124642 VO BEd 04.2: Cultural Theories and Popular Culture (2022W)

Masculinity as a gender practice is best understood as ‘a vague set of ideas, demands, stories and images about being a man’. Sociologist Raewyn Connell clarifies that “no masculinity arises except in a system of gender relations”(Connell, 1995). She identifies a hierarchy of masculinities: from its hegemonic version to its complicit, subordinate and marginalized varieties. Straight, white men usually occupy the hegemonic position whereas gay men have to content themselves with the subordinate and men of color with the marginalized position.

Students will get an introduction into Raewyn Connell’s masculinity hierarchies as well as Michael Kimmel’s concept of American manhood and Robert Staples’ and bell hooks’ take on masculinity and race in America. This course encourages students to take a critical look at naturalized assumptions about masculinities. Comics and films addressed in class will be scanned for depictions of masculinities they offer to their audiences, their representations of male bodies, male sexuality and masculine stereotypes.