There has been a surprising paucity of research into the term ‘televisual masculinity’, namely the broadcast media’s representations of masculinity. The primary focus to date has fallen upon masculinity as depicted in film (for example, Spicer 2001) and work on televisual masculinity continues to lag behind that on televisual femininity.
Historical overview: from the 1950s to the 1980s
Gunter (1995) demonstrates that from the inception of television in the United Kingdom as a means of mass entertainment from the mid-1950s up to the 1980s, the depiction of gender was highly stereotypical. Men were generally presented as dominant, aggressive, rational and competent, whereas women were the opposite and featured mostly in comedies and soap operas. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s feminists attacked these narrow stereotypes, but as late as 1978 it was still possible for a commentator to refer to the ‘symbolic annihilation’ of women on television while, at the same time, male displays of any feminine characteristics were extremely rare. However, throughout the 1980s there was an accelerating move towards gender equalisation on television as narrow stereotypes were attacked. Glamorised representations of muscular male bodies were still used to sell products, but male leads started to combine toughness with a degree of sensitivity, even vulnerability, while female ones became far less dependent on men. The change was particularly noticeable in advertisements, the arena where masculinity could be most easily changed. Meanwhile, homosocial ‘buddy relationships’ between men became increasingly popular on prime time television, best epitomised by the American series Starsky & Hutch, with its display of male bonding and even a degree of emotional disclosure, albeit strictly in the line of work. In other popular series (for example, Thirty Something), male friendships became more intimate and thereby more ambiguous. Meanwhile, Fiske (1987) points to the elegant clothing of the two male leads in Miami Vice as an example of the male appropriation of the pleasures of appearance and style, but without any loss of male power.
By the late 1980s the mask of toughness and emotional restraint had undoubtedly been lowered, if not finally discarded, as macho masculinity began to be viewed as more of a problem than a strength. Traditional masculine qualities were interjected with those previously reserved for women on television, such as a caring, sensitive nature. A notable instance of this was the somewhat melancholic lead character in Inspector Morse who, Brunsdon (1998) argues, was to be admired by men (for his dogged quest for justice) and attractive to women (as a paternalistic individual who would make both an ideal father and a mature lover). At the same time increasing numbers of women were appearing in more and more ‘masculine’ roles, especially in crime and police series.
Historical overview: from the 1990s
The period since the 1990s has witnessed the further ‘repackaging’ of masculinity on television with the result that its representation has become far less straightforward, with Hearn and Melechi (1992) pointing to television’s role in ‘assisting the fragmentation of (traditional) masculinity’ (p. 231). Indeed, Gauntlett (2002) concludes that ‘modern media has a more complex view of gender and sexuality than ever before’ (p. 90), a view to which not everyone would subscribe. In support he lists programmes he believes have been particularly influential in transforming gender representations during this period, amongst them Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NYPD Blues, Friends, Frasier, ER, Dawson’s Creek and The West Wing. In the groundbreaking UK police series Prime Suspect, a woman (Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison) wins through in the masculinist police culture while still managing to retain important aspects of her femininity, albeit perhaps sacrificing others (Creeber 2004). Meanwhile, previously stigmatised formations (such as gay masculinities) have appeared on the screen, for example, in Queer as Folk, Will & Grace and Gimme, Gimme, Gimme. However, ‘gayness’ in sitcoms has become synonymous with ‘campness’, television fmding it difficult to depict homosexuality in any other way (Mills 2005).
Whannel (2000) highlights another significant aspect of British mainstream television from the 1990s to date, namely its enthusiastic embracing of anti-feminist, laddish masculinity (in, for example, Men Behaving Badly, Fantasy Football League and They Think It’s All Over). To be accepted in these programmes, women had either to be Barbie doll-like ‘babes’ or surrogate ‘lads’ (even, ideally, a combination of both) and be happy to be the butt of irreverent male humour. The anti-intellectual, juvenile and sexist joking was, as Whannel points out, placed in inverted commas as ‘ironic’ and, thereby, rendered clever and acceptable. His thesis is that such ‘postmodern television’ is based on depthless parody and pastiche and characterised by a ‘high degree of intertextuality and self-referentiality’ (2000:300).
Researching televlsual masculinity
This section reviews a small number of selected analytical concepts I believe to be useful in ‘reading’ televisual masculinity. Fiske (1987) usefully distinguishes between masculine and feminine narrative forms. ‘Masculine narratives’ celebrate machismo and the uncommunicative man of action. The emphasis is upon physical performance and heroic achievements so that these male characters only truly ‘live’ in their moments of performance. Meanwhile, ‘masculine intensifiers’ (like low camera angles, slow motion action shots, a celebration of the male body’s power, pounding music, etc.) heighten the drama of the action in cop, thriller and adventure stories, including Westerns, especially when they conclude with a successful resolution like the triumph of good over evil. Moreover, any hint of the feminine is excluded from masculine narratives, where male bonding carefully circumnavigates real intimacy. He analyses an archetypal masculine narrative, namely the 1980s American series The A-Team, in which ‘the determination to succeed replaces feelings; mechanical ingenuity replaces insight into real people; and success in problem-solving replaces process’ (Fiske 1987:215) in a celebratory, masculinist ‘carnival’ of male violence. Masculinity is portrayed differently in ‘feminine narratives’ (such as soap operas), which are predominantly aimed at a female audience. The brutal and exploitative male villains therein are usually handsome and loved, hated, admired and despised in equal measure, while the weak are unattractive and despicable. If goal-centredness and aggression are employed to characterise the villain, the good, feminised, self-disclosing man is presented positively and invariably possesses the good looks associated with virile heterosexuality. He is ‘caring, nurturing and verbal…[and] will talk about feelings and people and rarely expresses his masculinity in direct action’ (Fiske 1987:186). Although he retains his masculine identity, he imbues it with what Fiske terms a ‘feminine inflection’.
Hearn and Melechi (1992) are insightful on the study of televisual masculinities when they distinguish between the ‘imaging’ and ‘imagining’ of American men on television. They comment that they ‘are shown to be bigger, stronger, fitter, younger, healthier, betterlooking, sexier, more tanned, more famous… American men are “hyper-real”. We are moving from imaging to the imaginary’ (p. 218). They shift the discussion from the ‘image-as-text’ to the ‘dialectic of the gaze and the process of identification’ (p. 228). Given the pervasiveness of American programmes worldwide, the role of the ‘trans/ atlantic gaze’ is worthy of closer attention in our global age and its role in the construction of’phantasy masculinities’.
Finally, the influence of television on people’s attitudes is more often than not assumed rather than substantiated. Viewers do not passively absorb television, which is, after all, only one of many influences upon the sense of selfliood and gendered identity. Neither can we assume that the programme-maker’s intended meanings are the ones necessarily picked up by the viewer. Fiske (1987) talks of ‘producerly texts’ that encourage viewers to participate in the meaning-making and exploit television’s ‘semiotic potential’ at the moment of reception. Meanwhile, Morley (1986), for example, demonstrates that reception itself is gendered in that men tend to prefer knowledge-based programmes, documentaries, news and sport, whereas women generally favour programmes containing the sensitive and expressive, including dramas and soaps. More recent ethnographies of ‘media reception’ (for example, Mackay and Ivey 2004) continue to support this finding.
Masculinity, television and social change
Representations of gender on television have clearly diversified considerably over the past fifty years, gathering momentum since the 1980s. The earlier, relatively uniform and stereotypical representation of masculinity (and femininity) on television has today been replaced by a wider range. It is helpful to introduce the concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell 1987) at this point. Hegemonic masculinity retains its primacy by being flexible and by selectively incorporating oppositional defmitions for its own purposes. In the case of television the widened representations of masculinity function to win over the ideological consent of both male and female viewers and thereby safeguard its hegemony. Today a new generation of ‘gender literate’ television writers and directors are more prepared to experiment with non-traditional and subversive gender representations. This is in line with many academic voices who have repeatedly called for television to become more proactively involved in articulating new masculinities based on personal qualities and relationships rather than power, action, achievement and possessions. British television today is, it would at first appear, more open than ever to alternative depictions of gender. New channels (whether terrestrial, cable or satellite), along with DVDs and the Internet, are providing additional opportunities for both stereotyping and its subversion. It is to the paradoxical and ambivalent representation of ‘masculinities’, whether in dramas, advertisements or pop music, that commentators have repeatedly been drawn. The case for contemporary masculinity being ‘in crisis’ has certainly been widely asserted by both the print and broadcast media (Beynon 2002). An aspect of this ‘crisis creation’ is articulated by MacKinnon (2003), who sees the medium not so much ‘reflecting’ masculinity as ‘teaching’ it by persisting to trade on idealised images that place an impossible set of demands on men, but to which they nevertheless have to aspire if they are to be designated ‘real men’. The narrow equating of masculinity with machismo in the scores of sentimental ‘telenovas’ ever-popular across Latin America is a case in point. Also, competitive, young and athletic men are constantly celebrated in television’s now worldwide coverage of sport, especially in contact sports, particularly boxing, kick-boxing and, in hyper form, wrestling.
In spite of this, Gauntlett (2002) confidently asserts that television is ‘full of information about being a man in the here and now’ (p. 7), mirroring our ‘postmodern times’ in which the enactments and depictions of gender are increasingly mobile. Against this can be set Wood (2003), who suggests that most changes that have taken place are superficial: in fact, all that has really happened is that a new set of stereotypes has been substituted for the old, so much so that ‘underneath what appear to be radically different images of women and men are some very familiar, very traditional themes’ (p. 262). An apt illustration of this might be the British police drama Prime Suspect, referred to earlier. Although previous police/cop series had featured women in leading roles, it took things a stage further in that Jane Tennison (memorably played by Helen Mirren and subsequently syndicated worldwide) drew upon her feminism to erode the masculinist ‘canteen culture’ surrounding her (Creeber 2004). However, in order to earn respect and credibility she had to take on many of the attributes of the misogynistic detectives she led. For this reason Brunsdon (1998) concludes that Prime Suspect still preserved intact and extolled the virtues of the traditional masculine narrative.
To conclude, perhaps we ought to be wary of what might at first appear to be radical changes in television’s representations of masculinity and continue to question the medium’s capacity to reflect social change adequately, let alone orchestrate change.
References and further reading
Beynon, J. (2002) Masculinities and Culture, Buckingham: Open University.
Brunsdon, C. (1998) ‘Structure of anxiety’, Screen, 39 (3):223–43.
Connell, R. (1987) Gender and Power, Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
Creeber, G. (2004) ‘Prime suspect’, in G.Creeber (ed.) Fifty Key Television Programmes, London: Arnold, pp. 159–63.
Fiske, J. (1987) Television Culture, London: Routledge.
Gauntlett, D. (2002) Media, Gender and Identity, London: Routledge.
Gunter, B. (1995) Television and Gender Representation, London: John Libbey.
Hearn, J. and Melechi, A. (1992) ‘The trans/ atlantic gaze’, in S.Craig (ed.) Men, Masculinity and the Media, London: Sage, pp. 215–32.
Mackay, H. and Ivey, D. (2004) Modern Media in the Home, Rome: John Libbey.
MacKinnon, K. (2003) Representing Men, London: Arnold.
Mills, B. (2005) Television Sitcom, London: British Film Institute.
Morley, D. (1986) Family Television, London: Comedia.
Spicer, A. (2001) Typical Men, London: I.B. Tauris.
Whannel, G. (2000) ‘The lads and the gladiators’, in E.Buscombe (ed.) British Television, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 290–302.
