Ripley (2024): Stealing Gender by Min Xu

Netflix’s Ripley (2024) is a fascinating rendering of Patricia Highsmith’s respected crime fiction The Talented Mr Ripley, which has already previously received a celebrity-heavy film adaptation (1999). The series pays an unmistakable tribute to classic film noir by calling back the latter’s high-contrast, black-and-white cinematography and scenic preferences for stairs and midnight streets. It also recreates the morally ambiguous protagonist commonly seen in the genre: Tom Ripley, a small-time con artist, is sent to Italy to retrieve a wealthy man’s wayward son, Dickie. But instead of bringing him back, Tom becomes obsessed with Dickie’s life–imitating him, trying on his clothes, then trying to become him. Elizabeth A. Hatmaker and Christopher Breu argue that Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley represents the imposter narrative prevalent in post-war American noir fiction (38-39). Focusing on the tropes of identity theft and masquerade, this group of works express anxiety towards the loss of a heroic masculinity as fight-till-death soldiers come home and become generic suburban middle-class with office jobs. A man can be any man now: they are all the same. Highsmith, however, performs a queer inversion of this narrative by highlighting how her gay-coded protagonist is fixated on another man’s identity that is inherently ‘a performance based primarily on the accumulation of aesthetic objects’ (38). This queer perspective is rendered more explicit by the audiovisual medium of Ripley, which emphasises the visual aspect of gender, thereby portraying masculinity as a gender expression to be seen and imitated.

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Ripley is a tale about the desire for objects. Andrew Scott, who plays Tom Ripley, acknowledges that ‘his (Tom’s) sexuality or sensuality comes out of his relationship with things — art, clothes, props, music’ (cited in McEntee). There are few moments where Tom shows sincere interest in Dickie as a person, yet he cannot stop staring at Dickie’s possessions: pen, ring, suit, leather shoes, among other things. Robert Elswit’s sophisticated cinematography makes every object so present and desirable that it helps to foreground the items. The slow pace of the series, borrowing on the cultural capital of independent cinema, furthermore, creates a stylistic sobriety that further draws attention to the ‘thereness’ of the props. While Tom’s obsession with possessions has been a central thread in Highsmith’s novel, the aesthetically pleasing and object-focused camerawork actively guides the audiences to also feel this fascination.

While these objects are clearly about class identity constructed through consumption, they are also highly gendered. It’s not just because they’re men’s products, but because of the way they are put on male-gendered bodies. Through the camera, we see that Dickie’s sharply tailored suit delineates his athletic physique, and his chunky ring compliments his strong, veined hand. The series stresses that accessories and clothing are part and parcel of projecting the visual image of a wealthy, masculine playboy. From this perspective, Tom’s obsession with objects can be understood as a desire for Dickie’s class-implicated gender expression. 

Tom’s impersonation starts with stealing Dickie’s suit. It is interesting to see that he not only puts the jacket on but also imitates how Dickie talks and postures in the suit. In other words, he is emulating a whole masculine presentation tied to the costume. There are other scenes where Tom looks at himself in the mirror, trying to give the right impression of an attractive rich boy. Vagabond masculinity is presented as a performance that can be desired, rehearsed, and stolen. Notably, the series features non-binary actor Eliot Sumner with a masculine presentation in the role of Freddie Miles, a male character, further associating male identity with passing. By focusing on props, presentation and masquerade, Ripley plays with the stylistic aspect of masculinity, a creative decision that pays tribute to Highsmith (who presented herself as a butch) while contributing to a fluid understanding of gender that gains increasing recognition today.

References
Hatmaker, Elizabeth A., and Christopher Breu. “The Flexible Mr. Ripley: Noir Historicism and Post-War Transnational Masculinity in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley.” Post-World War II Masculinities in British and American Literature and Culture: Towards Comparative Masculinity Studies, 2016, pp. 45–64.
McEntee, Joy. “Critics Can’t Decide if Andrew Scott’s Ripley Is Mesmerising or Charmless – Just as Patricia Highsmith Wrote Him.” The Conversation, April 8, 2024, theconversation.com/critics-cant-decide-if-andrew-scotts-ripley-is-mesmerising-or-charmless-just-as-patricia-highsmith-wrote-him-227340.

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Author Biography
Min Xu is a PhD candidate at Durham University. Her research focuses on male images and marginal locations in Chinese crime streaming series. She is part of a PGR team that runs the research blog 吉尔达的红菱艳on WeChat Publics, from which this article has been translated.