Essay: The Business Casual Masculinity Of George Clooney
‘Ocean’s Eleven’ is a perfect movie with a perfect star
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The reason Steven Soderbergh’s twenty-three-year-old crime comedy Ocean’s Eleven is still a ripping good time is that George Clooney looks fantastic in a slightly rumpled tuxedo, his bow tie undone and hanging around his neck.
The star-studded 2001 blockbuster about a team of master criminals pulling off multiple Las Vegas casino heists at once is as cool as a salad fork at a fancy restaurant. Brad Pitt? The man makes eating cocktail shrimp look cool. Carl Reiner? Old-school cool. Matt Damon? Matt Damon has never been cool, but he’s a pretty entertaining doofus, usually—even when he’s playing a math genius or a government-trained killing machine. And the villain in Ocean’s Eleven is cool: Andy Garcia is a stylish casino mogul who dresses like a sci-fi movie mob boss.
But Ocean’s Eleven works because of George Clooney’s Danny Ocean, gentleman thief, a classy ex-con whose last score is about love, not money. His brilliant plan to steal the unstealable is a risky attempt to win back his ex-wife, played by Julia Roberts at the peak of her coolness. Danny’s character arc is an arrow straight through the heart of his person. His mission is worthy of Odysseus.
Without Clooney’s quiet nobility, Danny is just an economy-class romantic. But Clooney’s Danny is certain—in his bones. No other actor could play him. He has a plan, and that plan is just, more or less. The character isn’t a rogue. Danny Ocean is no swashbuckler. He’s methodical, melancholy. He knows things will work out because they have to work out. There’s no other option.
One of George Clooney’s great gifts on screen is his serenity, an enviable masculine virtue. When the stakes are high, when it comes to love, men do not flinch. They watch their friends’ backs, try to stay one step ahead of their enemies, and play by the rules even when they’re breaking multiple local, state, and federal laws.
Ocean’s Eleven is a collection of beautiful, witty moments between beautiful, witty people that ends with one of the sweetest goodbyes in all of cinema, a family of outlaws silently walking away until they meet again.
An argument can be made that Clooney is the last Hollywood leading man in the tradition of civilized hunks like Clark Gable or Cary Grant. Dapper demigods. The sort of men that men want to be, because that’s who they think women want them to be. These are not the most versatile actors, but they’re stars. You can’t keep your eyes off them. Clooney is certainly in Hollywood’s pantheon of male sex symbols, but he’s a subversive addition. He’s as much an anti–leading man as he is a leading man. He’s aware of the perception that he is perfect and has fun with it.
The first time I really noticed Clooney was during an episode of the popular ’90s hospital drama ER titled “Hell and High Water,” when Clooney’s pouty Dr. Doug Ross saves the life of a boy trapped in a storm drain while wearing a tux. Those were the days when tens of millions of people would routinely tune into network shows during primetime, and that episode guaranteed Clooney a ticket to the big show.
In the slick 2007 drama Michael Clayton, Clooney is at his best as a powerful law firm’s fixer—the man desperate, corrupt men call for help. His Clayton is downtrodden, crushed by the weight of his guilt. He is better than the slimeball corporations his slimeball firm defends, and he knows it, and we know it. We’re introduced to him at a late-night poker game, looking almost professional. It's hard to pull off the no-tie look and still resemble an American James Bond. But that’s Clooney for you.
George Clooney is objectively attractive. He’s an almost impossibly old-fashioned-looking hero—the jaw, the squint, the cocky smirk that disappears when angry. He gets it, though. He’s in on the joke.
Clooney is bored with his looks, as well as his intense intelligence and sparkling charm. When he’s acting, he’s only interested in whoever he’s talking to. And when he’s listening, he cocks his head slightly to the side like the most sophisticated Labrador Retriever in the world.
He cleans up well, even when he’s disheveled or bearded. He dresses down, but he's always up for the challenge. It’s easy for Clooney to make fun of himself. He knows how to turn the handsome on and off. In the cynical Coen Brothers spy comedy Burn After Reading, Clooney is desperate, and horny, and unhappy. And the performance rings painfully true because Clooney can find those qualities inside and drag them into the light. Because Clooney is, you know, just a dude who is good at his job. And his job is being human for applause.
Here’s to years more of the man doing his thing. He’s just an actor, but I bet he’ll be the first to admit that. I mean, Clooney is even aging well. At 63, he looks like a relaxed Zeus who plays a lot of tennis. Let yourself go silver, my dudes.
(His million-dollar salt-and-pepper mane is currently painted jet black for the role of pioneering news anchor Edward R. Murrow in the stage play Good Night and Good Luck, Clooney’s Broadway debut. It’s not his best look.)
There are times I can’t decide whether the word masculinity is one kind of gender identity or an affliction. Is the question “Am I a man?” or is it “Oh God, am I a man?”
I usually tell myself I am trying to be a good person, a generous person, a person who listens and cares about others. But then other times I wonder if I’m the kind of man my late father would be proud of. (I think he would be. He was, before he died.)
There are times I aspire to be Clooney. His persona is laid-back and fiercely moral—and a little saddened by life. His best characters are driven to do the moral thing. I don’t know what George Clooney is like in real life. I just know his celebrity image, and celebrity is a weird kind of mirror. You can’t help but see yourself in these people who are made of light and color, who are only alive when they’re on a screen, who stop living when you pause them.
Clooney’s masculinity is attractive, to me at least, because it’s simple. He can’t help it if he’s beautiful. It’s almost a disadvantage. I do not suffer that particular burden. No. But his true vibe, his masculinity, is no tie, business casual, ready to do the work yet comfortable.
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I recall in interviews around the time Ocean’s 11 came out that Clooney said stuff like, “We knew we couldn’t be as cool as the Rat Pack but that we could find better writers,” to explain their confidence in producing the remake. And as you write, no no no, Mr. Clooney, you exude cool.
Just re-watched Ocean’s 11 after reading this. Great movie, though Don Cheadle’s cockney accent is shocking! :D