American Chopper and Masculinity

Carroll's article on "American Chopper produces a recuperative blue-collar masculinity that attenuates the putative losses suffered by working-class men under the postindustrial service economy of the contemporary United States."After reading this article I googled about the masculinity crisis in America and found a blog post about the Super Bowl Commercials and how masculinity is presented to America. Carroll's article highlights the idea of the "American Dream" and the "rags-to-riches" mentality that the Tetul's embody whereas, the commercials in the blog present tropes of the alpha male, which seem almost satirical. The blog states that the men in these advertisements "seem to promote an atavistic, hypermasculinity, while at the same time suggesting that such a masculinity is absurd and even laughable." Another section of the blog post discusses how, "by 2002, the advertisements of mega media sports events began to construct 'a white male ‘loser’…who hangs out with his male buddies, is self-mocking and ironic about his loser status"--the setting of these ads is ironic because it is a hyper-masculine event (sports) and the ads show ironic tropes of vulnerable and self-conscious males.

This reminded me of the irony and knowingness that we studied with feminism and got me to thinking about females in comedy. We noted that women can only be funny if they are presented in loud and crude manners so is it possible that males can only be seen as sensitive and vulnerable in the midst of irony and satire? The fact that we even see these ads as satire shows how we view masculinity in our society; if these tropes were true and acceptable, we would not see them as humorous. Does this present Carroll's description of hegemonic masculinity as ultimately, unattainable?

Relating back to American Chopper, the idea of the unattainable seems to shine through when one considers Carroll's argument. He mentions the "mythic status of the custom motorcycle and the 'outlaw' biker lifestyle in American culture" (266), which embody a sense of this unattainable masculinity. While American Chopper presents somewhat of a fantasy when it comes to attaining the custom bike, it seems that hegemonic masculinity is coupled within that fantasy as well. This article got me thinking about representations of males in media and how they are held to just as high a standard as women when it comes to how they act and look. We are quick to disregard the possibility that men may feel offended by representations of their gender in society and it seems like American Chopper helps men to achieve a sense of belonging and if anything, a goal that resorts back to one of hard work rather than the theme of unrealistic expectations and entitlement.

The Four Aspects of Signs- Symbol, Icon, Index and STOP

Gill and van-Zoonen analyze gender in media text with semiology as the study of signs and signification. Semotics originated in studies of language. Gill states that, “It is both a theory and a method, and works by unpacking and making explicit meanings that we all – as lay semiotics – create through our engagement,” (45). As semiology is the science a signs it is important to understand what such signs mean. There are obvious and subliminal signs throughout media texts, music, flags and fashion. Such signs are arbitrary and certainly issue feminists see that needs to be covered by a red stop sign. Because such signs vary from ionic, indexical and symbolic codes get messaged. Due to the fact that encoding is such a great component to our culture it is important that such sign are decoded correctly and honestly analyzed as best as possible. Within advertisement we see constant signs constructed by myths. In advertising we can distinguish who was such advertisement intended for and how does the advertiser send the message successfully in such a short span of time. We see the meanings of such signs by the presentation of the ad.

In this Super bowl ad for Teleflora we this dark haired, thin, ethic women being completely hyper sexualized. As there are hints to this ad targeting men, in heterosexual couples, to purchase flowers. We know that this ad is for men not only because she is seen as a sex object but also she hints that the man should give his girlfriend flowers but there also hinting at the fact that he should also give her sexual pleasures. In another ad we see women discussing their participation in objectifying another woman by simply using her piece of paper to paint on her body. The women who are painting state their tactic as a way to draw attention to the ad with a woman’s body.  The only sign that I saw while watching these ads was STOP. That is exactly why while watch these commercials I spoke to my friends accompanying me about the objectification and the meaning to such signs.