March 15, 2013
The
white man-boy is the most important cultural figure in America today.
Hyperbole?
Maybe.
But,
allow me to make a case that the ‘white man-boy industrial complex’ is
producing ways of being and knowing the world, particularly for white men, that
threaten the social interests (if not rights) of women and people of color in
contemporary American culture and little critical attention is being given to
this phenomenon.
What
do I mean by ‘the white man-boy industrial complex’?
I
mean the lucrative constellation of industries that produce movies, television
shows, music, books, magazines, advertising, and a range of other products that
have made popular the idea that white guys today are refusing to grow up,
retreating to fratriarchal spaces and ‘man caves,’ reviving racist and sexist
humor with irony, and seeking liberation from women they imagine as trying to
castrate them (usually metaphorically).
The
white man-boy market was initially a niche, but now must be seen as defining
‘the mainstream.’ The white man-boy industrial complex sells its wares to
white men of various social classes. Socialized around the idea that
masculinity is a style performed through conspicuous consumption, these men
range in age from awkward teens, to twentysomethings who may imagine themselves
caught up in a quarterlife crisis, to thirty- and fortysomethings who may be
trying to ironically hold onto their youths while denying that that is what
they’re up to.
One
doesn’t need to look long or hard for evidence for the prominence of the
man-boy in contemporary American popular culture.
Think
of films like Old School, The 40 Year-old Virgin, Knocked Up,
Step Brothers, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Dodgeball,
or Ted, that more than a few white men of Generations X and Y can recite
scenes or quotes from memory. (Just ask them, I’m sure their eyes will
light up with delight!).
I
should note that many of these same films are selected by programmers for
re-circulation via (white) male niche media like Spike TV and FX
(among other cable networks). Thus, the man-boy industrial complex
enables these films to be repeatedly watched (let us not forget the availability
of Netflix and DVDs for this consumer group!), memorized, and emulated by more
than a few American white guys today.
And
we have not even mentioned the abundance of original television programming
from the past decade like Two and Half Men, Scrubs, How I Met
Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, The League, Workaholics,
and even House M.D. and Mad Men (among countless others), that
features white man-boys of various stripes.
But,
perhaps it is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ recent decision
(debacle?) to imagine Seth MacFarlane as a suitable host of the Oscars that
drove home for me the way in which ‘the man-boy arts’ have expanded beyond a
few ‘edgy’ niche movies and TV shows to become a central spoke in this
historical moment’s definition of the American normative.
While
these man-boys surely aren’t new to post-9/11 America, 2004 saw its hegemonic
ascendance within American popular culture. In so doing, it regularly
circulates a stream of retrograde ideas about race and gender that are
significantly shaping the world views of coming of age and aging American white
men from white collar types to service workers to the under- and unemployed.
Relatedly,
it is offering American white men across generations what Raymond Williams
might call a ‘structure of feeling’ about how to be a white man that
disciplines their bodies to find pleasure, at worst, in explicit forms of
misogyny and white supremacy (often packaged as ironic humor), and at best in
soft forms of essentialist ideas about gender and race that refabricate gender
and racial segregations on screen and in everyday life — as the line between
man-boy productions and social realities always seems to be blurred (at the
very least, think of the Jackass crew).
And,
at least in my view, progressives do not seem to be recognizing the deleterious
effects of the rise to prominence of this industry.
One
need only read Kay S. Hymowitz’s Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has
Turned Men Into Boys or Guy Garcia’s The Decline of Men: How the
American Male is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future to see
how the man-boy is being employed by social conservatives in post-9/11 America
to renew assaults on feminism and the women’s movement and to advance tired
narratives about ‘white men being in crisis’ or ‘the feminization of American
culture and society’
While
not wanting to advance the overly simplistic notion that all young white men
are imitating the behaviors exemplified by the white man-boys one might find in
a Judd Apatow film, I do want to offer two stories of young white men.
The observations from my classes at a state university illuminate how
this man-boy industrial complex has, in differing ways, effectively delimited
the sort of man they can reasonably imagine being or becoming in their lives.
The
first student I will call “Tommy.”
***
I
first met Tommy in a class I teach about gender issues in sports and
society. The class, like so many undergraduate classes of this sort,
simply seeks to teach students some basic tenets of feminist theory and to
raise students’ consciousness about how gender matters for women and men alike
in sports and beyond.
In
a class with ‘gender issues’ in the title, one would expect to read a healthy
dose of academic research that uses feminist theory to interpret the world,
right? Yet, in the second or third week of classes, Tommy decided to
interrupt (or perhaps the better descriptor would be: to disrupt) a class
discussion by exclaiming from the back row, “Hey! When are we going to be
done reading all this feminist crap?”
Utterly
shocked, I did not know how to respond.
Feeling
as though my feminist bona fides were being challenged, I sarcastically
responded, “Are you serious? How could you sign up for a class on gender
and not expect to read about feminist theory?”
Looking
back, it was probably not one of my best moments as a professor. But as a
white guy standing at the front of a classroom filled with a majority of women,
I also didn’t want him to think that I would condone such dismissive and
derogatory comments.
Nonetheless,
over the next two weeks, class devolved into a confrontation between the two of
us. As I attempted to highlight the complex ways gender politics shaped
various sporting cultures in the past and present, Tommy proceeded to
vociferously refute every idea that did not conform to his worldview.
Often
his objections drew upon ideas and logics straight from ‘the man-boy industrial
complex.’
He
spoke of his fascination with the film, Fight Club. He seemed to
believe that muscle mass was positively correlated with the amount of respect
and status a man gets within the most important group in the world—his ‘bros.’
Like far too many of my white male students (as well as more than a few white
women in the class), many of whom come from middle and working class positions,
Tommy was a daily reader of a website called, ‘barstoolsports.com,’ which
offers daily doses of sexually objectified women and angst-ridden diatribes
bemoaning such things as the ‘pussification of America.’
A
week later, while still optimistically believing I could convince Tommy that white
men weren’t losing social power if I only presented him with the right argument
and/or evidence, our discussion boiled over into the hallway after class
ended. Flanked by two of his buddies, who were trying hard to walk a
tightrope of appearing open-minded to me while maintaining their ‘bro’ stature
with him, Tommy said he would only continue to talk with me if we spoke not as
‘professor’ and ‘student,’ but as two ‘men.’
Although
again momentarily shocked, this time, his comment obviously made sense.
And
minutes later, just as I thought I was removing his mask of masculinity with a
miraculous breakthrough that could result in a transformation of his world view
(think, Dead Poets Society), Tommy grew quiet in the midst of one of my
monologues.
I
still remember seeing his eyes beginning to well up and trying to soften the
tone and force of my words.
And
just then, without a word, he abruptly walked away.
His
friends told me they thought he was going to hit me.
Tommy
never spoke up again in class.
***
The
second student I want to discuss I will call “Ethan.”
Ethan
is an excellent student. He went to a private school and will admit to
coming from an upper middle-class family. At quick glance, he might
appear as the guy that seems to have it all—rugged good looks, athleticism,
smarts, good manners, and is well-spoken. The kind of guy who would charm
grandma in one breath and then do a keg-stand in the backyard when she’s not
looking. Though he may have the look of your run-of-the-mill frat guy, as
I came to discover, his story was a bit more complex.
I
met Ethan in another class that focuses on the ways white power and privilege
shape sports media narratives. Ethan never said much in class. But,
by midterm, he was staying after class at least once a week, often for about an
hour at a time. He spoke with me about how the class was giving him a new
language to make sense of, and speak about, some of his past and present
experiences.
In
one of our rambling conversations, I mentioned something about how sport films
starring Will Ferrell were recirculating some pretty retrogressive ideas about
white men, people of color, and women. Ethan then divulged that he and
his friends loved some of Ferrell’s films. Ethan told me they would often
watch Anchorman as a pre-party ritual, mining it for language and
masculine performance to use later on in the night.
Later,
he even confided that status with his ‘bros’ was determined by one’s ability to
successfully hook up with ‘the ladies.’ And, as is so often the case in
these sorts of fraternal groups, he had realized that telling the story
afterwards to the ‘bros’ was as important as the act itself.
But
interestingly, Ethan also told me about how he and his bros talk regularly
about the guilt they feel from this ‘bro’ practice of loving and leaving women
each weekend. Yet, they still continue to do it.
Recently,
Ethan confided that he has begun a relationship with a girl that he really
likes. He recognizes how this relationship is compromising his status
with ‘the boys.’ He’s a little bothered by this. It doesn’t quite
feel right with him. But, he knows he doesn’t want to be a ‘bro’ for the
rest of his life either.
In
our conversations, we have discussed how he is struggling because he can’t seem
to imagine another way of being a man that feels ‘right’ to him.
And
this is the measure of the hegemony of the man-boy industrial complex in
post-9/11 America…they can’t even imagine an alternative…
***
In
the spirit creating situated knowledges, I feel it necessary to disclose my own
conflicted relationship with this man-boy industrial complex.
As
some may have perhaps guessed by this time, I’m a newly-minted 40-something
who—no joke–is writing this essay in a Starbucks while wearing my Buddy
Holly-styled specs and my multi-colored and ‘one-of-a-kind’ New Balance
runners. And I even drove here in my ‘quirky’ Nissan Cube.
Yes,
I must even admit that I put off getting married and having kids until my late
30s. I am also guilty of using words like ‘adulty’ when I recognize that
I’m occupying my father’s shadow or losing my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants
lifestyle in the face of my new responsibilities of family, work, and mortgage.
And
although my devoutly feminist wife might tell you otherwise, that’s kind of
where my stereotypical man-boy-ness ends…I think.
I
mean, I don’t have a man-cave. I don’t spend hours or entire weekends
playing video games. And one of the main reasons I put off marriage and
having kids so long was because I struggled to become an academic and to feel economically
safe and secure in my own life.
I
offer this admission to illustrate the point that serious efforts to understand
the cultural politics of the man-boy industrial complex must take into
consideration a few things.
They
must keep in mind that the ways individual white men make sense of, and
appropriate the language and logics of the man-boy arts are always complex and
complicated and can’t be summed up in a singular explanation. This is
true of Tommy, Ethan, and myself.
Second,
they must situate the coming to prominence of the man-boy in the post-9/11
moment, a time marked by a renewed effort to re-masculinize American men and to
promote the illusion that contemporary America is ‘beyond race.’
Finally,
they must recognize the man-boy less as a sociological reality that can be
apprehended via surveys, interviews, ethnographies, or biosketches, and more as
a simulacrum—a copy for which there is no original—that more importantly
operates to discipline the attitudes, affective investments, and social practices
and relations largely of white, middle class men of the X and Y generations in
socially conservative, if not reactionary, ways.
If
progressives are interested in getting more white men from service and even
white collar jobs to participate in struggles for women’s rights or for
demanding a living wage in an economic moment so ripe for mass public dissent,
then they would be well served to consider the need to develop alternative
models of white masculinity that will trump the affective appeal of those
currently on offer within the man-boy industrial complex.
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