Masculinity or Bust: Gender and Impairment in Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Released in 1965, Russ Meyer’s film Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! centers on the violent and sexually predatory behavior of three go-go dancers in search of a hidden fortune on an isolated desert ranch. The amoral “machismo” of the women’s behavior contrasts sharply with that of three male characters: the greedy and misogynistic “Old Man,” a wheelchair user and owner of the ranch; his son, the “Vegetable,” a muscular beefcake to match the voluptuous cheesecake of the go-go dancers’ appearance; and the Old Man’s nondescript other son, relegated to the role of housewife by the disabilities of his father and brother. The chapter explores the impact of disability on Meyer’s constructions of masculinity showing how disability produces the feminization of the nondisabled caregiving son and how the intellectual disability of the other son renders him less than human, despite being the physical model of masculine perfection.