Media Magazine articles/quotes:

Representing masculinity
It has been argued that The Public Enemy has a homoerotic subtext, in relation both to Tom and Matt’s close friendship and to Putty Nose’s interest in Tom. However, the film also tries to assert masculine values. The Great Depression created a crisis in masculinity, and in film the previously refined leading males were replaced by rougher, tougher ones. Clarke Gable and James Cagney became icons of masculinity, and Cagney uses this for the character of Tom Powers. (Social, cultural, historical context and Key Concepts – Representation)

Feelings of insecurity about male dominance are at least partially resolved when Tom pushes a grapefruit into the face of Kitty (Mae Clarke) in a scene that is both amusing and distasteful in equal measures, and which bemuses students every time I show this film (Textual analysis to illustrate Representation).

The roles of women are objectified in The Public Enemy. This is certainly true both of Kitty, as exemplified by the breakfast/grapefruit scene, where she fulfils no function other than to be humiliated by Tom, and Gwen who appears to be used as mere decoration. This is shown in the scene in which she accompanies Tom to the dinner dance and is nothing more than a beautiful object for him to show off. This does, however, demonstrate the patriarchal values of the society at the time; the women in the film are represented as having no power other than to attract men with their looks, or to cook and clean for them, as is the case with Tom’s mother. It is the men (and in this case the gangsters) who have the power. This reflects society in that men in America in the 1930s would certainly have held all the positions of power (Key Concepts – Representation and social context).