a hu t anrisever Subprime Heroism: Revisiting the Trope of the Male Breadwinner in the New Millennium Within the multitude of representations of fatherhood in post-9/ 11 literature and visual culture, it is possible to identify a cluster of contemporary narratives centered on “migratory” fatherhood� These popular stories of fathers on the run/ road clearly mark their journey as a paternal one by pairing the father with his child, which is almost exclusively a son. Besides the feature films Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002), Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003), The Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino, 2006), or The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009), this motif particularly informs James Mangold’s 2007 Western remake 3: 10 to Yuma. All of these films of post-9/ 11 migratory fatherhood have in common that the patriarchal heterosexual nuclear family is imagined to be in a state of emergency - through the death of the mother (Finding Nemo and Road to Perdition), the mother’s abandonment of the family (The Road and The Pursuit of Happyness), or the questioning of the patriarch as the rightful head of the family (3: 10 to Yuma)� Domesticity is thus connoted with a notion of crisis, and this precarious scenario propels a unitary response: the fatherson road trip, that means a perilous journey through non-domestic spaces transforming both offspring and, more importantly, the (now) single father� Regardless of individual variations, these paternal road movies (apparently) end with the (re-)establishment of patriarchal authority, which also hinges on the narratives’ pronounced affective work most visible in the films’ conclusions - either heightening the father’s status by a happy ending or, more crucially, by capitalizing on tragedy through the father’s death at the end of the journey� Yet, while the perpetuation of male hegemony is certainly part of these narratives’ cultural work, it is particularly the motif of the father’s death that complicates any reading by constituting an aesthetic experience simultaneously affirming and undermining paternal authority� My analysis of Mangold’s 3: 10 to Yuma explores this ambivalence as an indicator of an overall shift in the conceptualization of individualism and of identity in the new millennium� As the cultural manifestation of a growing awareness about the intersectionality of various social parameters in identities, 3: 10 to Yuma articulates the crucial role of class in shaping social realities, in particular by linking this to a heightened notion of vulnerability, realized through its trope of maimed and moribund fatherhood� For Dan Evans, 3: 10 to Yuma’s protagonist, the exceptionalist idea of the American Dream does not entirely add up� I read this increase of notions of ambivalence, inadequacy, and failure not as the mere incorporation of economic, political, or military setbacks into conceptions of American exceptionalism but, rather, as a decisive turning away from the narrative of “exceptionalist individualism” 376 a hu t anrisever (which so poignantly informs narratives of the American Dream achieved by heroic males striving for individual recognition). To be more specific, it is within its contemporary socio-economic context of the 2006/ 07 subprime mortgage crisis that I consider this post-9/ 11 Western as a radical questioning and critique of the late-modernist concept of the male breadwinner, a figure whose cultural glorification was brought about by the fusion of exceptionalism, masculinity, and capitalism in post-World War II US society� Against this background, in turn, revisiting the narrative’s 1950s figurations reveals these texts to constitute early critiques of the growing influence of finance capitalism on the nuclear family� This oscillation between the narrative’s various realizations, ultimately, discloses how 3: 10 to Yuma’s progressive and critical elements markedly disrupt the romance with US hegemony and hegemonic concepts of gender identity� Trapped in Suit(e)s: 3: 10 to Yuma and the Heroic Breadwinner of the 1950s Published in the Dime Western Magazine in March 1953, Elmore Leonard’s short story “Three-Ten to Yuma” revolves around the themes of individual heroism and masculine anxiety� Written in the past tense and rendered in the subjective third-person narrative mode, the story is focalized through the character of Deputy Marshal Paul Scallen, who is charged with delivering a sentenced outlaw, Jim Kidd, to the Yuma Territorial Prison in Arizona� Excluding both beginning and ending of this prisoner transport from Fort Huachuca (near Bisbee) to Yuma, the narrative exclusively focuses on the two men’s stopover in Contention City to board the eponymous train� Upon their arrival, they are received by Mr� Timpey, a representative of the banking and transport corporation Wells, Fargo & Co� (the aggrieved party)� As requested, Mr� Timpey has arranged for a hotel room for the unlikely duo, where the deputy hopes to pass the hours until the train’s arrival unnoticed by any of Kidd’s outlaw friends� Gradually, however, Scallen’s goal of boarding the train with Kidd is exposed as an all but impossible task� While Scallen represents institutionalized law, the narrative equally emphasizes the individualism of Scallen’s heroism; going above and beyond the call of his professional duties, Scallen’s moral integrity motivates him to complete his assignment in spite of being outnumbered by the outlaw gang (seven to one) and, thus, facing the prospect of certain death when marching Kidd off to the train� During the build-up to the climactic walk to the station, the narrative highlights the peculiar bond between deputy and prisoner, Scallen’s disciplined work ethic (linked to his pride in and dependency on having a steady monthly income), and his dedication to his family� Most of the story is literally confined to the hotel room and acted out through the dialogues between Scallen and Kidd, which foreground the changing nature of their relationship (shifting from professional and ironic detachment to mutual amicability Subprime Heroism 377 and respect). Significantly, Scallen’s status as a representative of institutionalized law is presented as both a consequence of his virtue and, equally important, of his need for monetary security: Then he [Kidd] said right after it, his tone changing, “What made you join the law? ” “The money,” Scallen answered, and felt foolish as he said it� But he went on, “I was working for a spread over by the Pantano Wash when Old Nana broke loose and raised hell up the Santa Rosa Valley� [���], so the Pima County marshal got up a bunch to help out and we tracked Apaches almost all spring� The marshal and I got along fine, so he offered me a deputy job if I wanted it.” He wanted to say that he started for seventy-five and worked up to the one hundred and fifty, but he didn’t� (Leonard 184) References to Scallen’s modest salary abound in the brief story to enhance the scale of his bravery (facing death for a negligible amount of money), to emphasize his integrity by refusing any form of bribery in spite of his meagre income, and to position him as a responsible breadwinner committed to his family’s well-being� Thereby, the narrative repeatedly stresses that Scallen’s unfailing efforts to deliver Kidd to the authorities is primarily motivated by professional and not personal reasons, as he is determined to perform well in his job� All the while, through the subjective third-person narrative mode, the reader has access to Scallen’s thoughts and feelings that mark him as an ordinary human being with fears and concerns for his loved ones� Detecting Kidd’s friends from the hotel window (and thus realizing that he will run into an ambush on the way to the train), the deputy’s thoughts subvert his image of a stoic and solitary Western hero: He [Scallen] saw his wife, then, and the three youngsters and he could almost feel the little girl sitting on his lap where she had climbed up to kiss him goodbye, and he had promised to bring her something from Tucson� He didn’t know why they had come to him all of a sudden� And after he had put them out of his mind, since there was no room now, there was an upset feeling inside as if he had swallowed something that would not go down all the way� It made his heart beat a little faster� Jim Kidd was smiling up at him� “Anybody I know? ” “I didn’t think it showed�” “Like the sun going down�” (Leonard 186) Significantly, this crack in the deputy’s (self-)presentation is not only a latent textual element dependent on reader reception but an overt part of the story’s negotiation of gender� Through Kidd’s comment on the deputy’s shifted air and Scallen’s confession of both his concerns and his efforts to hide those (“I didn’t think it showed�”), heroic masculinity is acknowledged to be a performative act rather than an essentialist quality of a few select individuals� Zooming in on Scallen’s angst, then, the narrative articulates the abundance of multiple masculine anxieties about failure to perform, exemplified by the protagonist’s worries about failing as a husband and father (as the patriarchal breadwinner) and a professional law-enforcer (as a deputy) but also regarding his “act” of performing heroism� 378 a hu t anrisever At two-fifteen Scallen looked at his watch, then stood up, pushing the chair back. The shotgun was under his arm� In less than an hour they would leave the hotel, walk over Commercial to Stockman, and then up Stockman to the station� Three blocks� He wanted to go all the way� He wanted to get Jim Kidd on that train ��� but he was afraid� He was afraid of what he might do once they were on the street� Even now his breath was short and occasionally he would inhale and let the air out slowly to calm himself� And he kept asking himself if it was worth it� People would be in the windows and the doors, though you wouldn’t see them� They’d have their own feelings and most of their hearts would be pounding ��� and they’d edge back of the door frames a little more� The man out on the street was something without a human nature or a personality of its own� He was on a stage� The street was another world� (Leonard 189-90) Echoing the famous Shakespearean quip on identity and play, the narrative describes the street as a “stage” for masculinity with scripted norms and practices of gender identity, whose observance is enforced by social structures and omnipresent anonymous surveillance� Exiting the hotel, Scallen’s concluding fate returns to the traditional narrative of victorious hegemonic masculinity by incorporating the deputy’s anxieties into the narrative’s representation of heroism (emphasizing his perseverance in the face of utmost fear during the showdown)� Managing to resolutely march Kidd off to the station, the train platform becomes the stage for the deputy’s display of sober-mindedness and marksmanship� All by himself, he succeeds shooting Prince and another outlaw, engaging the other gang members in a gunfight, and forcing Kidd to jump onto the departing train� In its concluding paragraph, recognition, in form of a job well done (and, thus, rightfully earning his salary), is both granted by the outlaw - stating, “You know, you really earn your hundred and a half” (Leonard 193) - and awarded by Scallen to himself - as “[h]e was thinking pretty much the same thing” (Leonard 193) -, which turns his adventure in Contention into a classic trial by fire as an initiation into heroic manhood. Sustaining its popularity from the time of its release down to the present day, Delmer Daves’ 1957 black-and-white filmic adaptation of “Three-Ten to Yuma” was selected into the National Film Registry in 2012 (US Library of Congress). Preserving the core plot, characters, and conflicts of the short story, 3: 10 to Yuma features significant additions, elaborations, and modifications, which enhance its explorations of masculinity, heroism, and the struggle for familial and communal security� In addition to providing a background story for its principal characters, the adaptation is most notable for amplifying the story’s notions of gender insecurity and for intimately linking its negotiation of heroism to the nuclear family� Utilizing a cattle herd as a barricade, a gang of gunmen led by the infamous outlaw Ben Wade forages a stagecoach and shoots its driver, while the herd’s owner, the rancher Dan Evans, comes across the robbery with his two sons and witnesses the criminal act without intervening� Subsequently, the gang rides to Bisbee to celebrate in a saloon (fooling the marshal into riding out to the stagecoach), while Dan drives his scattered cattle home afoot with Subprime Heroism 379 his sons (as Wade took away their horses)� In the ensuing conversation with his wife, it becomes clear that the ongoing drought has left Dan in dire need for money (to buy water rights for six months), and he leaves for Bisbee to ask for a loan. Helping the stagecoach owner, Mr. Butterfield, on his way, they run into the marshal and his posse, who realize Wade’s diversionary tactic and form a plan to arrest Wade (who enjoys an amorous tête-à-tête with the barmaid, while his gang leaves for Mexico)� Through Dan’s commitment, the outlaw is then arrested, which is witnessed by Wade’s righthand man, Charlie Prince (who darts off to assemble the gang and rescue Wade)� The marshal plans to deliver Wade to the authorities and asks Dan to join his posse as a deputy, which Dan refuses (pointing out his need to take care of his business)� Yet, Dan fails at getting a loan and, overhearing Mr. Butterfield’s offer of paying a two-hundred dollar reward for each of the two required men to deliver Wade to the Yuma Territorial Prison via the train that leaves from Contention City the next day, he volunteers for the job (as does Alex Potter, the town drunk), while all other men shun the dangerous task� Pretending to transport Wade to a different city, the marshal and his posse manage to exchange Wade for another man at Dan’s house and continue their journey as distracting bait for Wade’s henchman Prince� After having dinner with Dan’s family, the three men leave the ranch and ride to Contention� Without depicting their journey, the action continues with their arrival in town in the early morning, where Mr. Butterfield has arranged for a hotel room to wait for the train’s arrival without being noticed by anyone� Interrupted by glimpses of the action taking place outside, most of the narrative is focused on the interaction between Dan and Wade in the hotel room� To no avail, Wade tries to cajole Dan into releasing him by bribing Dan, intimidating him, or even insulting his pride as a husband� All the while, Dan successfully fends off Bob Moons (who attempts to kill Wade for the murder of his brother) in a brawl that reveals their hiding-place to Prince� As Dan’s psychological duel with Wade intensifies, he is ultimately left to his own devices in walking Wade to the train (all volunteers flee at the gang’s arrival, Alex is killed by the outlaws, and Mr. Butterfield wants to abort the mission)� Notwithstanding his wife’s arrival in Contention (to beg him to give up), Dan walks Wade to the station, where he confronts the gang on the platform� Prince yells at Wade to drop down (to shoot Dan); yet, the outlaw surprisingly tells Dan to jump on the passing train with him� Finally relaxing in the baggage car (after shooting Prince), Dan wonders about Wade’s help, upon which Wade replies that he wanted to get even with Dan for saving his life (and adding that he managed to flee from Yuma Prison before). The film ends with both men on the train and looking down at Alice, while rain starts pouring down on her� Straying both from the largely action-oriented plot of the Western genre (regularly featuring chases, gunfights, brawls, or duels) and the trope of the Western hero as an unattached loner, 3: 10 to Yuma stages its hero as a devoted husband and father who is primarily concerned about his family’s economic well-being and, thus, worries mostly about his qualities as 380 a hu t anrisever patriarchal breadwinner (amplified by the casting of Van Heflin for the role of Dan Evans)� 1 Significantly, the film stresses that Dan’s authority is intact yet endangered at the action’s outset; his first on-screen familial interactions indicate latent cracks in Dan’s recognition as the family’s patriarch� During the opening scene, which cross-cuts between the robbery and the male members of the Evans family, it is Dan’s inactivity and not the gang’s felony that is presented as the actual unseemly incident through his son’s questions� MARC� You gonna let them do this to you? DAN� Not much else I can do� [shift to the robbery of the stagecoach, where the stagecoach driver takes hold of a gang member, and Ben Wade shoots both of them] MARC� Aren’t you gonna do something? DAN� What, and get myself shot too? That must be Ben Wade and his gang� [shift to robbery, where Wade asks for the driver’s name, Bill Moons, and tells the stagecoach owner to make sure Moons gets a proper burial in his hometown of Contention; afterwards they take the horses from Dan and his sons, promising to let go of them close to Bisbee] MARC� [yelling after the departing gang] You wait! My pa will kill you! DAN� [appeasingly] Marc� [they watch the gang ride away] Let’s get the cattle� (3: 10 to Yuma, 00: 04: 20-00: 06: 11) Marc’s filial uneasiness in the face of his father’s determination not to act (recognizing the futility of any intervention) represents the narrative’s first juncture in aligning its negotiation of heroism with fatherhood and, in consequence, the patriarch of the nuclear family� Here, prioritizing their personal and economic well-being, Dan opts out of any cultural script envisioning him as a hard-nosed Western hero standing up for communal law and order with no regard for consequences� This rational, individualist, and entrepreneurial mindset of Dan’s not only jars with his sons’ expectations of proper masculine behavior but, more drastically, with those of his wife� Noticing their return home afoot and hearing about the unpleasant encounter with the outlaw gang, Alice appears more distressed about Dan’s passivity than relieved (given the harm averted)� ALICE� [walks over to Dan at his horse and stares intensely at him] What did you do? DAN� They was [sic] twelve� What could I do? [���] ALICE� Well, I’m glad you’re back safe� Heavens anything could have happened� [stands about without helping Dan and merely continues looking at him wonderingly] [���] It just seems so terrible� [���] 1 Heflin was best known to contemporary audiences through his role in another popular and extremely successful Western (released four years prior to 3: 10 to Yuma)� In Shane (George Stevens, 1953), Heflin embodies the figure of the homesteader Joe Starrett, who represents one of the film’s masculine ideals. Firmly grounded in the realm of the nuclear family, Starrett is presented as a husband, father, and industrious farmer, who consequently needs to abstain from executing violence, as he is closely associated with the “civilized” space of “tamed wilderness” in the imaginary realm of the frontier� For this purpose, Starrett is contrasted with the film’s other hero, the errand and unbound buckskin-clad Shane (played by Alan Ladd), who is both experienced and skilled with his six-shooter and helps the homesteaders in their fight against the cattle baron Ryker. Subprime Heroism 381 DAN� What’s the matter? ALICE� Nothing� ��� It seems terrible that something bad can happen, and all anybody can do is stand by and watch� DAN� Lots of things happen where all you can do is stand by and watch� ALICE� I know, but to have you stand by and to have the boys watch - [stops abruptly] DAN� Alright, so that’s life� You can have to watch a lot of terrible things� People get killed every day� Lightning can kill you� Three years of drought killing my cattle, that’s terrible, too� What can I do? I can’t make it rain� [���] ALICE� Dan, why are you so cross? [her facial expression grows softer again] DAN� I don’t know� You just seem to expect something from me that I’m not� ALICE� No, I don’t� Not really� DAN� I can’t go chasing after outlaws, my cattle dying all over� If I don’t save them, I don’t know what I’m gonna do� (3: 10 to Yuma, 00: 07: 22 - 00: 08: 45) Picking up on the short story’s fine-tuned musings on the constructedness of masculine bravado and the pressure to publicly “perform heroism,” it is telling what Alice perceives as “terrible” about the incident� Although she stops short of finishing her thought, it becomes clear that it is not merely Dan’s failure to perform but, rather, the fact that the sons have to bear witness to their father’s passivity and subjection to Wade’s commands� These ruptures of Dan’s authority are not only played out through the dialogues but also through the visual realization of this scene: Throughout their conversation, it is Alice, who is highlighted by frequently positioning her in the center or the foreground of the frame, literally placing her distress and disappointment center-stage. Furthermore, not only is Dan often confined to the margins of the frame, but other framing devices separate him from his wife and children, symbolizing rifts in the texture of this nuclear family� Clearly, Dan refuses to participate in any cultural convention that prioritizes violent masculine behavior over his business interest; he is only concerned about his cattle and his ranch, the family home� However, as in the introductory scene (fusing Dan’s cattle with Wade’s robbery), his private concerns as breadwinner are related to the public pressure of enforcing law and order when Dan admits not knowing how to save his cattle (“What can I do? ”)� While Alice’s subsequent plea, “Oh, Dan, you have to do something� You can’t just stand by and watch” (00: 09: 20-00: 09: 25), is directed at his efforts as a rancher, her words echo her previous remarks on the robbery (“It seems terrible that something bad can happen, and all anybody can do is stand by and watch�”)� This criticism of Dan’s behavior represents the climactic burst of familial uneasiness, explicitly denouncing the crisis management skills of the patriarchal head of the family (and, in addition, it is Alice who then suggests borrowing money to purchase water rights)� Aligning Dan’s business enterprise with the hunt for Wade through Alice’s call for action, the film’s central arch of tension is established, and Dan leaves for the city of Bisbee to ask for a loan, which appeases Alice� Thus, the familial crisis can be averted� As becomes clear at the scene’s end, after its interim gloomy and dismal mood, Alice reverts back to the role of the loving and supportive wife 382 a hu t anrisever idolizing her husband� Still, while depicting the Evans household as an ultimately integral family displaying obedience and reverence for its patriarchal head, the scene nevertheless discloses the tensions and ruptures beneath the surface - resulting from Dan’s economic failure as the family’s breadwinner - by expressing lingering but growing unrest that threatens to question and diminish Dan’s authority� In the logic of 3: 10 to Yuma, the greatest threat to Dan’s self-assurance emanates from this domestic realm and not the public sphere of masculine interactions� To no surprise, the crucial episodes of the two men’s struggle for domination are set in locales representing or symbolizing domesticity, the Evans’ home and a bridal suite� After the marshal and the posse leave the Evans’ ranch with their fake prisoner to distract Wade’s gang, the outlaw is invited to join the family for dinner, while Alex remains on the porch to observe the surroundings� By now, Wade has been established as an intriguing masculine figure through both his outlaw lifestyle and amorous adventures, and he self-confidently takes center stage in this ritualized domestic scene� While calming his sons, Dan is presented as a humble and obliging host, who even lowers himself to cutting the handcuffed outlaw’s meat, only to put up with Wade’s quips� Caught between these two contrasting men located at either end of the dinner table (the selfless, peaceable, and nurturing Dan versus the egomaniac, aggressive, and provocative Ben Wade), Alice’s reservation and taciturnity indicate the inherent ambivalence in both constructs of masculinity� For all his deadliness, Wade’s sex-appeal and charm cast him as a desirable man; Dan, on the other hand, is clearly a considerate and virtuous husband, yet distinctly lacks any thrilling qualities� To no surprise, in Dan’s brief absence from the table, Wade easily manages to momentarily charm Alice by engrossing her in a conversation about one of his past liaisons, which the returning Dan then ends abruptly by calling Alice outside on the porch (to jealously condemn her behavior towards the notorious criminal)� Again, the narrative stops short of dethroning Dan as the ultimately revered and unquestioned head of the family by merely hinting at Alice’s desires for an alternative version of masculinity� As Dan starts acting on his own initiative and takes charge of their departure, the tension during the dialogue on the porch is canceled by Alice’s rekindled admiration for Dan� This (temporary) conflict in Alice’s contradictory feelings for the “good” and the “bad” guy is indicative of the narrative’s overall affective work in arousing the same ambivalent feelings in the audience towards the two main male characters (and, in this regard, Glenn Ford’s casting against type as the outlaw is instrumental in amplifying the antagonist’s appeal)� While contrasted, the rancher and the outlaw never appear as antithetical� This is underscored by two important variations on Leonard’s short story, as the film not only casts its principal male characters as middle-aged men of roughly the same age (eliminating the explicit age difference between Deputy Paul Scallen and the younger outlaw Jim Kidd) but also renames them with the similar-sounding (fore)names, Dan Evans and Ben Wade� In the narrative’s Subprime Heroism 383 negotiation of its masculine ideal, the pursuit of money (albeit, to different ends) drives both men; as Dan is increasingly staged as the story’s hero, it remains suspenseful what prize he will have to pay for claiming that position� Skipping the men’s ride to Contention City and only briefly depicting their arrival in town, the main strand of action (focusing on the relationship between rancher and outlaw) is quickly re-located to the hotel room� Thereby, deviating from its literary source anew, the film presents the room explicitly as a bridal suite, a coincidence ridiculed by Wade, who spends most of his time sitting or laying on the bed� Acknowledging the sexual connotation of the locale, I nevertheless hold the cultural function of this modification not to be indicative of displaced (homo)sexual tensions but, rather, to be related to the narrative’s negotiation of masculinity within the confines of the domestic realm of the nuclear family� 2 With its distinct mise-en-scène, 3: 10 to Yuma becomes a textbook example of Thomas Elsaesser’s remarks on the aesthetics of excess of 1950s family melodrama, stating that an “acute sense of claustrophobia in décor and locale translates itself into a restless and yet suppressed energy surfacing sporadically in the actions and the behavior of the protagonists” (361)� Accordingly, the notion of confinement is foregrounded in the men’s long layover in the bridal suite, particularly in the visual staging of the narrow room dominated by the matrimonial bed, which leaves only limited space for movement� While not quintessentially noir, 3: 10 to Yuma is a (melodramatic) noirish Western due to its intense interrogation of gender anxieties, reduction of action sequences, the primarily psychological duel between its principal male characters, and its prominent usage of light and darkness� A closer look at the bridal suite sequences (regularly crosscut with scenes of the outside action) reveals that it is not only the outlaw who is locked but, simultaneously, the scenes’ cramped mise-en-scène and pronounced low-key lighting (casting multiple shadows, which also cover Dan in the shape of bars) suggest that the rancher is equally trapped� Whereas it is institutionalized law that keeps hold of Wade, Dan is rather encased by the confines of marriage. After all, both men end up in the bridal suite for identical reasons, their striving for money� In this regard, another deviation from the short story proves instrumental in resignifying the narrative’s representation of its hero. Unlike the literary figure of Paul Scallen, Dan Evans is not a deputy marshal but a rancher, who is forced into heroism by dire economic needs (and not professional reasons)� It is the monetary award, advertised by the stagecoach owner, which motivates Dan to volunteer for the prisoner transport� Putting up with mortal danger, Dan hence subordinates his existence to the financial needs he is expected to meet as the 2 In spite of identity politics and progressive developments in US society through social movements ever since the 1960s, the nuclear family is still largely perpetuated as a heteronormative social construction, founded through the institutionalized act of marriage (traditionally expected to be consummated in the wedding night)� Thus, while not a domestic space in itself, the bridal suite links the struggle between Dan and Wade to the question of domesticity and continues the film’s interrogation of heroism against the background of the nuclear family� 384 a hu t anrisever Evans family’s breadwinner� Hence, what 3: 10 to Yuma ultimately stresses is that Dan’s authority is contingent upon his economic success; financial sustainability ensures his status as the patriarchal head of the nuclear family; as seen in interactions with Alice, monetary precariousness fosters ruptures within the familial domain and, ultimately, gender insecurity� Depicting the potential fatal outcome of this logic, closely linking masculinity with capitalist success, is the narrative’s critical cultural achievement� 3: 10 to Yuma thus envisions its gender crisis to originate from the protagonist’s economic crisis, depicting how the familial hierarchy of the Evans family is questioned as a consequence of Dan’s failure as the breadwinner� In the logic of the film, this failure manifests itself most drastically through the hardship endured by his wife, encapsulated in the enigmatic remark that she has to “work hard” (articulated both by Alice herself and by Wade)� After all, it is Alice’s initial call for Dan’s action that propels his journey to Yuma with Wade� Her growing uneasiness is the driving factor in undermining Dan’s patriarchal authority, pushing his existence dangerously close to the brink of death� Hence, Dan’s masculine redemption can only be granted by his wife� In consequence, the showdown in Contention City is heralded by Alice’s arrival in town, which foreshadows both the end to his economic hardship (as rolling thunder signals the drought’s end) and yield’s him envious recognition by the outlaw� Frantically calling for her husband in the hotel lobby (where Alex’s corpse hangs from the chandelier), she starts running towards Dan and, subsequently, begs him to abandon his mission� ALICE� [with tears in her eyes, embracing Dan] If I ever said anything that made you think I was complaining o’r how hard things were, but it just isn’t true, because I love everything� Every minute� All the worry, the work, all the hurts of life� MR� BUTTERFIELD� [hearing their conversation from inside the room] If it’s the twohundred dollars you need, I’ll pay you anyway� ALICE� Don’t go through with it, dear� [���] Oh, Dan� I don’t want a hero� I want you� DAN� Honest to God, if I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t� But I heard Alex scream� The town drunk gave his life because he believed that people should be able to live in decency and peace together� You think I can do less? ALICE� Don’t� No, please don’t go through with it� DAN� You know I never have been able to give you very much� No pearls, nothing� Sometimes not even enough food for you and the boys� Maybe this will be something worth remembering� ALICE� [shocked] What are you saying? ��� Don’t you think you can make it? DAN� Oh, yes, of course� When it gets to be three o’clock, I’ll just walk to the station� That’s all� ALICE� Then why are you talking about a memory? DAN� Well, I mean for the boys� The boys will always remember how their old man walked Ben Wade to the station� (3: 10 to Yuma, 1: 18: 15-1: 19: 43) Unequivocally, Alice revokes her earlier comments indicating her distress and disappointment about the living conditions provided by her husband, resignifying initially bemoaned hardships as cherished parts of a priceless Subprime Heroism 385 marriage� Renouncing her desire for a man embodying the heroic quality of the controlled exertion of violence, Alice thoroughly re-establishes Dan as the unquestioned head of the family� It is through her act of readily submission to patriarchal authority that Dan’s fate turns around, which is highlighted by the scene’s cinematography: Significantly, Alice’s body screens Alex’ hanging corpse when she walks toward Dan (thus, literally, erasing the prospect of a fatal outcome of Dan’s mission)� Throughout their conversation, the couple is firmly framed by the case of the bridal suite’s open door; as Alice sinks into Dan’s arms, she consequently succumbs back into the confines of normed gender identities, cancelling her earlier transgression of hierarchical boundaries� In addition, the viewer gazes at this interaction through the eyes of Wade, as the alignment of the camera reproduces his perspective on the couple from inside the room� The outlaw thus witnesses this unconditional recognition of Dan by his wife, which will later influence his behavior during the climactic showdown on the platform� While Dan insists on taking Wade to the train, he repeatedly avoids explicitly answering Alice’s question regarding his motivation to do so; yet, his remark on creating a memory for his sons is telling� By taking Wade to the train, Dan redeems his paternal authority, eradicating future filial rebellions with this public display of heroism. Ultimately, Dan’s action does not establish institutionalized law but, primarily, re-establishes his status as patriarch� It is through this linking of heroism with the nuclear family that Wade’s final move (voluntarily subjecting himself to Dan by initiating their jump) represents a logical bow to the imperative maintenance of patriarchal domination, embodied by the successful male breadwinner. This absoluteness of the father figure is mirrored in the film’s closing that is fraught with religious undertones� As the drought is ended by the starting rain and the two men on the train pass Alice, the editing enforces Dan’s lofty status by eyeline matches that depict his wife (whose attire is reminiscent of biblical costumes) in high-angle shots, subordinating her to her husband� How can 3: 10 to Yuma’s masculine ideal be interpreted within its historical context? As I hold, not by localizing the film within the “golden age” of 1950s Western movies but by interrogating larger contemporary socioeconomic and cultural transformations in US society that pertain to the narrative’s central theme of the heroic male breadwinner� Hence, I argue that 3: 10 to Yuma is less related to Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 High Noon (a link insinuated in the majority of the film’s reviews and interpretations) but, rather, performs cultural work that is also accomplished by narratives centered on the figure of the man in the gray flannel suit. Steven Cohan examines the (discourse of a) post-WWII masculinity crisis through his analysis of popular 1950s Hollywood movies, whereby Cohan discloses how a particular notion of masculinity was crafted as the new hegemonic norm in a post-WWII consumerist US society, installing a specific (privileged) subject position as the universal masculine standard� By “trad[ing] in his 1940s khaki regulation uniform for a 1950s gray flannel one” (Cohan 38) after demobilization, the new hegemonic male emerged: “the white, heterosexual, corporate, WASP, 386 a hu t anrisever suburban breadwinner as personified by the ubiquitous figure of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” (Cohan xi). This figure has come to represent a coherent and self-disclosed notion of masculinity endowed with agency; yet, Cohan subverts this master narrative of the 1950s middle-class breadwinner by revealing the contradictory gender ideals it had to incorporate (xii), which make up for its inherent instability and explicit negotiation of gender performativity� Interrelating gender to the spread of corporate capitalism, Cohan poignantly describes this figure’s cultural function in “link[ing] gender (manhood) and male psychology (maturity) to a heterosexual goal (mating) and economic obligation (breadwinning), [���] to secure the cultural hegemony of the professional managerial class in the face of other, older as well as marginalized and excluded, social interests” (35)� Yet, in the end, this hegemonic concept of the male middle-class breadwinner is a deeply paradoxical figure: While occupying the hegemonic position in a hierarchy of competing masculinities, its socio-culturally elevated status can only mask, but never eradicate, the “subjection of its ordinary, middle-class Man in the Gray Flannel Suit to corporate power” (Cohan 78)� It is against this background of the new hegemonic ideal of the masculine breadwinner and corporate capitalism that I locate 3: 10 to Yuma’s ideal of heroic masculinity� As my analysis illustrates, the notion of masculine confinement through domesticity is omnipresent in 3: 10 to Yuma� However, unlike the explicit masculine discontent articulated in other 1950s narratives centered on middle-class breadwinners (in film noir and male melodramas), much of 3: 10 to Yuma’s critical stance on its heroic breadwinner is achieved through covert and visual rather than manifest and textual elements� To put it bluntly, Dan Evans does not wear a gray flannel suit. Yet, particularly during his interim containment in the bridal suite, we realize that he is likewise trapped within the confines of heterosexual marriage, in which paternal authority hinges on economic success - a logic that serves neither men nor women but primarily the interest of corporate capitalism� Having this in mind, we have to recollect what propels Dan’s mission: the two-hundreddollar reward paid by Mr. Butterfield, the owner of the robbed stagecoach and, thus, a representative of the rapidly growing influence of corporate power in post-Civil War USA (particularly, after the completion of the transcontinental railroad)� By the narrative’s mythic framing provided through the Western, 3: 10 to Yuma evades its hero’s complete subjection to capitalist exploitation by having Dan walk Wade to the station nevertheless (in spite of already having earned his financial reward) and ending the film with rain (thus, signalling that Dan will not need the money to buy water rights, after all)� Staged as a voluntary act and not hired labor, Dan’s concluding fate still perpetuates a glorified notion of individual agency on its surface. Yet, 3: 10 to Yuma registers the growing demands of corporate capitalism, which has begun to monopolize marriage as a tool of regulating gendered and sexualized identities and, moreover, as a guarantee of a constant fresh supply of male breadwinners, voluntarily subjecting themselves to corporate power in exchange for their status as heads of their households� Subprime Heroism 387 Fighting Foreclosure: The New Millennium’s Moribund Breadwinner Marking the fifty-year anniversary of Daves’ adaptation, Mangold’s remake of 3: 10 to Yuma spearheaded a wave of Westerns in late-2007 Hollywood filmmaking (Andrew Dominik’s traditional Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Joel and Ethan Coen’s contemporary Western No Country for Old Men, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama There Will Be Blood), prompting critics to diagnose a “western revival” (Scott, n� pag�)� Thereby, like its competitors, Mangold’s adaptation opened to positive, if not rave, reviews (as, for example, by Bruce Westbrook, Kenneth Turan, or Roger Ebert)� In existing scholarship on the remake (see the essays by Thomas A� Horne, Carol A� MacCurdy, and Mary P� Nichols), it is remarkable that all interpretations explicitly focus on the narrative’s modified intersection of masculinity and heroism� As if to prove true Cynthia Miller’s observation that “[f]ifty years can change a lot about a man ... and a film” and that “3: 10 to Yuma, in its original and remade versions, gives testimony to both” (127), all analyses oscillate between the two adaptations to elaborate on their semantic complexity within their respective historic contexts� Yet, without presuming to diminish the contributions of these publications, the significance of the continuity and increase of the trope of the father-as-economic-provider within the narratives’ negotiations of domesticity (and the nuclear family) has so far only been insufficiently interrogated. The “uncanny” timing of the remake’s critique of corporate capitalism through the story of a male breadwinner desperately struggling to avert the impending foreclosure of his family home has, rather, only been touched upon in few reviews that immediately followed the film’s release: James Hoberman notes that the “railroad, as personified by corporate official Dallas Roberts, is the real villain” (n. pag.); Richard Schickel insinuates the film’s link to present times, observing that “Dan [���] may live in 19th century Arizona, but he’s leading a 20th century - or sub-prime - sort of life” (n� pag�)� As I hold, the cultural function of 3: 10 to Yuma’s central trope of heroism, its moribund breadwinner, can only adequately be grasped within its contemporary socioeconomic context of the US housing bubble that gained momentum in early 2006 and, entailing an increasing number of private foreclosures, snowballed into the subprime mortgage crisis of 2006/ 2007 (a connection hitherto absent from critical discourse on the film). Having first exposed the links between money/ capitalism and gender in both short story and first adaptation, my interpretation interrogates the negotiation of gendered economic anxieties in this Western tale of a maimed father embodying “subprime heroism�” Thereby, my analysis restricts itself to those narrative modifications that amplify the remake’s confrontation with compromised fatherhood as well as its critique of corporate power: the concept of heroism embodied by Dan, the privileged father-son relationship (linked to their mutual road trip), and the film’s radically altered ending. 388 a hu t anrisever Whereas the first adaptation begins with the stagecoach robbery, the remake sets out by highlighting Dan’s economic distress and his troubled relationship to his elder son, 14-year old William� After seeing William reading a dime novel on the exploits of an outlaw (foreshadowing his fascination with Wade), we witness Dan’s helplessness to protect his barn from being burned by the henchmen of local businessman Glen Hollander, to whom the rancher owes money. From the narrative’s onset, Van Heflin’s 1957 portray of Dan Evans presents a tarnished yet loved and respected patriarch with agility, marksmanship, and leadership qualities� Christian Bale much rather embodies a tragic Dan, for his is a disillusioned and tormented existence that is constantly reverted to its physical limitations� A Civil War veteran, Dan returned home with an amputated foot and dependent on a wooden prosthesis, which not only fails him at trying to react swiftly to this nightly attack but has him hobble and stumble through this mythic landscape filled with violent, able-bodied masculinities as the eternal (physically) inferior� As the camera highlights how father and son helplessly stare at the fire, we realize that the simmering uneasiness of the 1957 version has grown into a blaze of familial contempt and reproaches� Dan’s amputation becomes the primary signifier of the imperiled state of his gendered existence, highlighted by the cinematography (and, later, by Wade’s repeated questions about how exactly Dan lost his foot)� As the exposition unfolds, Dan is established as a literally broken hero, not only regarding his physical impairment but also in light of the curtailment of (marital) romance, (paternal) recognition, and (property) rights in Dan’s life� In contrast to his wife’s reserved pity, his adolescent son condemns, rather than commiserates, Dan for his vulnerability; only his younger son, the tuberculosis-stricken Marc, admires his veteran father (and will later brag about Dan’s service to Wade, which discloses the glorification of men as weapons as naive infatuation)� Most crucially, Dan’s business is not merely adversely afflicted by a drought; this rancher is at the brink of an economic collapse, facing the eviction and foreclosure of his ranch if he fails to amortize his loan within a week� The changed framing of Dan’s economic hardship is crucial: Whereas, in 1957, a three-year drought figures as the sole cause for financial concerns (preserving the glorified autonomy of the pre-Industrial Age rancher), the 2007 remake disrupts this monocausal logic by disclosing how the mystified landscape of the “Wild West” had already been pervaded by a complex system of finance capitalism long before the alleged “closing” of the frontier. Due to the drought, Dan was forced to borrow money from Hollander (to pay for living costs, Marc’s medical care, and his cattle’s feed)� Having entered the capitalist system, Dan was soon trapped in this purely profit-oriented market, as becomes clear during his request for an extension of his repayment period: DAN� You got no right to do what you done� You hear me? That’s my land! HOLLANDER� Come next week, it’s not, Evans� You borrowed a good deal of money and I got rights to recompense� Subprime Heroism 389 DAN� But you dammed up my creek� You shut off my water� How’d you expect me to pay off my debts if you can’t let - [thrown to the ground by Hollander’s henchman, Tucker] HOLLANDER. Before the water touches your land, it resides and flows on mine. And as such, I can do with it as I fuckin’ please� Go home and pack up� DAN� Can you [hands Hollander his wife’s brooch], can you just let me get to spring? I can turn the corner� HOLLANDER� Sometimes a man has to be big enough to see how small he is� Railroad’s coming, Dan� Your land’s worth more with you off it� (3: 10 to Yuma, 00: 32: 21-00: 33: 12) The effects of the drought were drastically amplified by Hollander’s manipulation of Dan’s access to water, after the rancher had drawn on a credit� Depriving Dan of basic resources, Hollander thus subjects the rancher into the position of a subprime debtor, capitalizing on Dan’s long-term inability of full repayment (by increasing his profit through interests and further loans)� Against this marketplace rationale, Dan’s negotiation with Hollander is prescribed to fail� Markedly, this is not due to any blame on the part of Dan, but solely motivated by capitalist interests and the growing presence of corporate power� The anticipated rise in land price with the railroad’s arrival in Bisbee turns the foreclosure of Dan’s ranch into a more lucrative business than enabling a hard-working debtor to pay off his loan� This motif of subordinating all - moral, economic, and judicial - decisions to the railroad (and to the company’s financial interest) dominates the remaining narrative. In consequence, the 2007 journey of delivering Wade to the train to Yuma assembles various men whose lives all intersect along different economic lines with the railroad corporation. In contrast to the first adaptation, the remake adds original screenplay to the plot, depicting the posse’s adventurous and deathly ride to Contention, whereby Dan is no longer the leader but only a hired hand of the person in charge, Mr. Butterfield (representing the Southern Pacific Railroad). With no prospect of any romantic or religious redemption, Dan’s metamorphosis into a hero hinges on his success on this exclusively homosocial journey, which also teams him with his son William� The remake replaces the first adaptation’s strong notion of confinement with grand, fast-paced, and action-driven outdoor sequences, extensively increasing the film’s body count. While this also pertains to the staging of the stagecoach robbery and the climactic shootout in Contention, the shift towards a plot that puts dialogues on equal level with actions and physicality is most pronounced in the extensive depiction of the posse’s ride to Contention� As, one by one, the men fall prey to Wade (or hostile forces encountered en route), this sequence follows the traditional logic of masculine rejuvenation through a violent encounter with the frontier; thereby, Dan’s gradual transformation into an authoritative and active leader is continuously linked to money, as he relentlessly pursues the objective of delivering Wade to the train despite numerous setbacks� The need for earning his commission of two-hundred dollars becomes the rancher’s mantra of endurance, reiterated at various points of the posse’s cumbersome journey� 390 a hu t anrisever All the while, Dan’s striving for economic success as his family’s breadwinner is linked to fatherhood, deviating from the 1957 adaptation by pairing father and son on the journey (as William secretly follows the posse and comes to its rescue when Wade is about to escape)� In doing so, it is striking that the troubled father-son duo is persistently triangulated by the figure of the outlaw� Visually, in ever-shifting compositions, one of the three characters is placed in the center of the shot (framed by the remaining two)� The increased complexity of both rancher and outlaw, mirrored in both their physical performances as well as their psychological intricacy, is carried over to William’s stance on both men, caught between two diverging role models for adult manhood that differ regarding their relation to money (how to earn it), domesticity, and violence (restraining or celebrating one’s execution thereof)� As 3: 10 to Yuma’s male figures orbit around each other, regroup, or face one another in disputes and brawls, sympathies shift, which increases the difficulty of siding with one character, as binary oppositions of good and evil - fundamental to any morality tale - crumble� With some alterations, the action in the bridal suite sequence follows its predecessor(s), highlighting that Dan remains the only adult man willing to complete the mission of delivering Wade to the train� Yet, crucially, it is not Dan’s wife but his son, who begs Dan not to go on with his assignment; the narrative thus stresses Dan’s status as a father rather than a husband in its negotiation of the heroic breadwinner� Realizing their hopelessness, Mr� Butterfield releases Dan from his commitment and wants to pay Dan his twohundred dollars in the bridal suite: DAN� You know, this whole ride, that’s been nagging on me. That’s what the government gave me for my leg. $ 198.36. And the funny thing is that, when you think about it, which I have been lately, they weren’t paying me to walk away. They were paying me so they could walk away. WADE� Don’t muddy the past and the present, Dan. DAN� No, no, no, Wade� I’m seeing the world the way it is. WILLIAM� If you take him to the train, Pa, I’m going with you� DAN. No. Mr. Butterfield’s gonna take you home. [...] MR� BUTTERFIELD� I’ll get him to Bisbee, Dan� I promise you� DAN� Oh, you’re gonna promise me a lot more than that, Butterfield. I want guarantees that Hollander and his boys will never set foot on my land again, and that my water’s gonna flow. And I expect you to hand my wife one-thousand cash dollars when you see her. You got money to spare. [���] WILLIAM� Pa� ��� I can’t� I can’t just leave you� DAN� I’m gonna be a day behind you, William� Unless something happens, and if it does, I need a man at the ranch to run things, protect our family, and I know that you can do that because you’ve become a fine man, William. […] And you just remember that your old man walked Ben Wade to that station when nobody else would. (3: 10 to Yuma, 01: 33: 19-01: 35: 00, emphasis added) Witnessed by the outlaw, father and son seal their homosocial bond of generational transition as William articulates his loyalty to Dan, stressed by his usage of the affectionate address “Pa�” Most crucially, the remake’s capitalist Subprime Heroism 391 logic, which has been pervading the narrative from its very start, culminates in Dan’s final negotiation. Delivering Wade to the train is not primarily accounted for by Dan’s goal of promoting institutionalized law or establishing his paternal glory� Those reasons are clearly subordinated to his economic interest� “[S]eeing the world the way it is,” Dan literally capitalizes heroism and exploits the completion of his mission, securing his water and property rights and arranging a significantly higher cash reward. Realizing the commodification, and instrumentalization, of the grand narrative of heroic masculinities and having literally suffered its crippling consequences for individuals (put off with a mite by a government that neglects its veterans once they have fulfilled their “heroic soldierly duty”), Dan leverages this capitalist logic to advance his business� Importantly, however, Dan strives for a larger margin of profit not for greed but solely for the purpose of securing his family’s economic security. It is this ultimately self-sacrificial (and not capitalist) act of breadwinning that (re-)establishes the male provider as the remake’s hero� The resolution of Dan’s precarious economic status cancels all ambivalences that mark his relationship to his son; during their terminal handshake, the camera highlights how Wade is now firmly excluded from the homosocial pact between father and son (thus ending the film’s aesthetics of triangulation)� Wade’s recognition of Dan’s authority as legitimate patriarch is symbolized by disclosing the portrait that the outlaw drew during his stay in the bridal suite; through an eyeline match of William, we behold a sketch of Dan on the cover page of a bible� In contrast to the first adaptation, the subsequent march to the train station proves to be almost insurmountable for Dan, who is not only confronted with the gang and numerous bounty hunters but also distinctly physically limited in mobility and swiftness� As the rancher and his prisoner traverse the trigger-happy streets, we realize that Dan only manages to hold his ground because Wade voluntarily cooperates (if not to say assists the rancher)� Thereby, the remake reconnects with the strong notion of performing heroism prevalent in the original short story (and absent in the 1957 film). Having willingly obeyed Dan for the first half of their walk to the station, Wade decides to opt out of this charade as the two men pause in a shed� WADE� I ain’t doing this no more, Dan� [door opens, Dan kills the entering man] DAN� [grabs Wade] I’m getting you on that train, Wade� WADE� [Wade easily throws Dan to the ground] Stubborn bastard! [to Dan on the floor] The boy’s gone, hero� Ain’t nobody watching no more� You still got that one good leg� Why don’t you use it to get home? [���] [Dan attacks Wade, they fall to the floor, Wade strangles Dan, who is helpless] DAN� I ain’t never been no hero, Wade� Only battle I seen, we was in retreat� My foot got shot off by one of my own men� You try telling that story to your boy� See how he looks at you then� [Wade let’s go off Dan and looks outside] WADE� Ok, Dan� (3: 10 to Yuma, 01: 40: 30-01: 41: 49) 392 a hu t anrisever Clearly, Dan’s heroic act of walking Wade to the train station through a hail of bullets is unmasked as dependent on Wade’s cooperation� Much more, the narrative explicitly articulates that this was a conscious decision on the part of the outlaw to make Dan appear as a “hero” in front of his son� As the target audience (William) is not watching anymore, Wade’s cooperativeness comes to its end� The rancher’s attempts to physically force Wade to continue their walk fail, as he is easily overpowered by the outlaw� Pinned to the ground and strangled by Wade, it is only now that the outlaw (and the audience) finds out about Dan’s military service and his injury� Dan is a vanquished veteran of a war; yet, his confession makes us wonder what battle he lost exactly, as he seems mostly traumatized about not living up to his sons’ expectations� Hereby, Dan’s desperate commitment to this mission is primarily framed as paternal perseverance, leading even a cold-blooded outlaw like Wade to succumb to Dan’s passion� As the sound level of the score increases, both men start running to the train station with Wade’s gang and an armada of bounty hunters on their heels. This final montage of the prisoner transport (lasting just under eight minutes) thoroughly transforms Dan’s journey into a paternal Via Dolorosa� Battered and bruised, shot in his leg by Prince, feeding on his last ounce of strength, and covered in dust, blood, and sweat, Dan and his prisoner arrive at the railway building� So comprehensively is Dan now identified as a self-sacrificial character laden with religious imagery that the question no longer remains if but only how this heroic father will die� With the help of William, who has secretly followed the men and releases a herd of cattle to distract Prince, Dan reaches the train’s prisoner cabin with the outlaw� After Wade enters the cabin and congratulates the rancher on his accomplished mission, we see the outlaw stare off screen (screaming “No! ”), before Dan is shot four times by Prince� This changed ending amplifies the remake’s negotiation of father-son dynamics. Throughout the film, Wade’s relationship to his second-in-command is represented in very ambiguous terms, suggesting that the outlaw functions as an ersatz father; the final showdown now pits both fathers (Dan and Wade) and sons (William and Prince) against each other� Now that paternal primacy has been established through Dan’s mystification, transgressions of patriarchal boundaries are ruthlessly penalized� Wade not only descends the train but descends upon his men as a deathly avenging angel re-establishing Dan’s authority by killing the entire gang, with the outlaw’s colt aptly named “Hand of God�” After running to his dying father, William assures Dan of the completion of his mission, while the camera captures Dan in a point-of-view shot over William’s shoulder� Wrestling with the urge to shoot the outlaw, William points his gun at the motionless Wade. Yet, finally siding with his father as the viable role model for mature masculinity, William forgoes killing Wade and returns to kneeling at his father’s side� As the viewer is looking down on this dying father, both narrative and visual staging of the scene invite us to look up to Dan’s self-sacrificial accomplishment: Mr. Butterfield’s gaze at this scene of carnage beholds both Dan’s death and Wade’s final boarding of the train to commence his journey to fulfil the condition of Dan’s business Subprime Heroism 393 agreement� Still, as the train leaves Contention, Wade whistles for his horse, which starts running along the vehicle, insinuating that the outlaw will escape his imprisonment long before the train’s arrival in Yuma� A Road Trip into Patriarchy? 3: 10 to Yuma’s Critique of Finance Capitalism In his programmatic interpretation of 3: 10 to Yuma as an Iraq War Western, Thomas Horne connects the film’s altered and blood-soaked ending not to economic but primarily to political and military contexts, arguing that the rancher’s death illustrates that “even someone as fundamentally decent as Dan Evans [���] cannot be saved from the consequences of foolish missions amid violent men” (47)� Highlighting the mission’s failure (Wade will not be imprisoned) and the persistence of corporate power (the railroad goes about its business as usual), Horne considers William’s development as the narrative’s prospect of alternative routes for masculinities and politics to “overcome the romance with violence that seems embedded in our national history and public myths and that keep us from achieving modest goals that are within our reach through peaceful means” (48)� For Horne, it is “the mission itself and not Dan’s character that this film calls into question” (47); the remake “causes us to reflect on the first 3: 10 to Yuma and now to recognize that film as dangerous fairy tale” (Horne 47), whereby Dan’s death is the primary means of de-romanticizing violence (Horne 46)� Important as Horne’s reading of 3: 10 to Yuma as an anti-war film is, it neglects to link the persistent importance of money in the remake to its predecessors� The motif of the heroic breadwinner, carrying out his mission to provide for his family, not only represents an integral part of the short story’s kernel but also becomes the first adaptation’s main theme. As illustrated above, the 1957 version is responsive to shifting notions of hegemonic masculinity and the growing demands of corporate capitalism, which monopolizes marriage and the nuclear family as regulating tools for consumerism and subjection. Thereby, it is particularly the notion of masculine confinement, stressed through cinematography, which communicates the narrative’s ultimately critical evaluation of socio-economic developments� Through displacing contemporary socioeconomic anxieties within the established narrative frame of the Western genre, 3: 10 to Yuma participates in complex negotiations of gender that jar audience expectations, as is illustrated by this restrained review of the remake: Traditionally, the western is a genre in which elemental human drama of good versus evil can be staged in the vast arena of the frontier� But for me, that ethical contest here became muddled, and not obviously in the interests of complexity or ambiguity. It appeared to fudge the issue of precisely what sacrifices the good guys have to make if the bad guys are to be brought to book, and it began to look to me not merely as if the movie’s sympathies were sneakily on the villain’s side, but as if the sacrifices endured by the virtuous did not even have the effect of defeating evil� (Bradshaw, n� pag�) 394 a hu t anrisever What is criticized as 3: 10 to Yuma’s crucial deficiency in light of the generic Western plot, that “the sacrifices endured by the virtuous did not even have the effect of defeating evil,” is, rather, precisely the important cultural function accomplished by this modified trope of the heroic breadwinner. Dan has to fail in defeating “evil,” as the forces he fights against are not individuals but abstract, faceless, and all-encompassing power structures and systems� The threat faced by the Evans home is finance capitalism; Dan’s fatal struggle for recognition has its source in his lack of recognition by his wife and firstborn, which, in turn, stems from his failure as the family’s breadwinner; this equation of gender identity with economic performance, on the other hand, is a carefully crafted concept of masculinity perpetuated in post-WWII society to accelerate and stabilize the advance of corporate power and notions of American exceptionalism in the US� Hence, Dan’s death at the end of 3: 10 to Yuma must be seen as a radical questioning and critique of the late-modernist concept of the male breadwinner, which is exposed as a fatal construct. The figure of Dan is not another manifestation of the self-sacrificial father who chooses death to ensure family’s survival (another popular trope of fatherhood in turn-ofthe-century texts)� Rather, Dan is a father who tries everything to ensure his family’s survival (which, in our times, reads economic sustenance) - and dies as an inadvertent yet inescapable consequence of this struggle� Overall, through the lens of post-9/ 11 narratives of “migratory” fatherhood, it becomes apparent how 3: 10 to Yuma intersects its moribund heroic figure with the topos of the (family) home to question and critique the latemodernist concept of the male breadwinner and, hence, the growing influence of finance capitalism on the nuclear family. As a liminal figure bridging the strongly gendered division of (feminized) victimhood and (masculinized) action, the remake’s protagonist departs from the predominant imagination of heroes as exceptional(ist) individuals - the traditional powerful figural/ narrative construction instrumental in and central to the maintenance and perpetuation of gendered, racialized, and otherwise marked concepts of US hegemony. This figure of the maimed and moribund male breadwinner hence disrupts what Kaja Silverman identifies as the dominant fiction, which functions as the “imaginary mediator” (34) in processes of individual subjection to both ideological and economic norms that create consensus for the absolute, heteronormative, and patriarchal hegemonic ideology in capitalist US society� If, as Silverman argues, the collective belief in the coherence of the unimpaired male subject is central for the perpetuation of the US dominant fiction - which prioritizes white masculinity, capitalism, and heteronormativity on an individual and collective level (Silverman 41-2) -, 3: 10 to Yuma offers textual and visual moments of subversion and resistance that complicate viewers’ subjection to the ideological paradigms of individualism and American exceptionalism through the trope of the moribund breadwinner, a figure that transcends the limits of the spectatorial fetishization of masculine pathos and discloses the premises of US hegemonic ideology to be fatal� Subprime Heroism 395 Works Cited Bradshaw, Peter� Rev� of 3: 10 to Yuma� Guardian 14 Sep� 2007� 27 Aug� 2013 <http: / / www� theguardian.com/ film/ 2007/ sep/ 14/ russellcrowe.actionandadventure>. Cohan, Steven� Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties� Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997� Ebert, Roger� Rev� of 3: 10 to Yuma� RogerEbert.com 6 Sep� 2007� 27 Aug� 2013 <http: / / www�rogerebert�com/ reviews/ 310-to-yuma-2007>� Elsaesser, Thomas� “Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama�” Film Genre Reader II� Ed� Barry Keith Grant� Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995� 350-380� Hoberman, J� “Still Waiting for That Train: James Mangold Remakes a Classic Western for Our ADD Times�” Village Voice 28 Aug� 2007� 27 Aug� 2013 <http: / / www� villagevoice.com/ 2007-08-28/ film/ still-waiting-for-that-train/ full/ >. Horne, Thomas A� “James Mangold’s 3: 10 to Yuma and the Mission in Iraq�” Journal of Film and Video 65�3 (Fall 2013): 40-48� Leonard, Elmore� “Three-Ten to Yuma�” 1953� The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard� New York: Harper, 2007� 179-93� MacCurdy, Carol A� “Masculinity in 3: 10 to Yuma�” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 26�4 (2009): 280-92� Miller, Cynthia� “3: 10 to Yuma/ 3: 10 to Yuma�” Kansas History 32�2 (Summer 2009): 127-28� Nichols, Mary P� “Revisiting Heroism and Community in Contemporary Westerns: No Country for Old Men and 3: 10 to Yuma�” Perspectives on Political Science 37�4 (Fall 2008): 207-16� Schickel, Richard� “The Perfect Time for 3: 10 to Yuma�” TIME 7 Sep� 2007� 27 Aug� 2013 <http: / / content�time�com/ time/ arts/ article/ 0,8599,1659969,00�html>� Scott, A� O� “In the Ol’ West, a Very Tough Commute�” Rev� of 3: 10 to Yuma� New York Times 7 Sep� 2007� 27� Aug� 2013 <http: / / movies�nytimes�com/ 2007/ 09/ 07/ movies/ 07yuma�html? _r=0>� Silverman, Kaja� Male Subjectivity at the Margins� New York: Routledge, 1992� Turan, Kenneth� Rev� of 3: 10 to Yuma� Los Angeles Times 7 Sep� 2007� 27 Aug� 2013 <http: / / www�latimes�com/ entertainment/ movies/ moviesnow/ cl-et-yuma7sep07,0,3093281� story>� United States� Library of Congress� Press Release� “2012 National Film Registry Picks in A League of Their Own�” Dec� 19, 2012� Sep� 6, 2013 <http: / / www�loc�gov/ today/ pr/ 2012/ 12-226�html>� Westbrook, Bruce� Rev� of 3: 10 to Yuma� Houston Chronicle 7 Sep� 2007� 27 Aug� 2013� <http: / / www�chron�com/ entertainment/ movies/ article/ 3-10-to-Yuma-1845595�php>� Films 3: 10 to Yuma. Dir. Delmer Daves. Perf. Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, and Felicia Farr. Columbia Pictures, 1957� 3: 10 to Yuma� Dir� James Mangold� Perf� Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, and Logan Lerman� Lionsgate Films, 2007� Finding Nemo� Dir� Andrew Stanton� Perf� Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres� Pixar Animation Studios, 2003� No Country for Old Men� Dir� Joel and Ethan Coen� Perf� Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Tommy Lee Jones� Miramax Films and Paramount Vantage, 2007� 396 a hu t anrisever Road to Perdition� Dir� Sam Mendes� Perf� Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, and Tyler Hoechlin� DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century Fox, 2002� Shane. Dir. George Stevens. Perf. Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, and Brandon deWilde� Paramount Pictures, 1953� The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford� Dir� Andrew Dominik� Perf� Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, and Sam Shepard. Warner Bros., 2007. The Pursuit of Happyness� Dir� Gabriele Muccino� Perf� Will Smith and Jaden Smith� Columbia Pictures, 2006� The Road� Dir� John Hillcoat� Perf� Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee� Dimension Film, The Weinstein Company, and Icon Productions, 2009� There Will Be Blood� Dir� Paul Thomas Anderson� Perf� Daniel Day-Lewis� Paramount Vantage and Miramax Films, 2007�