Abstract
This study examines American masculinity as constructed in 136 reality television programs airing between 1948 and 2016 with an all-male or predominately male cast. We argue that televised reality programs reveal a new form of hegemonic American masculinity, namely, hyperauthentic masculinity. Hyperauthentic masculinity appears to be grounded in essential male traits, but is rather a reflexive process allowing White male viewers to imagine (re)creating a White male utopia in which they have economic and cultural dominance. Unlike previous studies that claim that reality television allows men to escape into a frontier masculinity of the past, we argue these programs encourage White men today to actively do masculinity and, more important, to believe doing hegemonic masculinity is desirable and worth fighting for.
The reality television star Bear Grylls explains the purpose of survivalist reality television programs: “Masculinity in this country is in crisis. In the old days, you had your bow and arrow. Now? Everyone’s just Tweeting and Facebooking. How does a man really show masculinity?” (quoted in Rampton, 2015, p. 2). For Grylls, survivalist reality television programs demonstrate the actions a male viewer should engage in to prove his masculinity. Similarly, Men’s Health magazine offers a perspective on the implicit meaning in some of the reality television shows designed for male viewers: Most of us have become disconnected from what makes work feel like work. You can’t break a sweat by sending an e-mail, unless you’re Jim Cramer (and no one wants to be in the cubicle next to that guy). After growing up with blow-dried images of success, we’re surprised and a bit shamed by Verminators. (Title of a reality television program that follows the employees of the Los Angeles-based pest control company; Stein & Romieu, 2011, p. 1)
Although reality television today offers men a site to learn about being a man, this is not the first time in American history that media-produced images have demonstrated the most desirable form of masculinity for men facing social changes, especially transformation of the workplace.
Michael Kimmel’s (1995) overview of changing masculinities throughout the course of American history describes how a shift in the economic base of the United States in the late 1800s, from agrarian to industrial, triggered a cultural shift regarding masculinity. The forms of masculinity established with the nation’s founding—genteel patriarch (owner of inherited land with exquisite taste and refined mannerism) and the heroic artisan (independent, virtuous, hardworking craftsman)—were superseded in the late 1800s as a new form of masculinity emerged, the self-made man. The new economy, based on industrial capitalism, fostered this new form of masculinity, in which success was produced by innovation and investments. However, the first generation of self-made men existed within a cultural context that still valued the characteristics associated with the heroic artisan. Thus, according to Kimmel, the self-made man was insecure and anxious to achieve a masculine identity because the traits necessary for wealth creation, business knowledge, and capital were far removed from the physical labor required of “real” men working the land or taming the wilderness. As a result, a crisis of masculinity was born. How were men in urban offices and factories, with a household controlled by women, to prove their masculinity?
Kimmel suggests that the self-made man sought to escape the limitations of urban life and the emasculating influences of women by “going west,” both literally and figuratively. Self-made men journeyed to the Western frontier to mine for gold or explored the jungles of South America. However, this was not a path most men could realistically take, so instead, men found escape, and role models, in the frontier literature featuring the stories of men like Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and Natty Bumppo. These frontiersmen and explorers, whether real or fictional, served as male role models who personified what “real” men do.
According to R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt (2005), hegemonic masculinity is a pattern of practice (the things men do) not just a sex role (what men are supposed to do) or an identity as male (what men think about themselves as men). They note that a dominant form of masculinity emerges in every culture, which illustrates the most valued things men do in a particular period such as displays of physical strength, social power, or sexual aggression. Consider the images of cowboys riding the open plains of the 1880s, the heroic soldiers fighting for democracy during World War II, or the corporate executives of the 1950s in their dark suits and buttoned-down shirts making business deals. Hegemonic masculinity is held up as the most honored way to do masculinity in a particular time and place; consequently, all men must position themselves in relation to the masculine hegemony. Because the majority of men, however, cannot achieve this honored masculinity in practice, they may engage in what Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) call “complicit masculinity” (p. 832). Complicit men admire and support hegemonic men, such as cheering on physically powerful professional athletes while sitting at the local sports bar enjoying a beer.
Today, watching television may offer some men a way to engage in complicit masculinity by supporting and admiring particular men, as constructed through the lens of television, who engage in practices associated with hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is televised in a number of sites, from the sports arenas and political campaigns to police dramas and reality television. Like the frontier literature of the late 1800s, televised masculinity portrays fictionalized male characters in imagined situations or real men engaged in a variety of activities from catching footballs to making political speeches. Somewhere in between fictional tales and real-life reports is reality television. Reality television purports to show ordinary people in an unscripted performance, and allows the average viewer to visualize himself engaged in the actions shown. Reality television may offer men a site to envision and engage in, what we term, hyperauthentic masculinity.
From interviews with people who watch reality television, Randall Rose and Stacy Wood (2005) find that individuals today engage in “hyper-authenticity” when they blend elements of a reality television program with their own lived experiences and aspirations (p. 294). The result is a coproduced authenticity that combines the utopian site depicted in the reality television program with the viewer’s experiences and belief system to create something that is neither truly authentic nor fictional; it is hyperauthenticity.
Whereas Rose and Wood’s research did not specifically address gender, Judith Butler’s (2011) work on gender performativity does. Butler (2011) views gender, not as an essential or biological trait, but as doing; “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender . . . identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (p. 34). Gender is not a mere performance that one engages in for a time before returning to his or her authentic self; gender is what you do at the moment, and this expression of gender is situational dependent on time and context. Consequently, there is no authentic masculine or feminine identity with particular traits or behaviors universally associated with each gender; there is only the doing of the moment. “Real men” do not always wear cowboy boots, fight in wars, or initiate the hostile takeover of a rival company.
This article takes the position that masculinity today is a hyperauthentic reality that is based on neither reality nor fiction, and can be (re)constructed moment by moment when engaged in an activity such as watching television. Based on an analysis of the content of reality television programs produced with the United States, we speculate that male viewers who watch reality television programs featuring men combine the utopian televised reality (e.g., Deadliest Catch) with their own experiences (e.g., fishing) to produce a hyperauthentic masculinity. Although this coproduced masculine authenticity appears to be a reality, an essential characteristic of being male, it is, rather, a hyperreality in which the fictionalized masculinity poses as the real/essential, which male viewers then try to imitate as best they can, given their own experiences and aspirations. We argue that hyperauthentic masculinity is the hegemony today. Hegemonic masculinity is neither real nor fictional, but somewhere in between, and it is manifest in a number of forms, reality television being only one form.
The purpose of this study is to empirically examine hyperauthentic masculinity as constructed in reality TV shows with an all-male or most male cast, and to consider how this construct has changed over time and the potential implications. Based on the data from our sample, we argue that male viewers merge images of masculinity portrayed in reality television with their own experiences to create a hyperauthentic form of hegemonic masculinity; that is, a masculinity that appears to be grounded in an essential gendered reality, but is a social construct that allows White male viewers to imagine (re)creating and living in a White male utopia, in which they have economic and cultural dominance because these are believed the rightful privileges due men.
Literature Review
Given the social changes in late 20th-century America, notably declining manufacturing jobs combined with a declining rural population, today particular groups of men are more likely to feel anxiety or anger about achieving the hegemonic masculinity associated with the self-made man identified by Kimmel (1995), and some find hope in reality television. Susan Faludi (1999), in Stiffed: The Betrayal of Modern Men, argues that, regardless of the types of troubles an American male faces, “the outlets of mass culture from Hollywood to pop psychology to Madison Avenue” suggest the cure is “removing himself from society, by prevailing over imaginary enemies on an imaginary landscape, by beating a drum in the woods until he summons the ‘deep masculine’” (p. 15). Faludi offers a historical overview of the changing economic conditions in the late 20th century as men compare their circumstances with the norms of American masculinity established post–World War II, and some men today find it impossible to live up to expectations of financial success and being the family provider due to globalization, downsizing, and other economic pressures such as mergers or acquisitions that result in permanent job losses. Furthermore, Faludi notes that men once had male communities, for instance, labor unions or veterans’ groups, to belong and to prove themselves as men. Such groups are now replaced by virtual ones, including television programs. Lacking real men to measure themselves against, Faludi (1999) contends what remains is “ornamental culture” that offers mediated images of manhood in movies, advertising, and television.
Two decades later, in Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era, Kimmel (2013) describes how men’s anxiety about masculinity morphed into anger. Anxiety occurs when one is anxious about achieving something that is hypothetically possible—to achieve the American dream of being rewarded for hard work with a job that allows one to be a successful provider, a self-made man. But if men now believe the social system is stacked against them due to an unfair social and economic system, then anger results. Kimmel (2013) claims that “men are angry and restless because of what they experience as the erosion of their ‘rightful’ privilege, and they have convenient targets for their rage” including immigrants, bureaucrats, women, and the government (p. 16). The White men, Kimmel interviewed, believe these groups of Others have, through mandated polices such as affirmative action, distorted the economic system and caused White men to suffer economically as wages plummet or their jobs disappear. Kimmel (2013) proposes that what links the various groups of angry White American males is “aggrieved entitlement”—the “sense that those benefits to which you believe yourself entitled have been snatched away from you by unseen forces larger and more powerful” (p. 18). Kimmel finds that the anger is based on a sense of blocked entitlement to jobs and positions of dominance, and this anger finds its voice in “rage radio” programs hosted by outraged men like Rush Limbaugh. For Kimmel, this is a virtual movement in which White men find a community of like-minded men through online blogs and websites, and expression in American movies such as Falling Down (1993) or Grand Torino (2008).
Similarly, Arlie Hochschild (2016) interviews American men associated with the Tea Party in Louisiana, and finds these men are angry because they believe the social system is now actively hindering them from fulfilling their roles as successful providers. In Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, Hochschild (2016) describes the betrayal these Tea Party men feel as they perceive others getting ahead and being financially successful, and the men attribute this to others (women, minority group members, and immigrants) cutting in line and unfairly benefiting from, what the men perceive as, unfair government policies such as affirmative action. The men feel economically and culturally left behind and want to fight back, so they harnessed their anger to foster a political movement in the Tea Party, which then served as a base of support in the election of President Trump in 2016. Hochschild (2016) states that during the presidential campaign, “implicitly Trump promised to make men ‘great again’ too, both fist-pounding, gun-toting guys and high-flying entrepreneurs” (p. 229). Hochschild’s research suggests that the Trump campaign gave men a new and supportive community to belong, a place to measure themselves as men.
Before the Trump campaign, however, a number of reality television programs aimed at men had already offered a vision of hegemonic masculinity set in a White male utopia, where men can again enjoy economic and cultural dominance. Indeed, reality television programs may have set the stage for the fervent support shown by some White men for the Trump presidency.
Masculinity and Reality Television
Previous studies have examined the multiplicity of masculinities found in television programming. Rebecca Feasey’s (2008) edited volume examines the ways masculinities are constructed in a variety of British and American television programs, including chapters on the emotional masculinity found in the audience participation reality program Big Brother 8 and the men’s lifestyle programs of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, The Naked Chef, and The Naked Chef 2. Feasey suggests the variety of forms of masculinity found in television programs are used to negotiate the rigidly constructed image of male and to challenge the culturally accepted norm of masculinity. Similarly, Derek Burrill (2014) studies the challenge to alpha masculinity as found in film and television representations of “the other guy,” described as straight White men who are not alpha males (p. 3). Other guys form their masculinity through an interpretation of male images found in media culture including films, television, and video games. These media sites expose other guys to conflicting, and thus confusing, messages about how to be a man. Burrill (2014) describes this as “other guy’s synaesthetic masculinity” as these men try to find a place in the confusing hierarchy of masculinity (p. 7).
Other academic analyses of masculinity and television study the explicit link between media images and hegemonic masculinity. In Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century, Amanda Lotz (2014) explores the characters and stories of men found in U.S.-produced scripted cable television programs. Of particular interest for this study are the chapters focusing on straight White men’s interactions within “homosocial enclaves,” where men struggle to understand what it means to be a man, as found in television dramas such as The Sopranos and The Shield. These male characters frequently resort to criminal activities, including murder, to solve their problems, which reveals the extent of actions men take to protect what they deem as their rightful status in society. Lotz (2014) finds these homosocial enclaves on television are “a place of deliberate refuge” and “reveal how men police the boundaries of acceptable masculinities” (p. 17).
Drawing a similar conclusion, Michael Mario Albrecht (2016) analyzes masculinity in scripted “Quality” television series such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad; quality refers not to a hierarchal ranking of television programs but is a “collection of shows that emerge during a particular historical and cultural moment that share common themes” (p. 5). Albrecht (2016) argues that many programs use “masculinity in crisis” discourses “to discipline performances of masculinity,” which may “reinforce traditional patriarchal versions of masculinity” (p. 9).
Moving to specific studies of reality television programs, a similar pattern of reinforcing hegemonic masculinity is observed. In an analysis of one of the most well-known American reality programs, Duck Dynasty, Leandra Hernandez (2014) claims that the masculinity of the main characters, the owners of a successful business that produces duck calls used during hunting, depict many of the traditional characteristics associated with Southern masculinity including dedication to family, being a successful hunter, support for warfare and violence, and, most important, a reclaiming the term “redneck” as a sign of empowerment. However, a tension results as the CEOs of this successful duck call business must navigate a masculinity that also includes their status as members of the upper middle class bourgeoisie.
Two genres of reality television have been the subject of frequent analysis when the focus is masculinity: reality programs featuring dangerous jobs mostly accomplished by men and survivalist reality programs. One of the longest running job-focused reality television programs is Deadliest Catch. Buchanan’s (2014) analysis of Deadliest Catch finds that this program reinforces the idea of traditional hegemonic masculinity. The program serves as a retreat where the viewer can tune in and be reminded of a traditional social structure, where the dominant males within society [here the boat’s captain] have determined the rules and work to maintain order according to the rules they have set in place based upon traditional ideas and norms. (Buchanan, 2014, p. 16)
From a textual analysis of four reality television programs featuring men doing several types of dangerous jobs (Deadliest Catch, Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers, and Gold Rush), Shannon O’Sullivan (2017) argues that the emergence and popularity of these programs signaled a deeper socio-political backlash that was brewing among White, rural, working and middle-class men—the same demographic of men that both populates the blue-collar reality world, and came out strongly in support of Donald Trump in 2016. (p. 10)
Other reality programs feature men engaged in building and/or restoring manly objects from automobiles to houses. For example, Hamilton Carroll (2008) analyzes the job-focused reality program American Chopper, in which men customize motorcycles. Carroll (2008) argues that this reality program presents a “recuperative blue-collar masculinity that attenuates the putative losses suffered by working class men under the postindustrial service economy” in the United States (p. 266). Carroll views riding a motorcycle as representing the same ideal of freedom as did the cowboys riding a horse on the Western frontier. Customizing motorcycles then casts the worker as a nostalgic figure who celebrates the values associated with American freedom and patriotism. Using a similar argument, based on a discursive analysis of the four main cast members in American Chopper, Sharon R. Mazzarella (2008) asserts that this program is less about automotive mechanics than about “the relationships between (real) men—between (real) masculinities” (p. 80). Mazzarella argues that this program presents a (re)construction of hegemonic masculinity through tough biker dudes who show a softer side; however, this is not a reality but merely a construct of the program’s producers and editors. As Mazzarella notes, in the end, there is still a patriarchal structure with a boss displaying hegemonic traits and complicit and subordinate men who follow the boss’s lead.
The second common form of reality television featuring men is the survivalist program. From an analysis of the subgenre of reality survivalist television “man vs.,” Ferrari (2014) argues that survivalist television programs exhibit characteristics similar to the historical “masculine primitive” ideal that emerged in the mid-19th century America amid rapid industrialization and urbanization, and is fundamentally rooted in a deep reverence for wild nature as the sacred space of masculine regeneration in the modern age. (pp. 213-214)
Ferrari (2014) notes that “one way to shore up masculinity is to base it in something ostensibly ‘natural,’ biological, ancient, timeless; that is, buried in the deep recesses of a primitive pre-history” (p. 216). The masculine primitive, however, has been lost in a modern urban environment. Ferrari (2014) finds the “man vs.” subgenre is “one of the most conspicuous cultural sites for earnest (and reverent) expressions of this form of masculinity” (p. 217). In an analysis of masculinity in a slightly different form of “man vs.” reality program, Deadliest Warrior, Lindsay Steenberg (2014) finds that gladiatorial programs—reality programs that pit “warriors”/competitors against one another in often violent actions—present a claim that masculine expertise and violence is authentic, or an essential characteristic of men. The competitors are valued for their natural talents in using weapons and their physicality in enduring hardships.
Such survivalist programs test men’s abilities to perform a hegemonic masculinity of bygone days by enduring and overcoming nature’s harshest conditions or physically challenging situations. Brenda Weber (2014) notes that a number of reality television programs feature (mostly) men transported to remote wilderness locations where they face multiple risks to their safety, and their survival demands a “wilderness savvy often ineptly cultivated by city living” (p. 3). For Weber (2014), such reality survivalist programs reproduce a frontier discourse “where ‘real men’ can be forged in the fires of hardship and determination” (p. 3).
Given the rapid social changes underway today, some survivalist reality television programs imply that a societal apocalypse is imminent, and they feature men preparing for the social chaos to follow. Programs such as Doomsday Prepper and Apocalypse Prepper model the skills men will need to allow their family to survive. By showing male preppers engaged in “preparedness rituals” occurring in sites such a gun range or the wilderness, Casey Kelly (2016) contends that disaster preparation reality programs “construct hegemonic masculinity as a set of survival tools” and as “an antidote for a crumbling and emasculated society” (p. 2). Furthermore, Kelly (2016) argues that an “apocalyptic paranoia” has resulted in a hypermasculine mass violence because men’s alienation in society translates into paramilitary behaviors as they prepare for societal collapse.
Survivalist reality television programs do regularly feature men, but Jared Champion (2016) contends that there is more complexity to the story. Champion’s analysis of survivalist programs that feature couples or teams in the wilderness, such as Dual Survival and Man, Women, Wild, reveal that respect for women as leaders and partners and the integration of environmental sustainability are also part of masculinity. Although a few women do appear in some survivalist reality programs, women who do not “survive” the trials are not viewed as less feminine. By contrast, a male who fails to survive is judged to be lacking in some essential masculine quality. Unlike masculinity, femininity is not dependent on a display of skills and strength. Survivalist reality programs, in the view of Tiffany Christian (2016), are a cure for “wounded masculinity” as these programs allow men to reclaim “cultural authority by appealing to those deeply entrenched traditional masculine ideals of toughness, self-reliance, and aggressive competitiveness” (p. 51).
The previous research on reality television and masculinity indicates that these programs reinforce a particular version of hegemonic masculinity based on traits and skills associated with frontier masculinity of the late 1800s. Because these analyses focus on one series or a handful of series, larger patterns may be overlooked. Our study addresses this by employing a historical analysis of the content of all reality television programs produced in the United States featuring men. In doing so, this study finds that a new hegemony, that of hyperauthentic masculinity is revealed.
Method
Using a grounded theory research approach, this study employs a content analysis of reality television programs produced in the United States to identify the emergent characteristics of masculinity contained within. Grounded theory, as first described by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss (1967), is an inductive methodology in which the theory emerges from the data. As the purpose of this study is to understand the cultural messages about masculinity embedded in reality television programs, this can only be determined after the data are collected. In other words, the theory is “grounded” in an analysis of current data.
Grounded theory begins by introducing generative questions to guide the research. In this study, the generative research questions were as follows:
Overall, this study asks, does reality television with an all-male or predominately male cast highlight a particular form of masculinity?
Hall’s (1974) model of encoding/decoding provides a lens for the methodology used here. Hall notes that any product (e.g., masculinity) is a “sign vehicle” whose meaning is created through a system of codes within a chain of discourse. A product, such as masculinity, does not have any meanings until the sign object is encoded with meaning; that is, the word “masculinity” is blank until encoded with meaning such as stoic, muscular, warrior, and so forth. The chain of discourse, according to Hall, includes the producer of meaning, the “encoder,” and the audience of the product who “decodes” the product. Although the encoder aspires to construct a meaning that will be perfectly decoded by the audience, this rarely happens. A “lack of equivalence” occurs when there are distortions or misunderstandings between the encoder and decoder in the chain of discourse.
One potential cause for the lack of equivalence, according to Hall, is the polysemic property of signs; a product that has an already constituted sign (e.g., masculinity) is potentially transformable into more than one meaning (e.g., masculinities). However, Hall (1974) notes that a “dominant/preferred meaning” is mapped into the discourse within a particular area of society, such as reality television: [P]referred meanings have the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings, practices and beliefs: the everyday knowledge of social structures, of “how things work for all practical purposes in this culture,” the rank order of power and interest and the structure of legitimations, limits and sanctions. (p. 7)
Hall’s model guided our methodology, in that, we focus on identifying the dominant/preferred meaning of masculinity that is encoded in reality television programs. Although we do theorize as to how White male audience members might decode the meaning of masculinity as constituted in these reality programs, a follow-up study measuring the audience potential polysemic “read” is recommended.
The unit of analysis for this content analysis is the content of each televised reality program aired in the United States. As televised reality programs appear on multiple networks or online, no comprehensive list exists. Thus, the first step was to create a comprehensive list of reality shows shown in the United States. The time frame began with what is considered the first reality television program, Candid Camera (1948). Data were collected until May 2016; therefore, the date range is from 1948 until May 2016 (58 years).
After searching online sites such as the Internet Movie Data Base (IMdb), Wikipedia, Metacritic, network websites, and conducting a general Google search for “reality television programs,” a list of 1,698 individual reality television programs was compiled. Next, each reality television program was categorized according to what we identified as the central theme of the program. The following themes emerged from the data: talent competition, job focused, celebrity, dating, documentary, family life, food, makeover, survivalist, house building and repair, animals and nature, police and military, live comedy, paranormal, law and courts, medical, science, extreme behaviors, and other. Although most of these categories are self-explanatory, a few needed to be operationalized during the coding process. For example, extreme behaviors included programs such as Hoarders (people who hoard objects or animals) and/or Extreme Couponing (people who use manufacturers’ coupons to pay for items purchased). Paranormal include programs where paranormal experts search for mythical creatures or spirits, such as Haunted History and Ghost Hunters. Two categories, job focused and survivalist, are central to this analysis. Job focused included all programs, which primarily follow workers on a job site such as Redwood Kings, Yukon Gold, Shark Wranglers, Swamp Loggers, and Ice Road Truckers. Survivalist reality television follows people who live off the land, are preparing for a social collapse, or are learning to survive in the wilderness: programs such as Alone, Fat Guys in the Woods, Running Wild With Bear Grylls, Life Below Zero, and Mountain Men.
After coding the sex, race, age, and nationality of the main male cast members—during the first season aired—of all 1,698 reality shows, we discovered that 137 programs contained all-male or predominately male (75% or more of the recurring and featured cast members) casts. Furthermore, all-male or predominately male casts appeared in only three of the 19 categories we identified: job related (N = 99), survivalist (N = 37), and makeover (N = 1). As the primary purpose of this research was to study discourses about masculinity and given the time required to conduct an open coding of 1,698 reality television programs, we elected to focus on the sample of programs that contained an all-male cast or a predominately male cast. Leaving aside Queer Eye for the Straight Guy—every episode has an identical format in which a team of gay-identified professionals advises a straight identified male on updating his wardrobe, interior design, and cuisine; the remaining 136 job-related and survivalist programs were coded.
Findings
The findings from this analysis indicate that reality television programs with all-male or mostly male casts reinforce a particular form of hegemonic masculinity in which men work hard and have the physical abilities and mental fortitude to survive whatever comes their way. More significantly, these programs show men how to do masculinity, in a particular way, and may serve as encouragement for male viewers to integrate these particular hyperauthentic masculine behaviors into their own lives.
Reality television has existed since the 1940s, but the number of programs has risen dramatically in the past two decades. Table 1 shows that the number of reality television programs increased significantly in the early 2000s, from a total of 41 in the 1990s to 811 in the 2000s (an increase of 1,878%). The sharp increase in reality television is believed to have begun with MTV’s series The Real World, which premiered in 1992 (Alcinii, 2017). In an interview for Realscreen, Jonathan Murray, executive consultant for Bunim/Murray Productions, which produced The Real World, said, Part of the appeal of The Real World is that it demanded that we cast previously marginalized people—people who primetime television had ignored, whether they were part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, of lower socioeconomic levels, or people of color. (Alcinii, 2017)
Content Theme of Reality TV Program, by Time Frame.
This sharp increase in the number of reality television programs is also attributed to the low production cost as not all programs include marginalized populations.
Another notable pattern in Table 1 is the change in the frequency of particular genres from the 2000 to 2009 period to the 2010 to 2016 time frame. Although talent-based reality programs, such as American Idol or The Voice, have occurred most frequently overall, their popularity in the past decade has been superseded by job-focused reality television. Reality television programs with the greatest increase in the past decade include extreme behavior programs such as Hoarders (1,200%); job-related programs such as Ax Men, Sons of Guns, or Ice Road Truckers (150%); documentaries (75%) such as Startup U or Return to Amish; family life (74%) such as The Willis Family or I Am Jazz, and survivalist (49%) such as No Man’s Land, Lone Target, and American Jungle. During the same time period, there was a significant decrease in live comedy programs (−70%) such as Howie Do It, science-based reality programs (−64%) such as Doing Da Vinci, and dating programs (−61%) such as How to Get the Guy and Hooked Up.
Because the focus of our research is masculinity, specifically the actions of men while in the company of other men, all reality shows with all male or mostly male (75% or more of the permanent cast is male) were identified. Table 2 shows that all-male or predominately male casts occur in only three genres: job focused, survivalist, and makeover. In addition, job-focused and survivalist programs with an all-male or mostly male cast have greatly increased in frequency since 2000, a 141% and 118% increase, respectively.
All-Male Cast and Predominately Male Cast in Reality TV, by Content Theme and Time Frame.
The types of jobs that reality television programs with all-male or predominately male casts shown is quite varied, but they tended to portray men in stereotypical masculine activities such as car restoration, fishing, mining, logging, or driving commercial trucks. The jobs themselves represent the three sectors of the economy: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary-sector jobs include jobs that extract resources from the natural environment. Secondary-sector jobs include jobs that transform raw materials obtained in the primary sector into a sellable good. Tertiary-sector jobs include service or entertainment work performed for others.
Table 3 shows that the majority of jobs shown in the job-focused reality programs are primary-sector jobs (37.4%), followed by tertiary-sector jobs (35.4%), and secondary-sector jobs (28.3%). Primary-sectors jobs shown in reality television programs include commercial fishing (N = 11), mining and drilling (N = 11), logging (N = 5), treasure hunting (N = 4), farming (N = 3), and animal hunting (N = 3). Secondary-sector jobs shown in the job-focused reality television programs include vehicle restoration or modification (N = 19), brewing/distilling alcohol (N = 3), taxidermy (N = 2), metallurgy (N = 2), energy and explosive work (N = 1), and car parts manufacturing (N = 1). Tertiary jobs shown in reality television programs include long-haul truck driving (N = 7), selling crops such as marijuana (N = 3), antiques and collectibles resale (N = 5), police and bounty hunting (N = 3), home decorating and remodeling (N = 3), building/energy maintenance (N = 3), retail sales (N = 2), car racing (N = 2), professional athlete (N = 2), tattoo artist (N = 2), male escort (N = 1), and professional gambler (N = 1).
Job-Based Reality Program by Sector of Economy and Type of Cast.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017) reports that 5.6% of the population is self-employed in a nonagricultural job that is not included in one of the three sectors.
Although reality television programs are fairly equally divided between all-male casts (50.5%) and predominately male casts (49.5%), the sectors of the economy in which they work differs. All-male casts are more likely to be shown in primary sector jobs (21.2%), whereas predominately male casts, in other words casts with one or more female cast members, are more likely in tertiary, or service sector, jobs (24.2%) and least likely to be found in the secondary sector, making things (9.1%). The jobs, regardless of economic sector, tend to reinforce stereotypical ideas about what men do—“real men” work on cars, survive in the wilderness, hunt, discover essential resources, make manly objects such as swords and beer, and collect manly objects such as tools, fishing lures, or rare car parts.
In the simulated world of reality television, men embody traditional masculine traits, but the viewer lives in the reality of a very different job market. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2017) reports that, in 2016, the percentage of the population employed in each of the three sectors was primary 1.5%, secondary 12.6%, tertiary 80.3%, and 5.6% self-employed in a nonagricultural job. Added to the reality of the job market, the Great Recession of 2008 also appears to be a factor in the number and content of reality televisions programs.
Table 4 shows a comparison between the decades before and after the Great Recession of 2008. The data indicate that the reality televisions programs with an all-male or predominately male cast by genre (job focused or survivalist) increased significantly post the Great Recession, from 28 to 106. Furthermore, job-focused programs increased considerably, from 18 to 81. Men’s anxiety about surviving the recession may have created the interest for these types of reality television programs.
All-Male Cast and Predominately Male Cast in Job-Focused and Survivalist Reality TV, by Decade.
Although male viewers may long for the opportunity to live off the land or to spend their days building cars and distilling whiskey, the jobs shown on reality television are not likely career paths. So how does one prove his masculinity with such manly opportunities cut off by a changing economy and the added troubles caused by a recession? Perhaps, by following the exploits of “real men” who can survive, that is, White men.
Table 5 compares the cast members in all-male and predominately male survivalist reality television programs before and after the inauguration of President Barrack Obama, the United States’ first Black-identified president. There is a significant increase in the number of survivalist programs subsequent to the inauguration of Obama in January 2009, from 10% to 27% (170%). Moreover, the data show that of the 37 survivalist reality television programs, the majority contain all-White casts (81.1%), and all-White male casts had an even greater increase from 8% to 22% (175%).
All-Male and Predominately Male Cast in Survivalist Reality TV, by Perceived Race.
When more closely examining the role of the minority cast members in the seven programs they appear, power or status differences were noted. For example, in the program Everest: Beyond the Limit, one of the primary cast members is a Nepalese Sherpa, whose job is to help the other cast members trek up the mountain. He is a subordinate performing work for White men’s success. Similarly, in Expedition Africa, four explorers, who appear to be White, travel into the jungles of Tanzania but only with the help of two Black porters who carry supplies. Other survivalist reality programs tend to show larger groups of men, and at least one of the more secondary cast members is identifiable as a minority group member. For example, Iditarod: Toughest Race on Earth, which follows Sled Dog Racers in Alaska, does include Inuit sled racers but the series focuses on White males. The reality program No Man’s Land, which is shot on location in a New Mexican desert, also includes one cast member indigenous to the area, a descendent of a White Mountain Apache who makes primitive tools. The only survivalist program identified that embodies a relationship of racial equality is One Car Too Far, featuring a White man and an Asian American man trying to survive in remote locations with a car as their only resource.
Discussion
Previous analyses of reality television suggest that such programs function as an escape from changing social and economic conditions by encouraging men to reminisce about reliving the frontier hegemonic masculinity of the past. In doing so, these men cannot adapt to the social and economic changes occurring in the world today, and the result may be a violent and retrogressive response, which further alienates these men from the social and cultural reality around them. Mass media, as Kimmel (2013) notes, may advance angry White men’s fantasy of escaping the grim realities by re-envisioning oneself as a hero who can build a house, hunt for dinner, and halt a group of international terrorists.
Briohny Doyle’s (2012) concept of apocalyptic nostalgic is useful here. Apocalyptic nostalgic is “a perverse desire for catastrophe, judgment and renewal, particularly in regards to the category of masculinity or what ‘makes’ a man” and is “an attempt to reinstate the authority of social constructions such as race, gender and religion” through a “presentation of White, male protagonists whose survivalist challenge is also a challenge to display ‘traditional’ masculine characteristics such as stoicism, physical strength, Christian morality and skills associated with outdoor living” (pp. 2-3). What happens, however, if some men no longer see the distinction between fiction and truth (the real world), when a hyperauthentic masculinity becomes the hegemony?
We propose that rather than nostalgia for a frontier past where men dream of proving themselves by taming the wilderness, reality television reveals hyperauthentic masculinity as the hegemony. Each man who views reality television modifies the image to his particular experiences. It is not a masculinity based on reliving a romanticized past, but a masculinity that enables men to imagine how to actively do masculinity every day. Men can do masculinity in their everyday life by restoring a motorcycle, cutting down trees, or prepping for social collapse. And, at least part of the doing was to join other men to launch a political movement that promises to restore American men’s dominance in the world. Reality television does not create passive men quietly escaping into a vanished past. Instead, it permits men to believe doing hegemonic masculinity is desirable and worth fighting for, including in the political arena.
The Trump campaign and presidency might be viewed as a form of reality television, in which male viewers engage in complicit masculinity by cheering on a hegemonic male in the person of Trump. However, we suggest that a more fruitful approach is to regard the televised spectacle of the Trump campaign and presidency as a hyperauthentic reality that is neither a reality (a truth) nor a fiction; Trump himself demonstrates hyperauthentic masculinity as an ongoing construction shaped and reshaped by the audience’s reactions in the moment. And, the male audience members who watch Trump are not engaged in complicit masculinity but, rather, a fluid performativity combining both the televised images and their own lived experiences. Given the experiences of the viewers differ, the exact manifestation of hyperauthentic masculinity is fluid and changes over time and by context.
The televised images of the Trump campaign events and the almost daily tweets by the President provide a vision of a potential future, once Trump builds the wall and brings back American manufacturing jobs, in which White men will again be dominant. Hyperauthentic masculinity is the combining of such televised images with the doing, which takes a variety of forms from the individual verbal harassment of perceived immigrants to the torch-carrying marches by groups of armed men associated with White nationalism. This is the current masculine performativity by some men who are embroiled in a cultural war to “make America great again.”
The data here show that reality television programs with all-male or predominately male and predominately White cast members reinforce hegemonic masculinity as White, but we might ask, what types of individuals tend to watch such programming? Reality television programmers themselves provide an explicit explanation of the gendered aspects of reality television. In a 2011 article titled “Next Episode for Reality TV: More Shows Where Guys Can Feel Like Guys,” the author Dan Hirschhorn (2011) interviews Kevin Kay, president of Spike television channel, who states, “our experience shows that guys don’t want to watch guys talking to guys” (para. 17). Senior vice president of Velocity, Bob Scanlon, adds, “Men want shows where they can feel like ‘I can still be a guy’” (para. 18). Although reality television is quick and less costly to produce than scripted programs, highlighting masculine authenticity, or a male essentialism, is integrated into the content.
From an academic perspective, other factors are associated with the likelihood of watching reality television. Steven Reiss and James Wiltz (2004) found two psychological factors correlate with watching reality television: status orientation and concern for vengeance. They found that status-oriented persons watch more reality television. According to Reiss and Wiltz (2004), a status-motivated individual shows “above average need to feel self-important” (p. 11). In addition, individuals who watch reality television place a higher value on vengeance than those who watch less reality television. Unfortunately, this study did not compare the responses by sex, so whether status or vengeance is more likely among men is left unanswered.
Regardless of the psychological factors that may lead some individuals to watch reality television, hyperauthentic masculinity encourages men to do something to prove they are real men, including protecting their families from potential danger. Think of the recent claim by a small fraction of American gun owners fighting for their right to openly carry a gun as an everyday accessory, regardless of the situation, just like the survivalists seen on reality television. They see a potential enemy around every corner, and it is a man’s duty to protect those perceived of as innocent from the social chaos threatening to erupt at any moment. This chaos is as likely in an urban landscape as in the wilds of Alaska.
In the United States, the legal right to openly carry a gun varies state by state; currently 46 states allow the open carrying of a handgun, although some first require a license or permit. In 44 states, openly carrying a long gun (rifles and shotguns) is legally permitted; again some states first require a license or permit. Notably, the person carrying that gun is far more likely to be male. According to a Gallup survey, gender is the strongest predictor of gun ownership with males 5 times more likely to own a gun than females (Jones, 2013). Thus, today, gun ownership is an element of hyperauthentic masculinity. From grocery stores to restaurants, male gun owners seem to expect an imminent attack by Others, and it is part of their authentic function as men to protect their family and those deemed innocent or worthy. Sadly, in recent years, a handful of American White males have turned those guns on innocent victims, gunning down children in their elementary school, concert attendees at a country music festival, moviegoers at the local cinema, and by shooting unarmed Black men simply walking down the street.
The hegemonic masculinity found in survivalist reality television is not without its critics. The artist Garyson Perry described the kind of masculinity portrayed by survivalist reality television celebrity Bear Gryll as “useless” and a “hangover from a more violent age” (Oppenheim, 2016). Perry quips that such survivalist masculinity cannot help men in urban environments who are trying to find affordable housing or daycare for their children. Perry’s understanding of masculinity also reflects the economic diversity among men, noting that the job market today is especially challenging for the less financially well off and that “working with your hands” is not reflected in the jobs available today.
American men’s reaction to the social and economic changes of the late 1800s was to escape by “going west.” Today, the economic forces of a global economy and the social and cultural changes associated with women’s increasing social and economic power, and growing racial and ethnic diversity in the United States has produced anxiety and anger for some White American men and, subsequently, fostered the creation of job-focused and survivalist reality television. This study finds that job-focused and survivalist reality television programs establish a White American male-dominated world in which women, minority group members, and any non-Americans are largely absent or remain in the background in secondary roles. Rather than nostalgic escapism to the long-gone frontier, today male viewers imagine (re)creating a White male utopia, such as those seen in reality television, in their daily life, where they again hold economic and cultural power as the rightful privileges due men. Some White men may embrace the lessons of reality television to guide their own actions, and the coproduced result is hyperauthentic masculinity, in which White men fight to (re)claim a position of power and dominance, regardless of who may stand in the way or what illegitimate means are used to (re)gain that power. In stark contrast to the rational, self-controlled, self-made man of the 20th century who was believed to be expressing essential male traits, hyperauthentic masculinity is an ongoing reflexive process combining media constructs with the lived experience and aspirations of the male viewer. It reveals neither an essential truth about men nor a work of fiction; thus, hyperauthentic masculinity varies according to context and viewer.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.