Body of Evidence: Performing Hunger

Post-conflict films of the Northern Irish Troubles are, overwhelmingly, male-dominated narratives. These screen stories are marked not by representations of militarized masculinities, but by victimized masculinity and the struggle for masculine definition. This has less to do with the wider-scale perceived ‘crisis in masculinity’ which inflects British films such as The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) and Irish films such as I Went Down (Paddy Breathnach, 1997), and more to do with creating a post-conflict masculinity that audiences can identify with in the context of the peace process and, in this context, that audiences can extend understanding and forgiveness to. Thistrend is particularly noticeable in films about the 1981 Hunger Strike.