Robert Downey Jr. from Brat to Icon by Erin E. MacDonald

Author:Erin E. MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2014-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

As we have seen, the detective films of Robert Downey Jr. provide a particularly apt thematic framework for the working through of certain key aspects of the star’s screen persona. The fragile masculine identity, typical of the film noir detective, reappears in the self-conscious homage provided by both The Singing Detective and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, whose heroes are physically assaulted and emasculated at every turn. Terrorized by the avenging oedipal patriarch and his agents, the latter film’s hero finds comfort only in compelling male friendships, indicative of his retreat from oedipal challenge. Equally, in the Sherlock Holmes films, it is men not women who provide the greatest sense of emotional intimacy and relief from the terrifying archetypal father embodied by Moriarty. The clownishness of the Downey persona points to a childish streak—one method of evading paternal competition—and a certain unwillingness to grow up. This childishness is typified by many of his characters’ love of dressing up, including Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man (who is at the end of the day, a just a little boy in a suit of armor). In dressing up, the young boy can also play at being a man, which is what Dan Dark does in his fantasy as the hard-boiled private eye. However, such role-play, evident also in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, only highlights the artificiality of the masculine performance. It also provides a platform for the transgression of sexual norms, most apparent in Holmes’ drag act in A Game of Shadows, which points out the queer nature of his friendship with Dr. Watson. Beyond the transgression of heteronormative heterosexuality, not only in sexual orientation but also in a failure to live up to the demands of masculinity, lies a wider transgression against patriarchal law and its internalized agent, the superego. While the persona of Robert Downey Jr. addresses the performative nature of masculinity, and its inherent fragility, it also explores punishment of transgression against the law. Thus, as a detective figure, the persona of Downey is associated simultaneously with the upholding of the law and the flouting of it, both superego and id. This struggle against one’s darker impulses, one apparently lost by the actor for a number of years, is perhaps best embodied by detective Sherlock Holmes, and his plummet over the Reichenbach Falls with his arch-enemy Professor Moriarty into the watery abyss. Even this act of self-abnegation does not guarantee the death of Holmes who, like Downey, demonstrates his unequivocal talent as a come-back kid. Holmes rewrites both Watson’s story (“The End?”) and the star’s own, as the spectator is assured that there will be a sequel for the detective and for Robert Downey Jr.

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