SOC 202
Lecture #6
Popular Culture, Gender and Masculinities
SOC 202
Part ONE – Gender & Hegemonic Masculinity
Hegemonic Masculinity
• By definition Hegemonic masculinity is represented through:
• Dominant definitions of masculinity embedded in social institutions such
as the state, education, the family, religion, and popular culture.
• For example, PM Trudeau, his beard and the state as a leader
• Male power as not simply held by individual men but institutionalised in
social structures and ideologies that support the gender order in favour of
men
• For example: the “old boys club” or “boys will be boys”
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Hegemonic Masculinity con’t
• If institutionalized, masculinity is also open to contestation &
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challenge
For example, men are not only organised through hierarchy in
relation to women, but also in relation to each other as well
For example:
In terms of privilege, marginalisation, “respect” in the
workplace, success with women, as well as occupying and
avoiding positions of subordination with regards to other men.
Recall Patrick and Louis in American Psycho
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Hegemonic Masculinity con’t still
• HM allows for resistance (challenge) through men who are
subordinated or marginalised by the hegemonic: that is
masculinity is socialized as a negotiation predicated on coercion
and consent and masculinities can challenge the dominant
• For example:
• Traditionally, gay men have had a subordinate relationship to
hegemonic models of masculinity while constituted as
effeminate, feminine etc.
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Michel Foucault, On Gender
• Michel Foucault (The History of Sexuality)
• Gender as a Model of Inscription:
• Meaning: this doctrine argues we are formed by internalizing disciplinary
structures that are normalized from birth – blue or pink, to be very simple
• For Foucault, he sees us as being complicit to socialized gender constructs
while aware of the social punishment or consequences should we shift
outside
SOC 202
Part TWO – Situating Masculinity in Media
Popular Media and Masculinity
• The Media and the Models of Masculinity (Mark Moss, 2011)
• Moss provides a historical account of how various models of masculinity are
“conditioned, defined, or illustrated by different media”
• That is, the models of masculinity mainstream media circulate have an
enormous influence on men and boys who mimic the dress, behavior, and
mannerisms of key archetypes
• For example, a desire to “fit in” or “one of the boys” etc…
Media and Masculinity
• Moss rationalizes mainstream media as pedagogic (teaching) and states:
• “media is the single most authoritative force in conveying opinion and offer a
barometer of what is going on” and define the varieties of a masculine
experience.
• For Moss, various historical periods and events have affected the models of
masculinity in the media. For example, war, feminism, the economy in the
20th century and 9/11, identity politics, and (in)security in the 21st century
SOC 202
Part THREE – The Body on Display
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
• As Mulvey argued:
• Voyeuristic visual pleasure is produced by looking at another, whereas
narcissistic visual pleasure can be derived from self-identification with the
figure in the image.
• Mulvey argues:
• (a) both voyeurism and narcissism are gendered.
• (b) in pop culture, the spectator has historically been positioned to identify
with the male look as the camera films from the point of view of the male
character
On Mulvey: Criticism & Limitations
• Laura Nussbaum (1995)
• (a) Mulvey’s arguments “on gender and the body are
complex but objectification need not only and always be
regarded as negative”
• (b) “Objectification may be a feature of sexual desire
without necessarily implying oppression”
On Mulvey: Criticism & Limitations
• Nussbaum con’t:
• (c) For some “without objectification there can be no desire, and
without subjectification of that objectification there can be no
pleasure.”
• (d) “central to female interpretations of images of other females is
polysemy, identification and self, contextual meanings and
connotations”
• For example, recall Rubin’s ideas on sex, deviance and categorization
Mulvey Criticism & Limitations
• Nussbaum con’t
• Female viewers often seek “a deconstruction of classical visual
and narrative codes and seek conventions could allow for an
exploration of female subjectivity, gaze, and desire”
• Gradually, female filmmakers and viewers develop a new
framework within popular cinema in which new codes and forms
of visual and narrative pleasure are constituted as “through her
gaze”
SOC 202
END OF LECTURE