Body Talk
Why academics are interested in the male body in Poldark and Outlander
by Rachel Moseley and Gemma Goodman
Rachel Moseley is Director, Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research, University of Warwick. Gemma Goodman is Teaching Fellow
in English at University of Warwick. This article was originally published on
www.theconversation.com.
T
HE BUZZ in the press and on social media about TV costume dramas
Poldark and Outlander has been formidable. Adapted from hugely popular novels, they have drawn fans of the books (and, in the case of Poldark, of the original TV series) as well as newcomers. The shows aired within months of each other. Both are set within the 18th century and both occupy peripheral, Celtic territories – Cornwall in Poldark and the Highlands in Outlander.
Much of the talk around these programmes has focused on their display of the naked male body. Poldark in 1975 was much more intent on the corseted female form, but most of the media coverage around the 2015 adaptation has been generated by the swimming and scything scenes. These shows have been original and refreshing in their foregrounding of the female gaze. But there’s something else going on here: the male body and desire becoming central to questions of regionality and nationhood.
In scholarship on literature, films and television programmes, the female body is frequently understood as the recipient of a desiring gaze in which landscape, sexual desire and ownership converge. Whether caught at the window between inside and outside, gazing longingly at a landscape which offers a freedom not available to her, or the object of a desiring colonial gaze which maps territory onto her body, it has always been the woman’s body which has been at stake.
In Poldark and Outlander, the central female characters retain this association with the landscape. The design of costume, hair and make-up, as well as performance, tie both Claire and Demelza visually, through colour, texture and gesture, to their context. However, they also experience certain freedoms within their respective landscapes; Demelza is frequently seen at work within the fields or picnicking on the cliff edge next to the mine owned by her husband Ross.
Similarly, Claire Beauchamp, later Fraser, is also active within the highland geography of Outlander. She travels on
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