ABSTRACT
In this deconstruction, I contend that the Hollywood blockbuster Jerry Maguirehereafter “JM”—documents a pilgrimage towards “mature masculinity” (Bly 1990; Meade 1993) undertaken by an alienated and disenchanted organisation man (e.g. Whyte 1956). In the postmodern economy of signs and images, the organisation man is neither a meek-mannered bureaucrat nor a Willy Loman pathos. He is now an extroverted, attractive, status-wielding, career-climbing, marketing man. Like the organisation man of old, however, the postmodern marketing man is no longer a rugged individualist (e.g. the cultural ideal of authentic masculinity). While suffering from the false conceit that he controls his own fate, he lives in a subservient state; his actions serve the interests of his capitalist benefactors and his life, career, and pretensions to manhood are contingent on forces outside his control: he remains a replaceable commodity-albeit a well-dressed and well-remunerated one —in the capitalist production of hyperrealities.
