Masculinity (Beckham case study)

.David Beckham

Identity and Masculinity

Images in the media inevitably involve identity and style.

Individual figures personify particular ideas of identity.

Signified through:

• Clothing
• Body Language
• Hair style
• Setting

What does identity mean?

Ones sense of ones’ self? 

Our sense of self is influenced by our adoption of social identities.

Social identity refers to how society sees us, in terms of whether we live up to the cultural expectations attached to the social roles we play.

Our sense of self therefore is partly structured by how others see us.

Collective Identities

The other way in which we acquire an identity involves recognition of both similarity and difference. We learn to share meanings with people we believe are like us. Too laugh at a joke what do both parties need to know/shared knowledge.

We might call this the collective identity.

We also distinguish ourselves as different from others. Identity therefore involves indicating we are not them.

Images of sports stars inevitably evoke ideas of national identity.

Identities as a means of understanding who we are obviously involve concepts of masculinity and femininity.

Pictures of Beckham have both expressed and challenged some of the dominant assumptions about masculinity and identity.

Football

Fatherhood

Fashion

Playing with the look

His number one haircut and tattoos seem almost a parody of the ‘hard look. Almost a postmodern irony.

Pictured on the front of The Face magazine blood spattered with a mowhawk haircut. Intertextaul references to Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver.

Appeared in a Christlike pose in TimeOut

One of the features of Beckhams images is their fluidity.

He seems to change appearance effortlessly from hard man to family man.

He is like a floating signifying that can attach itself to a wide range of connotations.

Marks and Sparks – Youth Culture.

He was a boy wonder

A hate figure

People’s royalty

His marriage/relationship with Posh extended the frames of reference and unlike other sports stars Beckham was frequently featured in Women’s magazines.

Beckham and the Gender Agenda

The link between sport and fashion brought two separate meaning systems into collision.

Working class masculinity

Pop/Fashion sexual crossover.

British footballers inhabit a relatively narrow universe of style. The influx of foreign footballers has broadened this but not much.

In the homophobic world of football feminisation is to be avoided – Justin Fashanu.

By contrast the cultures of pop music and fashion feature sexualised appearance, narcissism and sexual and gender ambiguity.

Playing for man utd intensified things. The biggest club but also the most loathed. Beckham a focus of hatred.

This reached new heights with the sarong..

“whose wearing the trouser”

This resentment was given a clear focus after the England Argentina game in the 1998 World Cup.

Tabloid press and football culture went mad shouting abuse and chanting degrading songs about posh.

Male terrace humours draws on fears of sexual infidelity and sexual humiliation.

Does she take it up the a**e?

Beckham offers a convenient symbol on to which such fears can be concentrated.

The way Beckham dealt with such abuse was the thing that eventually won him genuine respect.

Everyday Royalty

As the wedding approached Beckham’s image was redeemed. Ressurection linked to time out cover.

A Jesus for the millennium

Good looking, stylish, talented engaged to a pop singer. A Christ of consumption.

Wedding Massive attention across all forms of media. The increased range of media and the increased speed of communication create a vortex. Media feeds off media to such an extent it becomes impossible to discuss anything else. Dianna and 9/11.

Wedding

Fairy-tale wedding. Idealised love story based on commitment, fidelity and domesticity.

Contrasted with a fantastic celebration of consumption and display. The awkwardness of Gary Neville.

They were both the couple next door and the new royalty.

Direct comparisons were made with Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones. The Sun asked its readers WHICH COUPLE IS MORE POPULAR IN BRITAIN TODAY?

The massiveness of the wedding was tongue in cheek – postmodern dimensions we were not supposed to take it seriously  it was a hyper-real.

Apparently Posh got the idea for the wedding from an episode of Friends.

The represent aspiration for the acquisition of  material goods.

The Beckhams as the Model Family

Children

Constant coverage of their activities – romantic break in Venice. Like romantic literature. Glamourous but just like us.

Has Beckham changed the nature of masculinity and Male identity?