Renegotiating White Male Hegemony in Contemporary Period Fiction: An Analysis of the Television Serials Copper and Hell on Wheels

Abstract

Starting with the observation that the results of Hollywood's recently renewed interest in the subject of the American Civil War and Slavery in the Old South allow for being read as explorations of questions of masculinity, in particular in relation with issues of race (including whiteness), I ask whether the same applies to two recent television drama series set in the historical period in question, namely AMC's Hell on Wheels (2011 – present) and BBC America's Copper (2012 – 2013). Considering media statements about these shows that give the impression that they could be regarded as counter-hegemonic approaches to the dramatization of American history, the question arises how both of them ended up with a white male main character. Given the centrality that “narratives of paternally charged revenge” (Hamad) assume in the design of either character, an inquiry into the forms and functions of fatherhood is chosen as a starting point for an exploration of this question. The following analysis shows that apart from serving as a diegetic device that accounts for their respective motivations, drawing the main characters as bereaved fathers also sets the stage for authoritarian celebrations of the need for a patriarchal protector that imply conceptualizing motherhood as inevitably needful and dependent at best, or even as the primary cause for fathers' experiences of loss and alienation from their children at worst. In a second step, the attention is turned towards the portrayal of race relations in the two shows, based on the observation that in either case, the white male main character is complemented with a Black male side-kick, a constellation that bears a certain resemblance to the setup typical for the biracial buddy movie as analysed by Ames. While these relationships allow to be read as critical explorations of the subject of racism at the surface level, a more thorough inquiry into their structures and dynamics indicates that they primarily cater to the emotional needs of a white male audience, up to the point of offering a redemption of sorts from the historical guilt of slavery.