Ironizing Masculinity: How Adolescent Boys Negotiate Hetero-Normative Dilemmas in Conversational Interaction

This article presents a discourse analytic examination of the ways that adolescent boys (ages 12–15) use irony to construct and resist hetero-normative forms of masculinity in social interaction. While there is a glut of macro-level analyses of irony and pastiche at the broader cultural level (in media, advertisements, etc.), there is a paucity of research detailing how “ordinary” men use irony at the level of the interpersonal. The present paper focuses on how several varieties of irony function in group conversations among adolescent boys, with particular attention given to ways that irony is instrumental in allowing the boys to simultaneously articulate and partly deny certain masculine positions. The findings are meant to be interpreted within a critical, sociopolitical context that is concerned with how the performance of certain types of masculine subjectivities becomes strategically useful in the overall survivability and adaptability of hegemonic masculinity.