Performing the Norm: Men in the Performing Arts and the Materialization of White,Heteronormative Masculinity

Abstract

There is a relatively robust body of scholarship examining popular cultural representations of masculinity, yet there is comparatively little research on the men who take up and perform these representations. Based on interviews with 12 men in the performing arts, including dance, theater, film, and television, we examine the everyday lived experiences of men in the arts, with a specific focus on the complex and dynamic processes by which normative masculine performances are materialized. Using Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, we argue that performances of normative masculinity in the arts are not nearly as stable and certain as we might imagine. Rather, normative masculinity is continuously formed and re-formed within an assemblage of discursive and nondiscursive relations that performatively materialize the seemingly stable white, heteronormative masculine subject.

Keywords

performing arts normative masculinity whiteness heteronormativity

. . . it is something of an irony that while representations of men’s bodies have become a pervasive feature of the visual landscape, in sociological research men themselves remain largely invisible and unheard on this topic.

—Gill et al. (2005, p. 41)

The scholarship tells us that we are in the midst of a new representational landscape, one where it is increasingly commonplace for the male body to be idealized and eroticized in ways that invite the desiring gaze of onlookers (Alexander, 2003; Atkinson, 2011; Bordo, 1999; Dworkin & Wachs, 2009; Gill et al., 2005). This framing of the male body as a surface to be gazed upon and desired has, for many social commentators, indicated the emergence of a new masculinity, or more appropriately, new masculinities, which are less defined by traditional markers as much as they are crafted within the plethora of representations on offer within postmodern consumer societies (see Alexander, 2003; Atkinson, 2011). What is of particular interest to us in this article is not so much the representational landscape itself, nor the manner in which ordinary boys and men negotiate this landscape. Rather, we examine how the men who exist behind these representations experience and perform the ideals of masculinity featured within the new visual landscape. In building on the quote by Gill and colleagues above, we suggest that if there is a dearth of research on how ordinary men experience this new visual landscape (see also Grogan, 2017; Monaghan & Atkinson, 2014), there is even less research on the performing artists—that is, the models, actors, and dancers—who are expected to embody these representations as part of their professional identities (Bryans, 2018; Saha, 2015). In particular, we examine the processes by which normative masculinity is materialized within the discursive and nondiscursive conditions of the performing arts. In so doing, we argue that notwithstanding the diversity of bodies, genders, desires, and material relations that characterize the subject area of our research (that is, “men in the performing arts”), a culturally intelligible construction of normative masculinity nonetheless takes form. In the following sections, we briefly overview the literature on men and masculinities and follow this with a summary of our theoretical framework. After outlining our methodology, we present four sections of findings, with each section shedding insight into the complex processes through which the heteronormative, white masculine subject is performatively materialized within the performing arts.

Locating Men and Masculinities

Scholars have identified that masculinities have continuously evolved over the course of history (Kimmel, 1996); however, the pace and meanings attached to contemporary change has been a source of significant research and debate (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). One novel and particularly contentious conceptual framework that has emerged to account for this change is the theory of inclusive masculinity (see Anderson, 2005, 2009). Proponents of this theory suggest that where dominant or hegemonic forms of masculinity were once constituted through the twin practices of hyper-masculinity and homophobia (see Mac an Ghaill, 1994; Pronger, 1999), with the decline of cultural homophobia—which is characterized as the “fear of being homosexualized” (Anderson, 2009, p. 7)—the landscape has opened up to alternative, more inclusive, masculinities. Drawing upon ethnographic studies on men’s experiences in cheerleading in the American context (Anderson, 2005), and the university dance floor (Peterson & Anderson, 2012) and secondary school (McCormack, 2011) in the British context, inclusive masculinity scholars have endeavored to demonstrate that the boundaries of exclusionary and hegemonic masculinities rooted in violence, misogyny, and homophobia have slowly given way to more inclusive masculine norms. These studies point to the loosening of social prohibitions against young, heterosexual men engaging in activities once considered the domain of the feminine (e.g., cheerleading) or nonheteronormative (e.g., same-sex kissing) as evidence of the flattening out of traditional hierarchies of masculinity. Although inclusive masculinity theory has garnered considerable attention and support both within men and masculinities scholarship and broader popular culture (see O’Neill, 2015), the theory is not without its critics.

Foremost among these critiques is that in emphasizing a “discourse of optimism about men, masculinities and social change” (O’Neill, 2015, p. 100), inclusive masculinity de-emphasizes the focus on sexual politics, or the understanding of gender relations as always already embedded in power relations. It is not just that power relations are ignored, rather inclusive masculinity assumes that relations of gender and sexual oppression, which are the concern of more radical approaches to feminist, gender, and sexuality studies, have been settled and that these theories and the social movements they inform are thus no longer necessary (De Boise, 2014; O’Neill, 2015). Nonetheless, the observation that the meanings and performances of masculinities are shifting is not limited to inclusive masculinity but is reflected in the broader literature on men and masculinities.

To characterize the evolving landscape of gendered power relations at play in late modernity, a new scholarly and popular cultural lexicon has emerged that variously includes terms such as the “meterosexual,” the “new man” and “hybrid” masculinities. Although these terms should not be conflated, each nonetheless shares in common a sense of departure from the rigid construction of traditional masculinities toward the more fluid masculinities of the contemporary moment. Media representations of masculinity are not immune from these broader socio-structural shifts. In his analysis of popular film and television in the American context, Burrill (2014) points to the emergence of the liminal masculine figure, which he refers to as the “other guy.” Disoriented by the erosion of conventional coordinates of masculinity, the other guy is left to piece together a culturally recognizable identity in the space between stereotypical constructions of traditional “masculinity” and “femininity.” His liminal status means that he is uniquely positioned to simultaneously embody traits of both the masculine (e.g., the physically muscular and protective type), while remaining emotionally vulnerable and socially open to the predicaments of less powerful others (e.g., girls and women). The confusion that ensues as the other guy tries to find a place within the gender hierarchy has proven to be a commercially successful formula and can produce a fluid figure who is at once comedic, tragic, and heroic. However, Burrill (2014) suggests that the other guy harbors a subversive potential beyond entertainment value where, wrought as he is by multiple and competing social expectations, his social positioning opens the possibility for doing gender power relations otherwise.

Notwithstanding these emergent, more fluid masculinities, critical feminist, race, and media scholars are more cautious, if not skeptical, in their optimism. For instance, Bridges and Pascoe (2014) write that hybrid masculinities—or the processes wherein men incorporate fragments of “various ‘Others’ into their identity projects” (p. 246)—does not necessarily indicate a reworking of gender (or other identity) power relations, but rather are illustrative of the shape-shifting ways in which power relations operate (see also De Boise, 2014). In their research on processes of typecasting in British film and television, Friedman and O’Brien (2017) found that the pool of acting labor is organized according to the “deeply embedded social assumptions (about race, gender, class, age, disability and sexuality) held by playwrights, screenwriters, directors, and casting directors” (p. 559). Similarly, Saha (2013, 2015) found that increasingly commercialized theater productions serve to entrench, rather than disrupt, cultural stereotypes of race and ethnicity (and presumably normative gender performances of race and ethnicity), even when these productions are supported by government grants. This research suggests that discursive and nondiscursive relations converge at the level of cultural production in a manner that results in, on one hand, an overrepresentation of white, male, middle-class actors in the performing arts, while on the other hand, those who deviate from this embodied norm are relegated to marginalized, stereotypical roles (see Friedman & O’Brien, 2017; Saha, 2013, 2015; Yuen, 2017). Crucially, this research suggests that it is not enough to examine the end product alone (i.e., the cultural text itself), rather an accompanying interrogation of the processes by which the text is reiteratively materialized, and with what consequences for both performers and consuming audiences, is of equal—if not greater—importance. Indeed, there is a lack of research in this area (see Friedman & O’Brien, 2017; Saha, 2013, 2015), and this article goes some way to addressing this gap in the existing literature.

Theoretical Framework

One would be hard pressed to overstate the degree to which critical men’s and masculinities scholarship has been influenced by Raewyn Connell’s theorization of masculinities, in particular her concept of “hegemonic masculinity” (see Connell, 2005). However, there have been critiques of how scholars deploy the concept, with some suggesting that the inherent relationality and dynamism that is so important to Connell’s theorizations are all too often reduced to a set of traits or a fixed character types (see Connell, 2005; Jefferson, 2002). There have also been a number of questions about the theoretical framework itself, with some wondering why critical men and masculinity studies remain invested in the modernist framework of Gramscian cultural hegemony, while women’s, gender and queer studies have more or less made the poststructural—and, more recently, the new materialist (Coole & Frost, 2010)—turn (see Beasley, 2012; Petersen, 1998; Waling, 2019). When focusing on media representations, this is perhaps justifiable, given that hegemonic masculinity is a term of generalization that functions best at the broadest level (Pringle, 2005). However, when examining the “behind the scenes” intersubjective processes that go into constructing the “scene,” or those culturally intelligible performances of bodily masculinity that appear on stage, film, or television, a more dynamic theoretical approach appears necessary. To interrogate these complex and dynamic processes, we use Judith Butler’s theory of performativity.

Judith Butler’s (1990, 1993, 1997, 2004) theory of performativity, a cornerstone in the evolution of gender, feminist, and queer studies (Milani, 2019), seeks to deconstruct or “undo” the normative categories that structure how people live their everyday lives. Performativity offers a pathway for examining the complex power relations between the body, performance, and language. For Butler, gender is not an expression of an essential self, but rather is a performance whereby the gendered subject is reiteratively constituted through everyday practices. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s (1972) definition of discourse as those “practices that systematically produce the objects of which they speak” (p. 49), Butler was able to see gender as continually produced through everyday practices, including through linguistic (e.g., gender declarations—“it’s a boy!”) and embodied (e.g., so many stylizations of the body, including gestures, dress, and ways of occupying space) performativities. Central to this analysis is how the gendered subject is performatively constituted in and through discursive power relations, where “[p]ower acts on the subject in at least two ways: first, as what makes the subject possible, the condition of its possibility, and second, as what is taken up and reiterated in the subject’s ‘own’ acting” (Butler, 1997, p. 14). In this way, gender is an ongoing or reiterative enactment, where the self becomes recognizable as a particular type of self or subject—in this case, as a gendered subject—through citing, performing, and embodying gendered discursive conditions of possibility. However, if the conditions of possibility of the gendered subject exist in the reiterative citation of gender discourses—that is, in performing gender norms—possibilities for re-signifying or redoing gender also exist in and through reiteration.

As Butler notes, the gap between the norm and its citation harbors subversive potential. On this point, Butler (1993) explains that if gender is “an assignment, it is an assignment which is never quite carried out according to expectation, whose addressee never quite inhabits the ideal s/he is compelled to approximate” (p. 231). In reiteratively performing gender norms, in other words, there is always a degree of slippage, where the doer never quite performs the normative ideal with perfect execution, and in doing it wrong, opens up the possibility for undoing or re-signifying gender. Here, subversion does not reside outside of, and in opposition to, the conditions of possibility, given that the subject is always already constituted in and through these very conditions. Rather, subversion is to be found in practicing a form of redoing that serves to undo normative gender relations. On this point, Butler (1990) writes that the “task is not whether to repeat, but how to repeat or, indeed, to repeat and, through a radical proliferation of gender, to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself” (emphasis in original, p. 189). Although pivotal to the development of gender and queer studies, Butler’s theoretical framework is not without its critics.

Neo-materialist scholars, for example, argue that Butler’s writing leaves little room for those more-than-discursive “aspects of experience and reality that do not present themselves in propositional or even in verbal form” (Sedgwick, 2003, p. 6), including aspects such as the affective (see Ahmed, 2010; Sedgwick, 2003) and material (see Barad, 2003; Coole & Frost, 2010) dimensions of reality. They argue that within Butler’s writing, the affective and material dimensions, including corporeality itself, are reduced to a “passive product of discursive practices rather than active agents participating in the very process of materialization” (Barad, 2003, p. 821; see also Norman & Moola, 2019). However, for many of Butler’s detractors, this critique is not a matter of discarding the theory of performativity, but rather building upon its many contributions by exploring the “entangled nature of the material and discursive” whereby it is acknowledged that the “material is always already discursively produced, and the discursive is always already materially produced” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, p. 111). In terms of this article, this means examining the entanglement of discourses, historical conditions, cultural practices, embodied dispositions, and material and affective relations within which a particular normative ideal of masculinity—that is, a white, heteronormative masculinity—is reiteratively constituted in the performing arts.

Methodological Considerations

In the spring and summer of 2013, 12 one-on-one interviews were conducted with men in the performing arts, including theater, dance, film, and television. Ages of the participants ranged between 23 and 33 years of age, with an average age of 28 years old. Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling as well as recruitment notices posted on public performing arts’ websites. Although the study was based in Canada, participants were internationally diverse, with six identifying as citizens of Canada, three as British, and three as American. Three interviews were conducted face-to-face, while the other nine were conducted using either the phone or Skype. Eight of the participants self-identified as white, two as black, one as Asian, and one as of mixed European and Aboriginal ancestry (Métis). Although participants were not specifically asked to identify sexual orientation, over the course of the interview six self-identified as “gay” or “queer,” four as “straight” or “heterosexual,” and two did not identify at all. Interviews ranged between 23 minutes and 1 hour and 20 minutes, with the average duration being 63 minutes. All interviews were conducted by the second author, who is himself a former professional actor, with his knowledge and experience in the arts imparting him with an “insider status” that facilitated deep and nuanced conversations. Broadly speaking, participants were asked to share their embodied experiences as professionals in the performing arts, with questions related to their health practices, bodily expectations in their respective artistic genres, and their body-based projects related to the arts (e.g., diet and exercise).

Initially, an extremely narrow set of inclusion criteria were employed, with professional men in the arts being recruited, where “professional” was defined as men whose primary income was derived through their artistic performances. However, it was quickly realized that this narrow definition was unsatisfactory as it failed to account for the precarious labor conditions of the performing arts, where many artists often secure additional work to sustain their careers in cultural industries (Morgan & Wood, 2014). Such a limitation also had the unintended effect of privileging more commercialized artistic ventures, where work was more lucrative, although it is important to acknowledge the differences that exist between the artistic industries (Percival & Hesmondhalgh, 2014). This was a critical realization because as the participants made clear, commercialized venues were more likely to adhere to normative constructions of white, heterosexual, cis-gendered masculinities, as compared to some less commercial, more “experimental” productions, where normative constructions (of sexuality and gender, at least) were in many instances explicitly challenged and resisted. Recognizing that diverse and potentially resistive ways of performing gender—as well as embodied subjectivities more generally—existed for many men who were performing for a stipend or no financial remuneration at all, the monetary-based definition of “professional” was dropped, and the focus was instead on training and active performances in the arts as the defining criteria of professionalism. In this regard, participants’ work experiences in the arts ranged from those working in poorly paid, local, often grant-funded productions all the way up to commercially successful films, syndicated television shows and international dance productions, and everything in-between.

Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and submitted to a theoretically informed thematic analysis (see Braun et al., 2016). Using Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, we were able to approach the data in a decentred, antifoundational, and fluid manner (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). Indeed, a performative treatment of knowledge suggests that the data do not hold a single, truthful narrative that is to be found through exhaustive analysis. Rather, knowledge production is understood as a worlding process, whereby the researcher is implicated in the being and becoming of the very phenomenon they are observing and writing about (Sedgwick, 2003). With this theoretical approach in mind, we did not ask “what does the subject intend?,” where such a line of questioning centers the liberal humanist subject as foundational and existing outside of discourse. Rather, we pursued the complex discursive and more-than-discursive relations that simultaneously enable and foreclose the possibilities of the speaking (and acting) subject and, in so doing, constitute the subject as a subject in the first instance (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). At this point, it is important to distinguish between theatrical performance, where the humanist subject consciously puts on and performs a particular identity (e.g., performs a gendered character) and Butler’s notion of performativity. For Butler, the subject does not pre-exist the performance, but rather the subject comes into being through the reiterative performance of discursive normativities, including norms of gender and sexuality. In this article, as we are interrogating how actors, who are themselves always already becoming gendered, sexed, and raced subjects through their everyday performativities, are asked to take up and perform particular theatrical roles and, in performing these roles, are materializing or naturalizing the very embodied categories they are representing. It is at the nexus of this complex relationship between the performance and the performative that this article is situated.

With this framework in mind, the transcripts were read, reread, and coded and, based on recursive readings and codings, four over-arching themes emerged as particularly relevant. These themes have been divided into sections, with the first section examining the materialization of ideal masculinity in the performing arts as a “branded” version of masculinity, while the second section explores how heteronormativity is at the core of performing idealized masculinity in the arts. The third and fourth sections examine how normative masculinity is always already constituted in and through interlocking relations with racial performativities. In keeping with the artistic genre that is the focus of this article, along with Butler’s theory of performativity, we refer to the themes as enactments, with each of these four enactments serving to materialize a culturally intelligible normative masculinity.

Enacting Normative Masculinity in Four Acts

Your Body is “Your Business Card”

The performing arts, one participant suggested, are about putting on and performing “an idea.” Increasingly, a constitutive condition of successfully performing this idea for men in the arts is the embodiment of the ideal of a taut, muscular, and attractive bodily masculinity. This idea(l) is perhaps best characterized by the film and television actors, who all pointed to the “leading man” as the epitome of this ideal. Although the ideal of the leading man loomed large in the narratives of the men, it was nonetheless acknowledged that it is not necessarily a consistent expectation across the performing arts. Rather, expectations vary with geographic context, different character roles, and across diverse artistic forms, where dance, film, and television were generally considered to uphold narrower bodily ideals than those found in theater. However, irrespective of context, role, or artistic medium, participants suggested that the more commercialized the production, the narrower the bodily expectations (see also Saha, 2013, 2015). Notwithstanding the prominence of the leading man in participant narratives, there were other less prominent, albeit stereotypical, embodied masculinities discussed. Here, the body was positioned as a critical dimension of an actor’s artistic brand or “hit,” a term used in film and television to describe the potential roles a specific body type can or cannot perform (e.g., a cop, the average guy, and racialized other).

Regardless of whether one was performing the role of the leading man or a more marginalized role (e.g., the “fat uncle”), the men understood that they needed to commodify or “brand” themselves to be successful in the industry. As such, discursive constructions of masculinity interpellated the men toward materializing a recognizable masculinity as a constitutive condition of their acting subjectivities. Branding a particular bodily masculinity, therefore, was a pivotal enactment, where the body was worked on, trained, decorated, and molded into a marketable commodity that has value within a specific artistic market. Rick, a 27-year-old film and television actor, commented:

[Your body is] your temple [laughs]. It’s what you have, it’s all that you have. It’s your business card, it’s your everything [. . .] I sort of started to kick my own butt a little while ago, I’m like, there are so many things you don’t have control of in this industry, and the one thing you do have control of is how you take care of yourself [physically].

And Leo (24-year-old dancer) shared,

[T]hinking of myself as a brand [. . . is] an empowering thing for me. I see thinking of myself as a brand as a way to hone my unique and specific style as a solo performer and to have something that separates my work in the field as different and unique. I can fashion what my brand is [. . .] certainly because of Twitter and social media, I’m very conscious of Twitter and Facebook, and the fact that I’m always representing myself as a brand, not just as a person.

Many of the men took up very complex and nuanced positions in relation to these bodily masculinities, with some men critiquing the narrow bodily idealss, while others pointed to the sense of control, pleasure, and empowerment that they found in working on producing a specific embodied brand of masculinity. All of the men shared stories of feeling vulnerable, exploited, and under-valued within the performing arts, with these feelings pointing to a sense of loss of control. Therefore, the ability to take control of, and mold one’s flesh into a unique brand, offered a sense of empowerment and control for some of the men, even though such control was described as precarious.

For other men, however, the body was understood as a constraint in that the potential to mold and fashion the flesh into a specific role or “hit” was not unlimited. This gave rise to a number of anxieties, as the participants talked about the competing expectations between the bodily masculinities the industry coveted and their own bodily realities that impeded their ability to perform particular roles. For example, participants talked about having a physical disability (e.g., a speech impediment and a heavy gait), being too tall or not tall enough, too old, too hairy, too big, bulky or fat, as all posing limitations to their ability to construct and perform a specific “hit.” However, the disconnect between the physical body and discursively constructed ideals of embodied masculinity not only served to expose the limits of the individual to master and manipulate their bodies, it also opened up possibilities for critique or for thinking about embodiment otherwise. For example, several of the participants talked about how the bodies portrayed in the performing arts failed to reflect the diversity of bodily masculinities in everyday life, thus perpetuating an unrealistic and narrowly constructed representation of “normal” masculinity.

Typecasting would be another, more commonly used, term to describe an actor’s “hit.” Friedman and O’Brien (2017) suggest that there are two inter-related ways of defining typecasting, with the first being the way in which an actor becomes known for playing a particular role based on previous performances, whereas the second, more maligned, meaning relates to an actor being cast as a particular type based on their embodied characteristics (e.g., body shape and size, gender or race). Although seemingly a benign way of organizing the talent pool, typecasting becomes problematic when “types” end up constraining actors within stereotypical discourses of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability that foreclose other, more fluid and diverse, performances (Yuen, 2017). In the following section, we examine how sexuality was a pivotal enactment of normative masculinity.

“They Don’t Want Guys Who Look Like Queens”

Heteronormativity was positioned as being critical to the materialization of normative masculinity in the performing arts, and the lean and muscular masculine body was deemed to be part of this performance. On this point, Juri, a 23-year-old dancer/singer, shared:

Well, I would say, appearance-wise [. . .] being in the UK, auditioning [. . .] I would be concerned about how I looked. Because right now, the big thing for the UK, and I would say most of the dance industry, is guys who look like men, and who are big. [. . . A] singer like myself would sort of struggle. Like I went for an audition last year for We Will Rock You and I got through a couple of rounds, but at the end, when it got down to it, I was one of the slimmer guys, and they were like, “you’re just too small.” So I think body image for guys is a massive thing right now. [. . . E]specially in the commercial dance world, they want muscular looking guys who look like men. They don’t want guys who look like queens, they don’t want fat guys, they don’t want super skinny guys, they just want this one certain type.

Masculinity has a “look” and that look is of men “who look like men,” not men “who look like queens,” a bodily ideal that Juri himself falls short of fulfilling. However, his critique of this ideal was not to question the narrow confines of this “certain type” of bodily masculinity but more to express concern at his own inability to embody this ideal. Although many men did question narrow ideals of masculinity, while still others went one step further, challenging these ideals in their respective art forms, most men were critically complicit. By this, we mean that the men adopted competing discourses, where they simultaneously acknowledged the limitations of the heteronormative look of masculinity, an ideal that many were quick to point out was completely disconnected from the diversity of men in the performing arts and even more so from the general population of “average men.” At the same time, however, they carefully explained why tall, attractive, and muscular bodies, bodies that had the “look,” were necessary in the performing arts, thus simultaneously adopting a critical and complicit stance toward these ideals. Few of the men explicitly critiqued the heteronormative imperative that lay at the core of this look.

Although most of the participants remained relatively silent about the heteronormativity of ideal masculinities in the arts, this silence should not necessarily be read as outright complicity. Rather, the paucity of critique reflects the historical and cultural conditions of possibility that reiteratively constitute the gendered subject by constraining some performances (i.e., diverse performances of gender and sexuality) while enabling and inciting others (i.e., heteronormative masculinity). This silence, nonetheless, served to normalize the “heterosexual matrix,” which Butler (1990) defines as the “grid of intelligibility through which bodies, genders and desires are naturalized” (Butler, 1990, p. 151). In other words, the men naturalized the processes by which the relationship between the sexed body, gender identity, and heterosexual desire take on a seemingly coherent heterosexual shape, with Nathan’s comments illustrating this relationship

[I]n my opinion, guys who dance on stage should still look like guys. Like, I’m gay but I don’t want to come across to the audience as being a big gay guy, not because I’m ashamed to be [gay] but because when you’re dancing with a woman, [the audience] want to see, you know, they want to see boy and girl. They want to see a relationship between them, and, you know, intenseness, I guess. They want to see a performance. [. . .] If you were doing a number that was overtly camp and that was what you wanted . . . then that’s fine. But I don’t want to watch a guy onstage who looked overtly camp, or like a woman, or um, who, you know, just, just could come across as a guy. Because I think, also it’s important for being a male dancer. Like you want to kind of maintain the fact that guys can dance regardless of their sexuality or whatever. Like, it can still be a manly thing.

According to Nathan, audiences desire familiar and comforting performances that fulfill a culturally intelligible romantic script, one characterized by identifiable performances of gender difference and heterosexual intensity. These desires do not emerge from a psychic interiority, as is often imagined, but are the effect of the repetition of normative ideals of sex, gender, and desire that sediment over time. We agree with scholars who note that cultural producers (e.g., screenwriters, directors, and casting agents) are part of a complex entanglement of relations that incite gendered and raced performances (Friedman & O’Brien, 2017; Yuen, 2017), a theme that we also found in our research. For example, one participant suggested, “choregraphers tell me to project in a certain way, to carry my chest in a certain way. [They are always] enacting their fantasies of maleness upon me” (Josh, 33 year-old, theater actor). However, as Nathan indicates above, we also found that the desires of audiences have a constitutive effect, inciting particular gendered, sexed, and raced performances. In this way, the desires of audiences, cultural producers as well as those of the actors themselves are entangled in a complexity of relations that serve to materialize the heteronormative masculine subject.

With the exception of when the performance calls for “overtly camp” routines, falling short of these sex-gender expectations has punitive consequences for Nathan and other men in the performing arts. Indeed, failure to produce a recognizable, heteronormative masculinity within the dance routine results in, they suggested, a poor or a nonentertaining performance that could very well result in the loss of work. However, the stakes are far more significant than this, as Butler suggests, in that doing gender right—that is, in embodying gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality—is fundamental to the emergence of the human subject in the first instance. Therefore, Nathan’s heteronormative performance of masculinity is more than just “putting on a mask” behind which the real or authentic self is disguised. Drawing upon the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Butler famously argues that there is no being behind the doing, in other words, a “big gay guy” does not pre-exist the doing. Rather, the “truthful” or authentic sexed and gendered subject is reiteratively materialized on the surface of the body through a stylized repetition of acts that includes practices of moving, projecting, and shaping the body, ways of speaking and dressing, and performatively relating to other bodies on the stage, all of which serve to stabilize and normalize what is in fact a highly precarious matrix of gender intelligibility.

Nathan’s description of himself as a “big gay guy” performing heteronormative masculinity harbors the potential to disrupt the seemingly coherent relationship between the sexed body, gender identity, and sexuality. Indeed, Nathan understands his dance to be subversive, disrupting on one hand, the dominant construction that assumes queer men cannot perform normative masculinity, while on the other hand, unsettling the dominant assumption that men who dance are gay (“guys can dance regardless of their sexuality”) (see Buchbinder, 2013). However, the transgressive potential of these disruptions is limited in that they transpire through recuperating and thus further naturalizing the heterosexual matrix. On this point, Butler argues that gender parody is not, in and of itself, subversive. Rather, such parodic gender performances can be recuperated, “domesticated and recirculated as instruments of cultural hegemony” (p. 139), thus stabilizing as opposed to subverting, the heterosexual matrix. Truly transgressive gender performances would, according to Butler, be those dance routines that reveal the plurality and arbitrariness of relations between gender, sex, and desire. In the following section, we argue that race—and more specifically, performatives of whiteness—are also pivotal to the materialization of normative masculinity in the performing arts.

Whiteness and Masculinity in Performing Arts

The power of historical representations within the performing arts were vital to how the men talked about the male body in the contemporary context, influencing how the white performers invested in whiteness as a seemingly natural outcome of history. Juri notes that

Most people [in the audience] know the name of the show they’re seeing, and that’s what they sort of—especially a show that was a film originally—they want to come see the film onstage [. . .] I think a show like that, which has had a name and is very famous, anyone who’d liked the film when they were a kid, like the older generation now would go and watch that show.

The coherence between bodies, roles, and historical representations served to powerfully influence a sense of belonging that formed around the familiarity of white bodies performing roles that have always been white (e.g., leading Disney characters). These feelings of comfort and belonging are the felt borders of whiteness—a social body that is performatively materialized as much through those bodies that are included (i.e., white bodies), as it is through those that are excluded (i.e., bodies of color).

In her phenomenological account, Ahmed (2007) describes whiteness as an “ongoing and unfinished history, which orientates bodies in specific directions, affecting how they ‘take up’ space, and what they ‘can do’” (p. 149). Rather than approaching whiteness as a fixed ontological surface (i.e., the white body), Ahmed provides the conceptual tools that allow us to understand whiteness as produced through the reiteration of historically sedimented norms that serve to orient bodies in both physical and social space and, in so doing, (re)produce the very contours of whiteness in the contemporary moment. This is not to suggest, however, that the materiality of the body is irrelevant but that the material and symbolic power and authority of whiteness—its socio-spatial belonging—is continuously formed and re-formed within an assemblage of discursive and nondiscursive relations. In particular, Ahmed (2007) is interrogating how spaces come to be orientated around and thus comfortable for, white bodies. She writes that

[t]o be comfortable is to be so at ease with one’s environment that it is hard to distinguish where one’s body ends and the world begins. One fits, and by fitting the surfaces of the body disappears from view. White bodies are comfortable as they inhabit spaces that extend their shape. The bodies and spaces “point” towards each other, as a “point” that is not seen as it is also “the point” from which we see. (p. 158)

Applying this to our analysis, white bodies “fit” within the performing arts, where this “fitting in” is never a point of arrival, a finished journey. Rather, fitting in is an unfinished history, a process that is materialized through the repetition of historically contingent norms. As part of this process, whiteness serves to orientate bodies, shaping the vantage point from which the world is “seen,” as reflected in Juri’s remarks.

I think it would probably kind of look strange with a black man in that show [Singing in the Rain]. But I think they probably would cast someone of a different race in that show, cause there’s nothing really saying that they shouldn’t be. But it’s horrible, because we are in an industry where you can almost be racist, you know? That’s just how the industry’s always been, and how it will be, because things will look right for the piece.

A historically dissonant performance—that is, one that fails to repeat the history of whiteness—registers on the borders of the social body of whiteness as an “intensification of feeling” (Ahmed, 2010) that simultaneously marks the transgression and, through this transgression, provokes a reaction (i.e., something feels and looks “strange”). This intensification of feeling serves to reaffirm and stabilize the very boundaries that were transgressed in the first instance (i.e., the comforting familiarity of whiteness). In contrast, the reiteration of whiteness is barely discernable (for white performers, at least). Here, whiteness was presumed to be normal, to “look right,” to fit within historical conventions. This sense of comfort and familiarity was presumed to be shared by others, including audiences who grew up watching old movies dominated by white actors, with these feelings of comfort and belonging being precisely what Ahmed refers to when she talks about whiteness as an ongoing and unfinished history that organizes bodies in space (i.e., which bodies do/not belong on film, television and the stage) and bodily practices (i.e., what roles differently racialized bodies can and cannot perform). In organizing the spaces and practices of the performing arts around historically contingent norms of whiteness, the performing arts is also always already future oriented, shaping the white masculine performatives that are to come but have not yet arrived (see Ahmed, 2010; Butler, 1993).

For many of the white artists, the apparent banality of whiteness was expressed in the presumption that race rarely factored into casting decisions except when the part called for people of color (e.g., The Color Purple and The Lion King were mentioned as two examples). Here, race is assumed to equal non-white, whereas whiteness is positioned as the uninterrogated norm. In this regard, it is not that there were no roles for actors of color, but more that the roles that existed called specifically for actors of color. In this way, white bodies are able to perform the role of the universal human subject—that is, they are able to represent and occupy the position of being “just human”—whereas actors of color are always anchored to the specificity of their racial subjectivity (see Dyer, 1997). However, when actors of color were cast in roles that were historically performed by white bodies, this casting was positioned as unnatural, forced, and in violation of historical convention and, in this regard, was considered to be a very conscious and a decidedly political(ly correct) decision, as Nathan explains below.

[A]s mean and cruel as this sounds, I think it really depends on the role that you’re going for. [. . . T]ake musicals as a classic example [. . . like a production of] Disney cartoons. They’re not going to hire a black girl to play Sleeping Beauty, because the movie that they made back in the day, [it was a white girl]. And now, years down the line, they did the Frog Princess, and for the first time ever it was a black princess. You know, which is cool, you know, who cares? But it’s almost like they’ve done it to make a point.

Although several of the men shared a relatively robust critical awareness of the history of white bodies in the performing arts, this recognition for the most part existed at a systemic or abstract level (i.e., the recognition that something needs to change). However, when this critique was applied to the particular—when it actually meant reorienting and decentering the white spaces and practices of the performing arts—the commitment to change softened and the normative privilege of whiteness began to reassert itself. Leo, a 29-year-old theater actor, explains that

As an actor, I’m sure there are times when I’m more considered for parts because I am white. But there are also times when I think, with the great intention of making sure casts are diverse, I know that there are decisions that are made maybe because of race, in terms of choosing a black or an Asian actor. Which I think is good, but I know it has come into play. Like, there have been times where there have been parts that I’ve had call backs for, and great feed-back for, and you know, it’s like, I almost got this part. And this is maybe just one situation where I saw the performer, who was black, and was really not very good for the part, and so I was like, “hmmm—maybe race had more to do with it than I thought.”

Even though Leo tacitly acknowledges his white privilege, it becomes evident that, from his situated orientation, race only really becomes a pressing matter—as in something more than an abstract idea—when bodies of color are cast for roles historically occupied by white bodies. In Leo’s narrative, the surface of white bodies cease to blend in and whiteness is no longer the normative backdrop, but itself becomes racialized. And once racialized, it is embedded within a discourse of equality (i.e., “decisions are made based on race both ways”), where whiteness is reoriented as merely one race among others. This discursive maneuver not only erases the historical and ongoing processes that are generative of white privilege and, more specifically, the white masculine subject as the universal human but also positions whiteness as under threat and equally vulnerable to unjust decision-making processes. As we examine in the section below, the discourse of racial equality disavows the epistemic (and, indeed, and ontological) violence enacted on non-white bodies in the arts.

“Is There a Part for Me in This?”

There was the perception among many of the white actors that, in certain contexts, there was racial and ethnic diversification of roles for actors in the performing arts. Kyle, a 33-year-old film and television actor, remarks that

in Canada . . . being a visual minority can actually get you into more [auditions] faster, and even get you some parts faster. Like, if you are well-spoken, well-educated, classically trained, black actor, let’s say, you’re going to get more auditions, and book more work, than a white actor with the same credentials, just because [. . . there is] a lot of minority casting is going on in this city [Toronto], which is great because it was so reversed for so long.

However, perceptions of racial diversification in the arts were not shared by the actors of color interviewed. To the contrary, the black actors in particular suggested that there were limited roles available to them and the few there were tended to be embedded within narrow racial discourses that objectified the black body. Although objectification through typecasting was a consistent theme across all of the men’s narratives, it would nonetheless be a mistake to flatten out and treat all of these experiences of objectification as though they were equal. On this point, Yuen (2017) notes that typecasting is structurally different for white actors where, in most cases, “white actors can simply put on and take off” typecast roles, whereas for actors of color “racial stereotypes compromise the[ir] personal integrity” (p. 81). Unlike white actors, racially stereotyped roles force actors of color to bear the burden of representing their race, a fact that they are painfully conscious of (Yuen, 2017). These actors understand that reiteratively performing these stereotyped roles as a condition of securing success and recognition within the arts may perpetuate and materialize racialized ontologies.

Of his experiences as a black man, Franz Fanon wrote that “[a]ll I wanted was to be a man among other men. I wanted to come lithe and young into a world that was ours and to help build it together” (Fanon, 1967, pp. 112–113). Fanon found that rather than being “a man among other men” he was instead an “object in the midst of other objects” (p. 110); in other words, the world was already made in the reflection of the white imaginary and, as a black man, he was reduced to a fixed and objectified category within this world. Sheldon, a 29-year-old theater actor, described his experiences in the theater arts in a manner that bore a distressing resemblance to Fanon’s, where he described his embodied black masculinity as being fashioned and refashioned into the objectified “category” of the “black body.”

I was aware of my body as a young man, and I was aware that my body needed to look a certain way, and be presented a certain way. So the role of my body was making sure that it fit that category of this young, black actor, whatever that was. [. . .] Actually, when I got out of school I wasn’t very aware of my body, so to me it was just an image. So I thought of it that way, I worked with it that way. This was what I needed to look like. So there was no connection between myself as an artist and the body, because it was just an image [. . .] It was like I needed to represent whatever it is they needed, so I carried it that way. So if they needed it to be this way, I represented it that way for them.

In his early career, Sheldon understood and experienced his body in relation to an “image,” not of his own creation, but nonetheless one that he felt compelled to embody. He explains that “in my mind the African male body is tall and big and muscular, and there is nothing slender, and so nothing [about my body] compares” to this ideal of black masculinity. When it comes to the “black body” that is “needed” within the performing arts, not any body will do. Rather, what is needed is a stereotypical black masculinity, a body that is recognizable to white fantasies of what black masculinity should be, as opposed to what it actually is in everyday lived contexts. This image of black masculinity is crafted, Fanon (1967) explains, within the matrix of white supremacy, “woven . . . out of a thousand details, anecdotes and stories” (p. 111) that, when taken together, form the popular cultural figure of the big, muscular, hyper-aggressive or excessively demure, emotionless, and more-body-than mind black male (Bordo, 1999; hooks, 2004; Yuen, 2017). Crucially, these forms of recognition not only press down upon and constrain Sheldon’s ability to imagine black masculinity otherwise, but were also taken up as though they were his own, powerfully influencing how he understood and related to his embodied subjectivity. Here, recognition is not understood in terms of freedom and human dignity, as liberal humanist models would maintain, but rather as the very foundation of ongoing and multifaceted processes of domination, where black masculinity is reiteratively materialized within asymmetrical relations of race and gender (Coulthard, 2014; Fanon, 1967).

These asymmetrical relations of recognition are not merely about domination and control of black bodies. Rather, the objectification of black bodies plays an important function in historical and ongoing processes of materializing whiteness—and white masculinity more specifically—as the universal human subject. As Thomas (1996) explains, the materialization of normative masculinity requires that the “question of the body—of its speakability, its visibility, its representability—historically has been displaced onto the other” (p. 12), most notably feminine and racialized others. Here, the white body does not merely exist as the unmarked norm, or the universal human subject, but rather becomes unmarked through performativities that mark the bodiliness of others, including through casting violent, hyper-sexualized, emotionless, or passive (e.g., the stereotype of the uncle Tom) performances of black masculinity (see Yuen, 2017). Recognizing that performances of black masculinity are not in and of themselves transgressive, the question is not only if there are roles for black (and non-white) actors in the arts but also what are these roles and do these performatives open up spaces for doing racialized masculinities otherwise, thereby subverting dominant constructions of normative masculinity? Ultimately, for Sheldon, the constraints of the race-based roles he was expected to perform in mainstream productions proved too limiting. In response, he crafted a relatively successful career by drawing on different discourses of race, gender, and sexuality, transitioning into alternative spaces (e.g., queer theater) as well as taking up cultural production practices (e.g., screen writing), where he sought to performatively fashion black masculinities otherwise. However, Sheldon acknowledged that these alternative sites were embedded in their own constraining and enabling conditions of possibility, a theme we will explore elsewhere.

Conclusion

With the four thematic enactments above, we have argued that when examining the complex and messy experiences of men in the performing arts what we find is not a singular and fixed version of masculinity, but multiple and fluid subjectivities. Notwithstanding this messiness, once these men are on the stage, behind the camera, or on film these complexities are constrained in the materialization of a relatively singular and culturally intelligible version of heteronormative white masculinity—especially in more commercialized art forms. It is this more or less singular representation of masculinity that comes to be dominant, or hegemonic, within popular culture (see Scharrer, 2013). In arguing this, we concede the pluralization of masculinities within popular media (see Burrill, 2014), as well as in everyday life (see Anderson, 2005, 2009; Atkinson, 2011; Monaghan & Atkinson, 2014; Norman, 2011, 2013), but we nonetheless maintain that these diverse masculinities are neither inherently transgressive, nor do they have the powerful grip on the imaginary of viewing audiences as does the representation of the white, heteronormative ideal of masculinity. This is a critical point because, as others have argued, media representations have the power and scope to shape constructions of normative masculinity for audiences, foreclosing some performatives, while enabling, celebrating, and normalizing others. Deconstructing the role mediated masculinities play in shaping normative and hierarchical power relations is all the more pressing given that, on one hand, there has been a simultaneous rise in neoconservativism and the backlash against feminism and other social justice movements while, on the other hand, processes of neoliberal globalization have resulted in the transnational circulation of media representations of normative masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Pini & Pease, 2013). Revealing, as we do in this article, that seemingly stable representations of normative masculinity in the performing arts are in fact highly precarious performatives that are materialized within an assemblage of unstable discursive and nondiscursive relations is one step toward decentering, disrupting, and destabilizing these representations and their attendant power relations. A further step would be to examine how men in the arts subvert or resist normative masculinity, as well as exploring the conditions of possibility (e.g., geographical context, artistic medium, diverse audiences, funding structures, and so on) that create (or constrain) spaces for subversive performances. Indeed, the over-arching goal, as others have suggested, is to problematize discourses of difference and their regulatory effects by fostering a multiplicity of relations between bodies, desires, and performances that, in their complex fluidities, refuse to congeal into the normative constructions that performatively regulate embodied subjectivities.

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.

ORCID iD

Moss Edward Norman

Author Biographies

Moss E. Norman is an assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. His research explores the intersection between physical activity, the body and identity.

John Bryans holds a masters degree in sociology from Concordia University (2018) and a bachelors degree in kinesiology from the University of Manitoba (2015). He is a professional actor and podcaster and employs media and creative arts in his research methodology.

References

Ahmed

(2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8(2), 149–168.

Ahmed

(2010). The cultural politics of emotions. Routledge.

Alexander

S. M.

(2003). Stylish hard bodies: Branded masculinity in Men’s Health magazine. Sociological Perspectives, 46(4), 535–554.

Anderson

(2005). Orthodox and inclusive masculinity: Competing masculinities among heterosexual men in a feminized terrain. Sociological Perspectives, 48(3), 337–355.

Anderson

(2009). Inclusive masculinity: The changing nature of masculinities. Routledge.

Atkinson

(2011). Deconstructing men and masculinity. Oxford University Press.

Barad

(2003). Posthumanitst performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs, 28(3), 801–831.

Beasley

(2012). Problematizing contemporary men/masculinities theorizing: The contribution of Raewyn Connell and conceptual-terminological tensions today. The British Journal of Sociology, 63(4), 747–765.

Bordo

(1999). The male body: A new look at men in public and private. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

10.

Braun

Clarke

Weate

(2016). Using thematic analysis in sport and exercise research. In Smith

Sparkes

(Eds.), Routledge handbook of qualitative research in sport and exercise (pp. 191–205). Routledge.

11.

Bridges

Pascoe

C. J.

(2014). Hybrid masculinities: New directions in the sociology of men and masculinities. Sociology Compass, 8(3), 246–258.

12.

Bryans

(2018). Type cast(e)-ing: Subversion and conformity in the embodied identities of fat male film and television actors [Unpublished Master’s thesis]. Concordia University.

13.

Buchbinder

(2013). Color and movement: The male dancer, masculinity and race in movies. In Jackson II

R. L.

Moshin

J. E.

(Eds.), Communicating marginalized masculinities: Identity politics in TV, film, and new media (pp. 65–79). Routledge.

14.

Burrill

D. A.

(2014). The other guy: Media masculinity within the margins. Peter Lang.

15.

Butler

(1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.

16.

Butler

(1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of sex. Routledge.

17.

Butler

(1997). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. Routledge.

18.

Butler

(2004). Undoing gender. Routledge.

19.

Connell

R. W.

(2005). Masculinities. University of California Press.

20.

Connell

R. W.

Messerschmidt

J. W.

(2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–859.

21.

Coole

Frost

(2010). New materialisms: Ontology, agency and politics. Duke University Press.

22.

Coulthard

G. S.

(2014). Red skin, white masks: Rejecting the colonial politics of recognition. University of Minnesota Press.

23.

De Boise

. (2014). I’m not homophobic, “I’ve got gay friends”: Evaluating the validity of inclusive masculinity. Men and Masculinities, 18(3), 318–339.

24.

Dworkin

S. L.

Wachs

F. L.

(2009). Body panic: Gender, health, and the selling of fitness. New York University Press.

25.

Dyer

(1997). White: Essays on race and culture. Routledge.

26.

Fanon

(1967). Black skin, white masks. Grove Press.

27.

Foucault

(1972). The archaeology of knowledge. Routledge.

28.

Friedman

O’Brien

(2017). Resistance and recognition: Responses to typecasting in British acting. Cultural Sociology, 11(3), 359–376.

29.

Gill

Henwood

Mclean

(2005). Body projects and the regulation of normative masculinity. Body and Society, 11(1), 37–62.

30.

Grogan

(2017). Body image: Understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children. Routledge.

31.

hooks

(2004). We real cool: Black men and masculinity. Routledge.

32.

Jackson

A. Y.

Mazzei

L. A.

(2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. Routledge.

33.

Jefferson

(2002). Subordinating hegemonic masculinity. Theoretical Criminology, 6(1), 63–88.

34.

Kimmel

(1996). Manhood in America. The Free Press.

35.

Mac an Ghaill

(1994). The making of men: Masculinities, sexualities and schooling. Open University Press.

36.

McCormack

(2011). Hierarchy without hegemony: Locating boys in an inclusive school setting. Sociological Perspectives, 54(1), 83–101.

37.

Milani

T. M.

(2019). Queer performativity. In Hall

Barrett

(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language and sexuality. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190212926.013.15

38.

Monaghan

L. F.

Atkinson

(2014). Introduction from myths to empirically grounded understandings: Researching men’s and boys’ physical cultures. In Monaghan

L. F.

Atkinson

(Eds.), Challenging myths of masculinity: Understanding physical cultures (pp. 1–14). Routledge.

39.

Morgan

Wood

(2014). Creative accommodations. Journal of Cultural Economy, 7(1), 64–78.

40.

Norman

M. E.

(2011). Embodying the double-bind of masculinity: Young men and discourses of normalcy, health, heterosexuality and individualism. Men and Masculinities, 14(4), 430–449.

41.

Norman

M. E.

(2013). “Dere’s not just one kind of fat”: Embodying the “skinny”-self through constructions of the fat masculine-other. Men and Masculinities, 16(4), 407–431.

42.

Norman

M. E.

Moola

(2019). The weight of (the) matter: A new material feminist approach to thin and fat oppressions. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Health, Illness & Medicine, 23(5), 497–515. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459317724856

43.

O’Neill

(2015). Whither critical masculinity studies? Notes on inclusive masculinity theory, postfeminism, and sexual politics. Men & Masculinities, 18(1), 100–120.

44.

Percival

Hesmondhalgh

(2014). Unpaid work in the UK television and film industries: Resistance and changing attitudes. European Journal of Communication, 29(2), 188–203.

45.

Petersen

(1998). Unmasking the masculine: “Men” and “identity” in a sceptical age. SAGE.

46.

Peterson

G. T.

Anderson

(2012). The performance of softer masculinities on the university dance floor. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 20(1), 3–15.

47.

Pini

Pease

(2013). Gendering methodologies in the study of men and masculinities. In Pini

Pease

(Eds.), Men, masculinities and methodologies (pp. 1–25). Palgrave Macmillan.

48.

Pringle

(2005). Masculinities, sport, and power: A critical comparison of Gramscian and Foucaultian inspired theoretical tools. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 29(3), 256–278.

49.

Pronger

(1999). Fear and trembling: Homophobia in men’s sport. In White

Young

(Eds.), Sport and gender in Canada (pp. 182–196). Oxford University Press.

50.

Saha

(2013). “Curry tales”: The production of race and ethnicity in the cultural industries. Ethnicities, 13(6), 818–837.

51.

Saha

(2015). The marketing of race and ethnicity in the cultural industries. In Connor

Oakley

(Eds.), The Routledge companion of cultural industries (pp. 512–521). Routledge.

52.

Scharrer

(2013). Preface: Communicating marginalized masculinities. In Jackson II

R. L.

Moshin

J. E.

(Eds.), Communicating marginalized masculinities: Identity politics in TV, film, and new media (pp. 159–173). Routledge.

53.

Sedgwick

(2003). Touching feeling: Affect, pedagogy, performativity. Duke University Press.

54.

Thomas

(1996). Male matters: Masculinity, anxiety, and the male body on the line. University of Illinois Press.

55.

Waling

(2019). Rethinking masculinity studies: Feminism, masculinity, and poststructural of agency and emotional reflexivity. Journal of Men’s Studies, 27(1), 89–107.

56.

Yuen

N. W.

(2017). Reel inequality: Hollywood actors and racism. Rutgers University Press.