In Men Behaving Badly: Mediocre Masculinity and The Man Show, I read how the white male hegemony reifies itself by rejecting alternative masculinities and femininities by representing their fear towards them in xenophobic and misogynistic ways. The wife is seen as a nuisance, and more like an instrument to reproduce further masculine ideologies. White privilege dominates the sphere by disempowering the images of the black matriarch, the lesbian, the dwarfs (little people) and the "intellectuals" through humour. The fear of the dominant hegemony in being overtaken by some of these subservient minorities, threaten the fabric of current society. These fears are normally expressed in private, are now expressed though humorist catharsis in shows like these. The article fairly concludes that the straight white male is having difficulty navigating through a multicultural contemporary society and that he looks for support in places like The Man Show.
To what extent then an alternative show like The Chapelle Show subverses any ideology presented in The Man Show? Very little (or so I think) as it only replaces the stereotypical white male with an equally stereotypical black guy. Equally opinionated about his hegemonic masculinity, homophobic, misogynistic, etc. Is this a place where black men come for support in their struggle against the dominant ideology? Do Latinos do the same with Mind of Mencia? Gays with Queer as Folk? Lesbians with the L Word? and so on...
"Television is a metaphor for living, a statement of human condition" (Hoppenstand as quoted by Palmer-Mehta, 2009); if this is so where are the tv shows in which I can find support in my counter hegemonic enterprise with my many parallel (and sometimes competing) identities?
I'll stick with my sci-fi books. I think they suffice for the moment.
References:
PALMER-MEHTA, VALERIE (2009) Men Behaving Badly: Mediocre Masculinity and The Man Show. The Journal of Popular Culture. Volume 42 Issue 6, Pages 1053 - 1072
No comments:
Post a Comment