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Vanessa Blanks
Leah Haught
Knight at the Movies
February 2, 2018
The meek and mighty King.
The iconic image of King Arthur pulling the sword out of its stone is one that carries a

vast amount of metaphorical weight and preconceptions. There are certain expectations for who

is going to pull out the sword and become the new King of England. These expectations that the

king of England should be a strong and powerful warrior who is the epitome of masculinity held

by audiences and characters in theses stories alike provide rich fodder for them to be twisted and

bent, and this bending of expectations provide critical commentary on issues of gender, class,

masculinity, and how these traits are often used as barriers for power. The 1981 John Boorman

film Excalibur is one such example of an Arthurian adaptation that through the use of costume

choices, body language, and shot framing flips the script on the ideal masculine hero that we

expect will pull the sword from the stone.

The scene when a then young squire Arthur pulls the sword from the stone starts off as

rather anti-climactic. Without knowing the context of who he really is in this world, the first

impressions of the young Arthur are that he is sort of a bumbling simpleton. Arthur is dressed as

a commoner. He wears a rather drab brown outfit with simple practical pieces. Nothing he wears

is meant to show off status or make him stand out in anyway. He is not important enough to have

much thought put into what he wears. He wears practical clothing that fits his job as Kay’s

squire, and he’s not even that good at squiring for his brother. He loses Kay’s sword, and this is

what prompts Arthur to run to try and find a replacement. Having no luck finding a conventional

sword, he calmly goes up to the sword in the stone and pulls it out. In fact, immediately after he
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pulls the sword Arthur says, “Your sword was stolen Kay, but here’s Excalibur.” (Excalibur) In

that second after he pulls the sword from the stone all he is focused on is the common task of

getting his Knight a sword for the tourney. The implications of what he just did had not yet come

to him. Even though it is made clear to the audience by the sword glowing green when Arthur

approaches. It glowed green when Uther put the sword into the stone, and the sword glowing

green when Arthur is near matches those two characters together. It is out of his realm of

possibility that he, a simple squire, could become king of England. He even apologizes to his

father for stepping out of bounds of what he knows to be acceptable behavior of someone of his

class.

At this point, many doubt that this meek squire boy could pull the sword from the stone.

As Arthur puts the sword back into the stone, in an attempt to pull the stone out for a more public

display, Sir Uryens comes up and aggressively pushes his way through in order to try and pull

the sword from the stone. In Uryens attempt to pull the stone, as well as Leondegrance’s attempt

in an earlier scene, we see the stereotypical hyper masculine image of a knight attempting to pull

the sword from the stone. We see them heaving and pulling with all their might, yet they both

fail. No matter their power and might, they are emasculated by the sword. Yet, the weak and

child-like Arthur pulls the sword with ease. This is further signaled by Arthur’s body language in

the scene. He stands there meekly letting others take up the space he’s in. He moves out of the

way for Uryens when he comes up to attempt to pull the sword from the stone. He stands behind

him with his arms by his side with his feet close together. He takes up as little space as possible

and this is contrasted as he is surrounded by these knights in full combat armor taking up as

much space as they can. They all want to the biggest masculine figure around, yet the only one

who can pull the sword from the stone and take power over all of these men is the meek little
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squire boy who stands in the corner out of everyone’s way. This action uproots the social norms

and conventions of the world surrounding them. Only the best and most masculine knights have

been allowed to attempt to pull the sword from the stone, but with Arthur pulling the sword their

inherent authority as the best and most capable rulers is challenged. We see this problem of

hypermasculinity leading to the downfall of Arthur’s real father, Uther Pendragon, and it

ultimately leads to problems for Arthur and contributes to his demise as he later on conforms to

the conventional standard of what a King should behave like. In this moment, however, we see a

proto-egalitarian moment, in which the King of England comes from a rather unlikely source.

Arthur’s pulling of the sword causes an uproar among the onlookers and what seems over

half of them are ready to reject this, “boy king” (Excalibur). This is especially true when Merlin

enters the picture and explains Arthur’s parentage and reveals that he is not destined to live as a

simple squire. There are cries of “bastard” (Excalibur) that can be heard in the background which

cement class and improper birth as reasons why Arthur’s detractors think he shouldn’t be king.

This focus on Arthur’s family is seen as a crack in Arthur’s legitimacy as he is not technically a

legitimate heir, but to Arthur it is more upsetting that the family he’s known his whole life isn’t

his biological family. It begins when Arthur tells his father to stand up, “Rise father, I was your

son before I was your king. If I am king.” (Excalibur) We see here Arthur putting family ties

higher than these new royal ones. He also questions his own right as a ruler even as he has done

the one thing needed to make him the king of England. The camera work also plays a factor in

showing this attitude within Arthur. When he orders his father to stop kneeling, the camera is

looking up at him making him appear bigger as he gives an order. Then as Arthur and his father

start to talk about Arthur’s true parentage the camera comes to a tight shot focused on the two of

them. They stand about the same height and take up an equal amount of space on the screen.
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Arthur is no longer above his father; they are equals. We can see Kay slightly off to the left and

Merlin out of focus in the background. Everyone else in the scene is left out of the frame. What

starts off as a scene about Arthur becoming king and how that affects all of England, this section

of the scene ignores that and focuses on the familial aspects of the situation. This highlights

Arthur’s real concern in this situation as he cares more about his situation within the family he’s

known his whole life than the fact that he just became the king. As the camera focuses on this

family situation, it shows us what Arthur is focusing on. This further entrenches the subversion

of the stereotypical hyper masculine ruler as Arthur is more focused on a domestic issue rather

than a political one.

As the camera pulls out and we are resituated with the ever-growing political turmoil that

unfolds after Arthur pulls the stone, the cries against him start to build; however, Arthur does

have his supporters that attempt to help him attain power. Most notably Sir Leondegrance, who

was one of the hyper masculine knights who previously tried to pull the sword from the stone

himself. In the end of the immediate aftermath of this scene as the pro-Arthur and anti-Arthur

factions battle for power, Arthur eventually gains the loyalty of the majority of the knights and is

crowned King. Keeping with the theme originated in this scene, it is not Arthur or his knight’s

skill in battle that convince his detractors to join him, it’s his courage of kneeling before his

enemy to be knighted by him. This rejection of using masculine violence to obtain power is what

so impresses his foes and further subverts the notion that the most powerful and worthy knights

are the ones that can kill and maim the best. As Arthur becomes more entrenched into the

realities of being a king in this world he conforms more to the stereotypical ideal of what a ruler

should be. He becomes a more than competent fighter and fits into the hyper-masculine notion of

how one should lead. This ultimately leads to the hubris and prideful decisions he makes that
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lead to his downfall thus further making these early scenes and Arthur’s rise to power more

poignant. He gains his power by subverting the hyper-masculine norms, and he ends up losing

his power due to conforming to those norms. With this in mind, Boorman’s narrative here

becomes one that rewards defying and rejecting typical societal masculinity and punishes toxic

masculinity.
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Work Cited

Boorman, John, director. Excalibur. Warner Bros, 1981.