often in confined spaces.

I found a seat on the balcony. I sat next to a group of four young white men, maybe fellow critics, I wasn’t sure. As the lights dimmed, and the movie started to begin, I felt the agitation of the dude sitting beside me begin to graze my senses. I was suddenly scared again. He kept shuffling in his seat; twisting and untwisting his arms; crossing his legs, then uncrossing them. I scanned his body from my side. I saw a backpack and wondered if there was a gun inside. I began to divest a plan of action, but my body was tense with fear.

In the last two years there’s been two shootings in a movie theatre in North America — one was this year in Florida, and then the notorious Aurora massacre in 2012. Both shootings were by white men.

With that thought seared into my brain, I began to watch Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher.

The movie stars Channing Tatum as Mark Schultz and Mark Ruffalo as Dave Schultz, brothers who were also Olympic champion freestyle wrestlers. Steve Carell plays John Du Pont, actual millionaire and member of the Du Pont family. The Du Ponts are isomorphic to the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers — they are American royalty; the apotheosis of privilege and American class.

The film begins with Mark’s depressive repetition of his dull life; he harps to and from the gym, one microwave dinner away from a nervous breakdown. His brother, Dave is the complete opposite of him. He’s jolly, lively, there’s an energy that dances off of his body. Ruffalo characterizes Dave Schultz perfectly. The walk, the meandering smile, it’s all so on point to the archival footage that exists of him.

The first half and hour of the film focuses on the mediocrity of the Schultz’s lives: Mark’s deadbeat lifestyle, Dave’s love for his family. It then eventually introduces Carell’s Du Pont, as he reaches out to Mark to train for the World Championships at his Foxcatcher Farm, a training facility that he created in the early 90s. Under his care and limited guidance as a wrestling enthusiast, Du Pont seduces Mark to commit to the focused vision of a better American civil society. Desperate for a father figure that isn’t his brother, Mark agrees. For the first time, perhaps, we see him content.

There are many similarities between these two men; loners they gravitate towards each other. At one point, Du Pont declares, “I am a patriot, and I want to see this country soar again.” The patriotic imagery is insistent. Foxcatcher Farm houses war fields, and the deep wounds of “American democracy” puncture the bucolic grounds. Du Pont laments the years of yore and the lack of real American role models. His energy is mild, yet infectious, he wants Mark to be a hero — but to also live vicariously through him, so that he, too, can reach great heights.

Steve Carell is menacing. Sullen, sunken-in eyes; there’s a ravaged look to his face — it’s the charismatic kook of Charles Manson, the demonic pride, the sneer of voracity, the self-flagellation of self labeled titles: “orthologist, philatelist, philanthropist.” Carell is completely transformed, there’s not a hint of Michael Scott in his performance, and it is quite jarring — yet mesmerizing.

Du Pont is a self-proclaimed messiah, the answer to what America needs to reinstate the old world order of money and power — back to when Du Ponts were respected and honored, their natural given birthright. Everything about Du Pont smacks of entitlement. He feels as if he is owed respect and power. He is a cult leader, and the members of his wrestling team that he recruits, are drinking the Kool-Aid, one sip at a time. This entire film is characterized by the male ego and the destructive nature of it.

For me, I was taken by the way Du Pont is protected by an arsenal of security because of the power and money he has, yet is never questioned whether he is a danger to anybody else despite the many, many warning signs. Those two things — money and power — are the two strongest social lubricants. Their access gives you everything, all the privilege. You can even kill if you want to.

The toxic masculinity of this film, epitomized by Mark and Du Pont, is what is most extraordinary thing about Foxcatcher. In fact, I’m not sure if there can be a conversation that doesn’t surround it, especially because there’s a surfeit amount of social tension that lends to the tenor of this movie. In 2014 alone, we’ve seen the acquittal of Oscar Pistorius, the murder of Mike Brown, and lunacy of Elliot Rodgers. Juxtaposed against this backdrop, Foxcatcher is evidence that the violence we, as a society, receives isn’t necessarily rooted in when we wrong white men, but rather, when we humiliate them.

Miller doesn’t justify Du Pont’s actions, nor does he try to alienate them. He doesn’t portray him as a writhing lunatic, and Carell doesn’t play him like that either. There’s a steadiness to both the acting (Ruffalo and Tatum are equally brilliant), and directing, and it lends itself to an impossible story. There’s no answer to why Du Pont did what he did. One minute he’s watching a self-financed documentary about his impact on the Foxcatcher team, then the next minute he’s in a car, with a loaded gun, out to kill a man with vengeance.

The facts are this: on January 26th, 1996 Dave Schultz was murdered in the snow outside of his residence on Du Pont’s property. His wife was witness to the crime; so was Du Pont’s head of security, who did nothing to stop the death of another man right before his eyes.

At a certain point in this film, Du Pont looks at Mark and says: “You look good, you look strong.” Those two things are supposedly interchangeable. When Mark feels as if he’s betrayed Du Pont, he smacks his head against a mirror, slicing open a wound on his forehead. He never recoils, never shrieks. In another moment, he looks into another mirror and punches a bruise on his face. Within these scenes we are supposed to see, and believe, that Mark is a man, he is masculine — and therefore weakness does not exist.

I think about the limitations of representation, often. The patriarchy has affected women (specifically trans, queer and women of color) in the most heinous ways, but it’s also made men into emotionless creatures that cringe at the sight of their own frustrations. The liminal conversations that surround toxic masculinity too often forget to ask the most obvious question — what makes white men so angry that they are pushed to kill? And why, when they do, do we run to protect them — salvaging their reputation by insisting that they were a “nice guy” or that they were “mentally ill,” when that never really ceases the end to the conversation, but only confuses the dialogue even more. When we excuse them of their violence we only encourage their deviation, and therein embolden their blaring privilege.

As we cultivate a world of men who can’t communicate, we only encourage them to sublimate their agony into the pillaging of human life — violently unraveling on anyone who dares question them. That was my takeaway from Foxcatcher. Du Pont was lacking in self awareness, as I find often white men do; their entitlement affords them disregard. Male weakness, or sadness, is not wrong; it is a beautiful, complicated and humane thing, and ending the patriarchy means welcoming in a more nuanced conversation of malehood itself. Because, let’s face it, the sooner we can accept a more diverse concept of “being a man,” the sooner I, or anybody else for that matter, can sit in a streetcar and not have to worry about my safety, because of the man in an oversized t-shirt blithely sitting next to me.

Fariha Roísín is a writer extraordinaire. Follow her rambunctious tweeting @fariharoisin.