Masculinity as masquerade: "gay" macho in the novels of Jean Genet

This paper examines the representation of macho masculinity found in Jean Genet's novels through the framework of theories of gender performativity. While Genet's novels have been condemned by contemporary gay critics for representing homosexuality as an abject or failed masculinity, it is argued that emphasis on this aspect of his work has tended to overshadow the importance of the virile, phallic man to his work. Genet's homoeroticisation of machismo provides a focus for analysis of his representation of masculinity as a whole, and especially of the relationship between heterosexual and homosexual men found in his novels. Rather than reading Genet's representation of macho as a specifically "gay" macho that confirms the heterocentric privileging of heterosexual masculinity, this paper argues that, in Genet's novels, all macho is represented as inherently performative in a way that questions the logic of heterocentric privilege.