Fop, bounder and post-feminist father: Hugh Grant and the changing face of modern masculinity

ABSTRACT Extant research on Hugh Grant’s star image routinely combines issues of masculinity, sexuality and national identity. Such work concludes that the stumbling, stammering English gent that he mastered for the character of Charles Thacker in Four Weddings and a Funeral or the dishonourable bounder and morally reprehensible cad that he played so brilliantly in Bridget Jones’s Diary is a perfect fit with the man himself. Either way, this article will consider the ways in which film critics and commentators have read and responded to Grant’s on-screen performances and off-screen persona in order to open up a dialogue about shifting iterations of masculinity. Grant is routinely at the forefront of changing definitions of modern manhood, morphing from New Man to New Lad before being constructed and circulated as a figurehead of post-feminist fatherhood. In short, Grant stands as a testament to the very fluid, flexible and shifting nature of the hegemonic hierarchy.