Buddy Films

Whether categorized as road movies, Westerns, comedies, or cop action films, all buddy films embrace the same premise: two men of differing personalities and/or backgrounds are thrown together, and their initial lack of understanding of one another is eventually transformed into friendship and [Page 74]mutual respect. Buddy films negotiate crises of masculinity centered on questions of class, race, and gender, and they tend to conclude with a narrative resolution of these questions through the buddies' acceptance of each other's differences. They offer male movie-going audiences an opportunity to indulge in a form of male bonding and behavior usually discouraged by social constraints.

For the most part, the desire for male bonding is a feature particular to American society; the popular culture of other Western nations tend not to share this preoccupation with the intimacy of the male bond, focusing instead on the male–female romantic relationship or the heroism of the individual male. American popular culture is replete with texts concerned with the potency of the male bond in the face of danger and the empowerment each man experiences as part of the male duo. In buddy films, the male–female romantic couple is replaced with the male–male couple, setting up a contemplation of intimacy relatively free from social convention and entirely without need for a sexual/marital union at the end of the film. The genre has followed a general development, featuring mainly comedy duos until the 1960s, outlaws in the late 1960s, biracial cop action heroes in the 1980s, sensitive males in the early 1990s, and male–female detectives in the late 1990s.

Until the 1960s, comedic male couples dominated the buddy film genre. These include Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello in the 1930s, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the 1940s, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the 1950s, and Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in the 1960s in The Odd Couple (1969). The 1960s and 1970s witnessed two overlapping shifts in the buddy film. First, feminist gains and an incipient men's movement prompted more serious dramatic, and sometimes tragic, explorations of male friendship. Second, a widespread questioning of social institutions, a celebration of youthful and rebellious individualism, and Hollywood's attempt to attract young audiences spawned films focusing on outlaws whose adventures reflected a desire for freedom from the domestic restraints imposed by women and society. Both shifts were evident in such films as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Easy Rider (1969), Midnight Cowboy (1969), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975).

During the 1980s, in the midst of President Ronald Reagan's right-wing politics and intensified Cold War concerns, buddies became law-enforcing action heroes, often with pumped-up bodies and violent tendencies. These action heroes blended masculinity, heroism, and patriotism into an idealized image, and their bodies became sites for articulating national concerns through repeated physical injuries. In a reflection of the advancement of African Americans in the decade following the civil rights movement, these action-hero buddies tended to consist of a biracial couple, most notably Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in the 48 Hours films and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon films. In this subgenre, pioneered by the television series I Spy in the 1960s, the African-American character is typically the sidekick to the white hero and isolated from the African-American community. He thus offers his skills and bravery for the preservation of mainstream (white) cultural values. The sidekick is presented in stereotypical terms, either as a representative of black subculture through his behavior and taste in music and clothes (e.g., Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours [1982]), or as a domesticated, professional, devoted father and husband (e.g., Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon [1987]).

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