Hegemonic masculinity, media, and advertising

In what follows, we offer a sampling of the advertisements discussed in the workshop we held on February 4, 2015 and some of the commentary that accompanied them. Unfortunately, what we cannot provide is a sampling of the lively and entertaining discussion that made the two hours we allotted for the session feel far, far too short. For a glimpse of that, you will have to join us the next time!

- Nathan Kalman-Lamb

Poster for The Men's Team's workshop on masculinity and advertising.

Advertising is simply everywhere; it has become part of our daily audio/visuals and our daily mindset. Nike’s slogan, “Just do it” represents the power and the global influence of advertising. It seems like we are exposed to 100 times the amount of advertising we were even fifteen years ago due to the extent to which media is now broadcasted and received through personal devices. One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is that men and women continue to be represented in radically different ways.

Representation for men and women is considerably different. Men are usually represented as serious, muscle-laden, and dominating. Women are typically portrayed as confused, uncertain, and, perhaps most ubiquitously (unless the portrayal is negative), thin.

What happens when we do not live up to the perceived standards and socially-accepted norms? We simply buy products and services, whether we really need them or not, that promise us satisfaction, happiness, status, even an improved sex life. If we do not buy these products, most of us fear is that we will feel a lack of worth, depression, lower self-esteem, and insecurity, regardless of if we are men or women.

So taken are we with living up to a certain standard or standards presented in media and advertising that we will go to extremes to challenge any obstacle to our personal gender identity and/or gender expression. Some feel so strongly about this that they come to see gender-based violence in one or more of its myriad forms as acceptable. Some feel that being considered beautiful, no matter what the cost, including cosmetic surgery, which has tripled world-wide over the past ten years, becomes justified. They are not.

- Tony Barone

The above ad depicts a hockey coach who is overtly emotional while trying to motivate his team. The interesting part of this commercial is the reaction he elicits from the players, who seem both confused and irritated. The ad condescendingly states "there's no place for sensitivity in hockey," underlining the absurdity of being openly emotional when in a typical masculine atmosphere. The correlation of sports and masculinity is a dominant cultural code in our society, with young boys being mentored in an atmosphere that encourages hostility, aggression,  and a lack of emotion. This ad represents the conditioned stereotype evident in organized sports; the worship of strength and the celebration that comes with the denial of emotion. 

- E. A.

At first glance the commercial comes across as funny and entertaining, but on closer inspection what we are really seeing is media playing with and mixing up our understanding/perception of gender and gender roles.  The commercial works because its ability to disorient and provoke is memorable. This ad challenges our default perceptions of male and female roles. A computer nerd is not supposed to embody masculinity; he is not supposed to be entitled to kiss the swimsuit model.  Not in our world with very clearly defined gender roles and gender identity. The absurdity of the image of them kissing -- according to the logic of hegemonic gender norms -- reinforces the image that we are supposed to (but don't) see: Bar Rafaeli kissing a muscular Hollywood actor or model. In this case, then, masculinity is that which is alluded to but never explicitly shown.

- Tony Barone

There are a number of things implied in these two commercials. Men (and only men) should care about how their beer tastes. Indeed, this is presented as a sort of prerequisite for manhood. However, it is not okay for a man to dress like a woman, for clothing functions as a performance of gender. Thus, manhood is something that must be displayed; it is by what he wears, what he buys - that is, by material things - that a man shows that he is a man. The disdain in both ads for performances of femininity reveals something else as well: 'femininity' is somehow inferior to 'masculinity.' The insults about his 'purse' are not just about the bag itself - they are about calling his manhood into question, indeed, about patronizing him as a lesser form of person: a woman. 

- Christopher Ford

Old Spice has a tradition of utilizing its traditional image of  'manliness' in its ad campaigns and in this commercial they've hired Terry Crews. Crews represents the alpha male, both an actor and past NFL linebacker, he embodies the physical characteristics of a strong and masculine man. What makes this commercial exceptional lies in its satire; both Crews and the directors understand the role of masculinity, and this commercial lampoons the idea with an over-the-top, exaggerated mascot who is so strong and powerful he transcends what is physically possible. The notion of his persona being so desired is also poked fun at with an absurd twist that puts him as the role of every character in the commercial. At the end, he even marries himself, causing him substantial frustration where he then destroys himself with the only thing stronger than him; the product advertised. When the spot concludes, Crews, playing his wife, simply states "men" in a sarcastic and jocular manner, emphasizing the complete absurdity of both the masculinity, and the entire commercial. 

It is also important to acknowledge the way in which race intersects with gender in this ad. The choice of an African-American actor is deliberate, for blackness is historically associated with hypermasculinity. This depiction of blackness carries with it, then, a variety of loaded connotations around physicality, violence, and sexuality. Each of these characteristics is a signifier of masculinity, and all are ostensibly epitomized most completely by black men. (There is nothing inherent or natural about the association of blackness with masculinity. It is the product of a history of racial violence and exploitation by white people.)

- E. A.

Four thoughts on Ray Rice: 3. Race and violence

Nathan Kalman-Lamb

Ray Rice is now one of the most notorious people in the world. I will not explain why, but if it is possible that you are unaware, I invite you to click here. (The link takes you to the story, NOT the video.) In the next few days, I will provide four reasons why we need to stop demonizing Ray Rice as an individual, and start examining his behaviour as a product of some powerful cultural forces. For reason number one, click here or two, click here. Today, reason number three.

3. Chuck Knoblauch. Josh Lueke. Brett Myers. Patrick Roy. Semyon Varlamov. Ray Rice.

The people on this list have two things in common: they are all athletes and they are all alleged perpetrators of gender-based violence. However, only one member of this group has become the centre of a popular culture and media fire-storm. Can you guess who that is?

Oh, yeah, and there is also this: only one is black.

That one, of course, is the now infamous Ray Rice. In this post I will attempt to explain why the vilification of Rice as an individual has deflected attention away from the persistent racialization of black masculinity as inherently violent and criminal.

The starting point for this discussion is the simple fact that we all know who Ray Rice is and what he did. This is noteworthy because what he did is so disturbingly common, including amongst  athletes in all the major sports. I contend that one of the primary reasons why we have all been so quick to indict Rice is because of his identity as an African-American. Again, as I have said before, I do not in any way condone what Rice did -- I consider it fundamentally abhorrent. However, what I want to remain attentive to is why it is Rice we are up in arms about and not the other names on the above list.

In order to answer this question, I believe we must make a brief examination of the role of race as a socially-constructed form of identity in American history. By stating that race is socially-constructed, I mean that there is nothing biological that separates human beings into discrete racial categories. Rather, race is an inconsistent and unsound idea developed by humans to explain superficial physical differences. Yet, the fundamental insufficiency of race as an explanatory concept has done little to inhibit the radical impact it has had on modern history. This is another way of saying that although race itself is not real, the idea of race is, and that idea has come to shape the social organization of the world we live in in profound ways.

The history of the United States bears this out. Prior to the mid-19th century, the defining feature of American society was the institution of slavery, an institution ideologically-predicated on the idea of race. African-Americans were understood to be less human than whites by the dominant white society and were sold as slaves who were compelled to labour for the material gain of their owners. Part of this dehumanization was the notion that black people were naturally better-suited for physical labour, that they were, in a sense, more animal than whites.

The U.S. Civil War abolished slavery, but it did not abolish the idea of race, nor of racial hierarchy. What it did was create insecurity among whites who had previously felt comfortable in their status as the dominant group in society (note: this is an obvious generalization, as significant class differences existed among whites). The end of slavery ushered in the spectre of class mobility and the possibility of competition. So, in order to enforce a new racial order -- the order of Jim Crow segregation -- the practice of lynching was developed. Lynching involved the false accusation that a black man had raped a white woman. The consequence of this accusation was the murder of the black man by a white lynch mob, a form of terrorism designed to enforce a racial order. The consequence of this practice for the idea of race was to instil in the popular imagination the notion that blackness was associated with dangerous, aggressive, violent sexuality (the myth of the black rapist).

What emerges out of this history is a popular notion of black masculinity closely associated with animal violence and sexuality. This is an idea that is reproduced today through the notion of the black criminal who must be policed through racial profiling and deadly violence (think Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, etc.), a paradigm that Ray Rice fits neatly into. It is easy for America to accept that Ray Rice is a deviant criminal because that is the pathology of the black man. The public excoriation of Rice is a convenient way for a society that continues to be governed by hegemonic whiteness to wipe its hands of responsibility for gender-based violence. After all, it is simply a black problem. Meanwhile, Knoblauch, Lueke, Myers, Roy, and an entire society marked by coercive entitlement and rape culture deftly evade accountability.

There is another side to the issue of race, Ray Rice, and gender-based violence, as well, and that is the question of why the NFL's original suspension (two games) was so short. The unfortunate reality is that the length of the suspension may have had some correlation with the race of the survivor of the assault, Rice's partner. The reality is that we live in a society in which non-white women are subjected to much higher rates of violence than their white counterparts. In the United States, 29% of black women report having experienced intimate partner violence, and, although they comprise only 8% of the U.S. population, black women make up 22% person of intimate partner homicide victims. In Canada, indigenous women are three times more likely than non-indigenous women to experience violent crime.

In this context, the mere fact of violence against a black woman was apparently not enough to warrant more than a token punishment for Rice. Sadly, this is all too representative of the fact that violence against non-white women does little to raise eyebrows in our society. Indeed, even in the rare situation in which a story of the murder of a black woman is sensationalized -- the murder of Renisha McBride, for example, who was killed for seeking assistance at the home of a white man in the Detroit area after an auto-mobile accident -- media coverage sought to blame McBride for the violence (the Associated Press, for instance, tweeted: "Suburban Detroit homeowner convicted of second-degree murder for killing woman who showed up drunk on porch."

For all these reasons, then, it is impossible to divorce the Ray Rice saga from the broader context of structural racism. Rice fits all too neatly into the mould of the criminal, animal, violent black man, just as his wife can be carelessly discarded as just another non-white woman subject to violence. Black men are always already criminal, while black women are never truly victims of crime. The Ray Rice story manages to reproduce both of these narratives. This is why it is essential that we make the connection between race and Rice; the failure to do so too often results in a form or representational racial violence.

Gender, Race, and Isla Vista

There is little question that Elliot Rodger's murder of six people on May 23, 2014 was an act of gender-based violence. He set out to kill women, because they (broadly, as a gender, for he saw it in such essentialist terms) refused to provide him with the sexual gratification he believed they owed him, and the men he believed they unjustly favoured over him. It is crucial that we understand this aspect of the Isla Vista killings, rather than focusing simply on gun control or mental illness, because Rodger's actions were a hyperbolical form of a pervasive social identity: masculinity.

Yet, as important as it is to acknowledge the relation between masculinity and Rodger's actions, it is also vital to note that his troubled understanding of gender was not the only crisis of identity to influence his behaviour. Dexter Thomas argues that racial insecurity played a significant role in the massacre:

Like many men, Elliot was only able to understand women as status symbols. His obsessive quest to lose his virginity had less to do with a desire for pleasure and more to do with a need to show other men that he was a white man, or as good as one. To him, his failure to seduce a white woman was embarrassing proof of his inferiority to his white peers.

Elliot's main problem was that he was not white.

A lot of people seem to think that Elliot felt that he was entitled to sex and attention from women. I don't think this is quite accurate. Elliot's descriptions of himself as "beautiful" or "magnificent" read like desperate attempts at self-delusion. He is much more honest and vulnerable when he refers to his racial background.

Elliot clearly believed that his being half Asian stained him, and ruined the entitlement he would have had if he were pure white. His most clear anger was directed at those lower on the racial totem pole - "filthy" blacks, "low-class" Latinos, and "full-blooded Asians" - who were having sex with white women. He fully accepted that he did not deserve what his white peers had, but he could not stand to see those with even less pure blood than him get the rewards that should have trickled down to him first.

Thomas demonstrates that Rodger's sense of entitlement was heavily informed by the concept of racial hierarchy. According to this distorted logic, while all men might deserve women, racialized men do not deserve white women, who represent the highest prize for, and affirmation of, masculinity. This is an important lesson we should not lose sight of. Prejudice does not operate through discrete categories; rather, systems of oppression intersect with one another, multiplying the challenges confronting those who belong to marginalized groups. Likewise, power and privilege are not bestowed equally. Despite an incredible range of privileges in terms of class and gender, Rodger perceived himself to be impotent because of a supposed racial deficiency and he exercised his rage over this shortcoming through an act of gender-based violence, albeit one directed at men and women alike.

Ultimately, the point here is not analyze the precise motivations of Rodger. Instead, we need to zoom out from the unique particularities of the Isla Vista tragedy to the structural context it occurred in. We live in a deeply stratified world rife with privilege and oppression. If we want to stop future acts of gender-based and racial violence, we need to stop pretending we live in a post-feminist, post-racial world and instead face up to the persistent reality of these violent systems.