The Media and the Models of Masculinity

In The Media and Models of Masculinity, Mark Moss presents a fascinating and incisive survey of the various ways masculinity is portrayed and embodied in the popular media. Informed by an arsenal of theories from the fields of sociology, media, and cultural studies, Moss deftly dissects the visual codes and conventions through which masculine identities have been written and re-written since the early twentieth century. Always perceptive and absorbing, the analysis draws on a wonderfully rich range of topics and case-studies-stretching from popular films and TV series to magazines, sports, and interior design. Lively, clued-up, and sharply observed, the book makes a thoroughly worthy contribution to a developing field.

Masculinity studies is on a roll. Two decades after Robert Bly heated up the men’s movement with Iron John: A Book about Men (CH, Mar’91, 28-4189), research on men has reached a boiling point. Also author of Toward the Visualization of History (CH, Jun’09, 46-5760) and other works, Moss raids two decades of research in interdisciplinary areas intersecting with masculinity studies–literature, popular culture, history, media. It is a platitude in academia that researchers either purvey new ideas or synthesize the ideas of others. Moss tends toward the latter, surveying hundreds of books and articles, some published as recently as 2010 (the bibliography runs ten pages). Still, he breaks new ground in chapter 6, “The Impact of the 1950s,” in which he shows the origins in that decade of male archetypes of the present time (slacker, dude, rebel). Beyond that, he takes on metrosexuality, the special relationship men have with their cars, the objects on a man’s desk as an extension of his identity, and sports “infotainment” on cable and satellite television. Moss has a penchant for the passive voice, but his prose is otherwise clear. Readers unfamiliar with masculinity studies would do well to start here.