How can you be a man to your family when you're poor and black? Killer of Sheep asks this question again and again, and the tension between masculinity, blackness, and poverty is at the heart of the film. The film seems to offer Stan several choices, all directly related to his masculinity. He can accept the advances of the white woman, which offer him both a way out of miserable work in the slaughterhouse and a strengthening of his “manhood” in the form of a romantic tryst with a woman of higher status. . This is immediately unpleasant to him, a fact that is emphasized by the uncomfortable close-up of his hand rubbing her wrist and followed by his sideways smirk. Although he promises to consider her "warm proposal", the film never explores this possibility again. Alternatively, he can buy the engine, which serves as both an affirmation of masculinity and, as his friend notes, a sign of class. Although he chooses to try this, the whole plan is unfortunate; the scene where he recovers the engine contains some of the most unbalanced sequences in the entire film, and the extreme, off-putting diagonal of the street communicates effectively. His only ways out of his job slaughtering sheep are infidelity or complicity with the engine. murder. Whether it is the sheep, his wife, or the white man, he does not have the option of not harming anyone. The scene takes place under the porch, so the walls and the two men enclose him in the frame. Once again, the slight low angle and the movement of the camera add a slightly sinister air to the scene. But the entrance on the scene of his wife, lurking behind the screen door, completely surrounded by darkness, seems heavy, and when she opens the door and hovers above him, placed even above the two other men, she retrieves it. Her decision not to assist them in their murder seems to have been made final – or at least clearer – by her.