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.
BuchananB. (2014). Portrayals of masculinity in the discovery channel’s deadliest catch. In SladeA. F.NarroA. J.BuchananB. P. (Eds.), Reality television: Oddities of culture (pp. 1-20). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
4.
BurrillD. A. (2014). The other guy: Media masculinity within the margins. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
5.
ButlerJ. (2011). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York, NY: Routledge.
6.
CarrollH. (2008). Men’s soaps: Automotive television programming and contemporary working-class masculinities. Television & New Media, 9, 263-283.
7.
ChampionJ. (2016). Survivor shows and caveman masculinity. The Popular Culture Studies Journal, 4, 240-258.
8.
ChristianT. A. (2016). The recuperation of wounded hegemonic masculinity on Doomsday Preppers. In ClarkL. A.FirestoneA.PharrM. F. (Eds.), The last midnight essays on apocalyptic narratives in millennial media (pp. 48-59). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
9.
ConnellR. W.MesserschmidtJ. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19, 829-859.
10.
DoyleB. (2012). The apocalypse is masculine—Masculinities in crisis in survivalist film. Interactive Media E-Journal, Masculine/Feminine, 8, 1-19.
11.
FaludiS. (1999). Stiffed: The betrayal of modern man. London, England: Chatto & Windus.
12.
FeaseyR. (2008). Masculinity and popular television. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
13.
FerrariM. P. (2014). “Born” survivors and their trickster cousins: Masculine primitive ideals and manly (re)creation on reality television. In SladeA. F.NarroA. J.BuchananB. P. (Eds.), Reality television: Oddities of culture (pp. 213-235). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
14.
GlaserB.StraussA. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. London, England: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
15.
HallS. (1974). The television discourse: Encoding and decoding. Education and Culture, 25, 8-14.
16.
HernandezL. H. (2014). “I was born this way”: The performance and production of southern masculinity in A&E’s Duck dynasty. In SladeA. F.NarroA. J.BuchananB. P. (Eds.), Reality television: Oddities of culture (pp. 21-38). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
O’SullivanS. E. M. (2017). Frontiersmen are the “real men” in Trump’s America: Hegemonic masculinity at work on U.S. cable’s version of blue-collar reality (Doctoral dissertation). University of Colorado Boulder.
ReissS.WiltzJ. (2004). Why people watch reality TV. Media Psychology, 6, 363-378.
29.
RoseR. L.WoodS. L. (2005). Paradox and the consumption of authenticity through reality television. Journal of Consumer Research, 32, 284-296.
30.
SteenbergL. (2014). “Get more action” on gladiatorial television: Simulation and masculinity on deadliest warrior. In WeberB. R. (Ed.), Reality gendervision: Sexuality and gender on transatlantic reality television (pp. 192-210). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
