The Miracle Of Morgan S Creek Masculinity

American depictions of masculinity underwent great changes during and after World War Two. Preston Sturges’s film, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, tells the story of Trudy Kockenlocker, played by Betty Hutton, who unwittingly gets married and pregnant during a farewell party for the soldiers. She then seeks the advice of Eddie Bracken, as Norval Jones, who has secretly been pining for Trudy ever since they were kids. Through a series of oddball scenes in the 1944 film, Preston Sturges is able to create a film that is so funny and timely, that it succeeds despite its unorthodox depiction of a woman who has not one, but six, children out of wedlock. Contrary to other World War Two depictions of masculinity, as seen in films like The Best

Years of Our Lives (1946) and Battleground (1949), the male protagonist of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Norval Jones, does not represent the traditional “American man.” However, through humor, piecemeal distribution of the script to the Production Code Administration (PCA), and overt patriotic themes, the film makes it through the time’s strict censorship guidelines unscathed, and is able, through satire, to challenge the hegemonic perception of masculinity, without fully threatening the status quo.
Before we can properly discuss depictions of World War Two masculinity, it is important to understand that prior to World War Two America underwent catastrophic economic turmoil during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The New Deal that followed the economic decline threatened the idyllic perception of what an “American man” is. Through the hegemonic lens of an “American man,” government subsidized programs, like welfare, were considered to be emasculating. The New Deal policies were seen as a threat to American values and to the traditional “breadwinner” gender role that men were accustomed to. Brandon Locke argues in his dissertation “Hegemonic Masculinity and the United States Armed Forces Complex” that, “The reliance on government assistance ran contrary to the "Self-Made Man," a long-running staple of American masculinity. The Self-Made Man ideology was built upon the physical and intellectual strength of men to support themselves and their families without the help of other individuals or institutions” (28). Anna Froula’s review of Christina Jarvis’s Male Bodies at War, echoes a similar sentiment about the hurt ego of the “American man” when she writes of the enlistment process of World War II, "which included policing bodies for homosexuality, [and] coincided with the predominance of “privileged” representations of strong, youthful, white male bodies that symbolized the re-strengthening of America in the wake of the emasculating Great Depression” (72). In order to recover the idealized “Self-Made” “American man,” depicting hyper-masculinity on the big screen was seen as the necessary step in order to persevere the heteronormative stoic and self-sufficient standard of masculinity. This hyper-masculine idealization of an “American man” can be seen as a way of overcompensating for all the years of government-subsidized emasculation.
It is no surprise then, that the films that followed The Great Depression and The New Deal featured such strong idealistic representations of the “American man." In order to fully understand how Norval Jones deviates from the heteronormative “man,” we should take a look at other well-known on-screen adaptations of hyper-masculine men. In the 1960s, Hollywood’s ideal “American man” was none other than, John Wayne. In Guts and Glory: The Making of the American War Image in Film Lawrence Suid writes that “America’s glorification of war and the virtue of dying for one’s country [were] ideals at the core of the Wayne image” (2). When discussing the “Wayne Image” in “Ordinary Heroes: Depiction of Masculinity in World War II Film,” Dunlap takes Suid’s point one step further by adding that, "Through using such masculine figures as John Wayne and Audie Murphy, these films were able to create an image of the stoic, unemotional, unyieldingly loyal, but wholly unrealistic male” (4-5; emphasis added). While John Wayne does not make an appearance in The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, his essence is paralleled by the other men in the film. For example, John Wayne’s influence can be seen in the soldiers at the farewell ball, the lawyers, the Justice of the Peace, and of course, in Trudy’s father Constable Kockenlocker. Norval Jones, as the protagonist of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, does not live up to the unemotional “Self-Made” stereotype of an “American man,” but Sturges provides his character with paradoxical representations of men, which subtly hints, through humor, how flawed and unrealistic this standard of masculinity truly is. How does Norval Jones fail at being an “American Man?” Well, according to the socially constructed ideas of wartime masculinity, Norval Jones’ first flaw is his inability to join the military. In “The Military-Masculinity Complex” Locke claims that “the military could serve as an institution through which men's masculinity could be proven simply through their inclusion” (50). When discussing the makeup of America’s armed forces in World War Two, Locke writes: The American military was composed of men from all different races, classes, backgrounds, temperaments, and sexualities. However, imagery surrounding these men exhibited in film, advertisements, and federal productions, show a very narrow scope of men — white, middle class, well-built, straight, and cissexual. Men who did not meet this ideal - people of color, the working class, homosexuals, and disabled - were not only excluded from the imagery put forth by the government but were also often barred from service or denied the economic benefits of their service. Their exclusion from imagery associated with American manhood and heroism denied them mainstream idyllic masculinity, as put forth by the federal government (4-5).
Because of “Nervous Norval’s” idiosyncratic behaviors, like his stutter, and his otherwise gawky characteristics, like his lanky figure, he is denied entry into the armed forces. This causes his character much grief. However, he is aware that his exclusion from the military subsequently makes him less attractive in the eyes of someone like Trudy. Without the uniform, Norval is excluded from both the economic benefits of serving, such as the GI Bill and from the social capital that the status symbol of a uniform portrays. If he had this uniform, maybe a girl like Trudy would give him a chance.
If a man, like Norval, is unable to pass through the screening process of the World War Two enlistment, how could he prove that he too, was masculine?

In The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Norval attempts to do this, despite not having a uniform, by asking Trudy out to a movie the night of the soldier’s farewell party. His attempt is pathetic, but his eagerness makes him an easy target to manipulate by Trudy so she can go to the soldier’s ball, even without her father’s permission. Contrary to the other military men that make their advances on Trudy early on in the film, Norval is overly awkward and gawky by comparison. His fidgety and feeble attempt at American masculinity is perceived by the audience as Sturges’s slapstick humor. The paradoxical representations of masculinity are where the heart of Sturges’s satire rests. What makes Norval’s attempt at being an “American man” comedy, and not an insult to American masculinity? In the 2015 USA Today review, “The Miracle of ‘The Miracle’” Wes Gehring argues that “Sturges makes nondescript Norval more tolerable to the audience [because] the movie’s only other pivotal male, Demarest’s put-upon papa, is another satirical variation on the American male” (70). Constable Kockenlocker, played by William Demarest, is the strict American father figure with his shotgun locked, loaded, and ready to fight anyone who hurts his little girls. Locke notes in his dissertation that, “The family was understood as the most fundamental component of American society, and by becoming functional and proficient fathers, men were proving their status as heterosexual, healthy men but were also actively contributing to the fight for the economic and ideological American Way” (36). Constable, despite being a widow and a single parent, has his children that serve as symbols of his heterosexuality. When Demarest’s character insists that Norval propose to Trudy he is playing the long-established role of protector and head of household. His

character, who is almost always seen cleaning his shotgun alludes to the idea of a “shotgun wedding,” without ever having to say it aloud. Instead, the movie plays off these rather controversial themes with light dialogue and slapstick style humor. For example, in an “My Favorite Scene” series published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1944, Gene Tierney describes the scene where the “poor guy” faces “papa’s wrath” as her favorite scene. She describes it as “completely goofy— and I can’t remember any scene that made me laugh harder” (70). In that particular scene Trudy and her sister, played by Diana Lynn, come to rescue Norval on the porch when he is getting a stern talking to by their father. In it, Norval gets so nervous, that he often falls over the edge of the porch, multiple times, in a very melodramatic and humorous way.
As a character, Norval Jones is a controversial depiction of wartime masculinity. He is nervous, unable serve, so is ultimately characterized by Trudy’s sister Emmy as the perfect match because “he will do all the housework.” Once again, this is an example of the film subtly challenging what constitutes masculinity. In this situation, is Norval embodying some form of traditional masculinity, by stepping up to the responsibility during Trudy’s time of need? Or is Sturges’ dialogue just poking fun at masculinity, all while playing up Norval’s inadequacies for the comedy of it? While there might never be a clear answer to this question, there is still one question that continues to bug me, and many other scholars, when trying to understand the film’s implication on gender: How did this film avoid Hollywood’s strict censorship laws?