Australian footballer Jason Akermanis on why gay players should stay closeted.

One of my favorite factoids about Australian football (AFL) is that it is the only professional sport league with no openly homosexual players. I can’t verify this, and have no way of knowing if it’s true, but I’d believe it.  In my opinion Australian football, as an exemplar for ‘traditional” Australian masculine values is representative of a harmful, internalizing and regressive model of masculine expression. And it’s also one that is hugely influential in hegemonic terms.

Jason Akermanis, a footballer with a prominent media profile wrote an opinion piece in the Herald Sun today, (here it is) in which he extolls the importance of gay player remaining closeted for the integrity and general good of the game, and for the individual players.

It’s an interesting article. I’m going to post a few choice passages and unpack them a little bit.

I’ll start off positive, saying that I agree with Akermanis in that gay AFL players are under no obligation to come out, simply because they are high-profile. That’s a personal choice, and if the hypothetical homosexual football player chooses not to come out, that’s totally cool by me. However, Akermanis goes a little bit further;

But I believe the world of AFL footy is not ready for it. To come out is unnecessary for a lot of reasons.

Imagine the publicity associated with a current player admitting he’s gay. It would be international news and could break the fabric of a club.

Well, first of all  I’m not sure it would be international news, and I really doubt it would break the fabric of the club. And if it did, to be honest that’s probably a good thing. If a tightly knit bunch of elite male athletes can’t handle one of their own preferring men as partners to women, if this would cause a fundamental breakdown in the sporting esprit d’corps, then it’s a club probably not worth being part of.

But if Akermanis is anything to go by, I might be expecting a little too much out of AFL footballers, something Akermanis puts down to the totally unique work environment of a professional sports team

I believe it would cause discomfort in that environment should someone declare himself gay.

I have played with a gay player in the twos for Mayne in Queensland in the mid-1990s who was happy to admit his sexual persuasion. He was a great guy who played his heart out and was respected by everyone in the team.

The only time I noticed a difference was when I was showering with 10 other players after a good win and I turned around to see all 10 heading out in a second with their towels. Sure enough, our gay teammate had wandered in.

For some reason I felt uncomfortable, so I left. I am sure most players these days would do the same.

I know he wasn’t about to try to convert me to his way of thinking, but I was uncomfortable all the same

Wow. that’s all kinds of depressing and homophobic. And I can really see why gay footballers aren’t leaping out of their closets if this is the reaction they can expect from their peers. But I also think this is about heterosexual footballers (and lets conflate that to include a great many men) complex and troubled relationship with homosocial environments and ‘homoerotic’ behaviour. Akermanis touches on this;

 In an athletic environment the rules are different from the cultural rules for men.

Never in a mall will you see two straight men hugging, a— slapping and jumping around like kids after an important goal.

Locker room nudity and homoerotic activities are normal inside footy clubs.

Well. I’d argue that expressions of intimacy and emotion between men are not, by default, homoerotic. And to claim that is the case is a clear demonstration of the social and cultural regulation of masculinity at work. The above statement is exemplary of how a model of masculinity which prohibits display of homosocial affection or care is created and perpetuated. I would argue that the cultural rules of football, while different, inform, to a large degree, broader cultural norms of masculinity. And to have footballers act in an emotional way with other men in one context and condemn this masculine expression in the next breath, is hugely damaging and hypocritical.

There is NOTHING wrong with men hugging, crying, or what have you. To have prominent male role models act in this way is great, as gatekeepers of masculinity their actions have the potential to normalise a broader range of emotional expression in men. Instead of celebrating this, they isolate their actions to the context of the professional playing field, further internalizing harmful norms and homophobia. I think this hypocrisy is at the heart of the AFL’s issues with homosexual players. To accept openly homosexual players as their own would be to hold a mirror to their own masculine expression and ideology, and cast a perhaps uncomfortable light on their own double standards.

That Akermanis wrote this article is not a casual coincidence, he is taking an active, pre-emptive role at maintaining the cultural walls of a particular hegemonic masculine identity; clearly defining what it is to be a football playing man, and warning any men who may not totally conform to this cultural ideal not to rock the boat.

Masculinity of the Month: The Invincible Iron Man/Tony Stark

Well, this conversation could so easily be about any male superhero, but I choose to go with one who’s highly visible at the moment (And is coincidently, a personal favourite of mine). I love meta narratives and metaphors about super heroes, mainly because I think they are influenced so much by the society and culture in which they were written, and in turn have a big influence on (primarily) younger men.

There he is, in his red and gold iron manly glory.

Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the character and history of the guy in the metal suit – it’s a story that started in 1963, in the context of the Vietnam war. The stories of Iron Man are strongly linked to the world and time in which they are set , more so than many other heroes. Iron Man is perhaps the most overt of cold war super heroes, protecting the interests of America as the invincible Iron Man, and also through the capitalist ideology of the man inside the suit, Tony Stark. In this the classic superhero double act is given an extra layer of meaning. In terms of masculinity Iron Man is also notable for the relationship between suit and wearer. The suit also keeps the man, Tony Stark alive, the machine keeping his damaged heart functioning. In this way Stark is dependent on the suit; in classic superhero style, it is his strength and his weakness.

Another thing I like about the Stark/Iron Man combo above some other superheroes is that the billionaire playboy industrialist weapons manufacturer (naturally) Tony Stark demonstrates a little more reflexive moral light and shade. While his actions as Iron Man are everything the actions of a superhero should be, Tony Stark is a different kettle of fish. He is conflicted about the uses of the technology he creates, and his character arc involves alcoholism and rehab.

I find the gender representation in popular comics fascinating, and I think they can be very instructive on the societies and cultures that create them, why they create them and what they inform and represent to those who consume them. For example I think it is telling that a superhero like Iron Man, with his problematic relationship to technologies of destruction emerged at the height of the cold war, and at a time when the war in Vietnam was burgeoning.

Tony Stark and Iron Man are representations of superheroic masculinity, and this is far from problematic. But, as far as the Marvel/DC stable of manly heroes goes, the Invincible Iron Man and his secret identity show a type of vulnerability that is different from Batman or Superman, a little more ambiguous and a little more reflective.

Unusually for this blog I’m going to end this entry with a quote from Wikipedia, (one of my great joys in writing this non-formal, non-academic blog is using wikipedia willy nilly) It’s referencing a Robert Genter, a historian of comics and super heroes:

According to historian Robert Genter, Stark is emasculated by his loss of autonomy as an inventor — a blow to his manhood symbolized by his chest wound — and “Iron Man centers on Stark’s inability to reconcile with this wound to his masculinity.” Stan Lee used the playboy side of Stark to restore the character’s sense of masculinity. Stark conquers women — either romantically or physically, and with female supervillains frequently both — and, writes Genter, “follows the lead of other cultural and literary figures such as Ian Fleming, Mickey Spillane, and Norman Mailer who made unregulated sexuality a form of authenticity.”

Good stuff huh, here is the wikipedia article on Iron Man.

Reading: (About) The Hurt Locker

A little while ago I had the oppurtunity to see Kathryn Bigelow’s excellent Oscar contender The Hurt Locker, I considered writing a post about it, but I thought there would be quite a lot of cross over between it and this post on Generation Kill (as well as this). So I decided not to.

But today I came across this little gem of a piece by the generally awesome Shira Tarrant about The Hurt Locker, a growing sensitivity around gender in mainstream media, and a bit generally about the growing interest in feministy gender type circles around masculinity. I can only hope that this interest in masculinities continues to develop and evolve.

Women in the military and the myth of male combat

This originally started as a reply to a comment by Kristy on my Generation Kill post, but it’s a big and important topic, so I thought I’d give it some independent space. The salient section of that comment is below;

“And I wonder if men resent women for not going to war in the same numbers that they do? Does this account for misogyny amongst some male soldiers? i.e. the thought those that silly women aren’t out there risking their lives and limbs for freedom and country like us? I suppose that the idea that women are loathed because they are less physically capable is not new.”

In regard to the role of women in combat, and whether or not this is something male military resent, I would argue that it isn’t a resentment of women not being more involved. Rather I’d argue that the masculine identity constructed relies on what is essentially the myth of a homosocially exclusive experience of combat. Women, especially in a conflict like Iraq are a part of combat, ‘rear echelon’ military see combat along with the ‘front line’ troops, in a type of conflict where these divisions are increasingly meaningless. However the experience of combat is seen as something so quintessentially male, that great social and cultural lengths are gone maintain the strict gender division. Discursively women do not take part in the same combat as men; and the two great arguments always raised in defence of this maintenance of gender are the physical inferiority of women, and their negative effect on morale/cohesion. In regard to the latter variants of the arguments “Men will instinctively risk themselves to protect a female soldier, who is more vulnerable” and “Male soldiers will become sexually distracted” I believe I even once read an argument against frontline female troops based on the military’s inability to accommodate menstruation “on the frontline”  (surely if anyone can handle a little blood it’s the army) – but I kinda want to believe I’m making that up.

Oh, by the way, the same argument can be applied to homosexuals in the military – and the convenient political/discurvice tool of ‘Don’t ask Don’t tell’ is a prime example of how combat is constructed as not only a masculine pursuit, but a heterosexual pursuit also.

In Australia at least, there have been man arguments, some quite recent about the role of women in the military, and the debates around this fiercely enforced gender division are often quite vitriolic.

I can think of few other aspects of modern society where the gender binary is so demarcated and enforced as combat. Women take part in combat, not as active, masculine participants, but as victims, as in ‘womenandchildren’ as I believe (and I could be wrong) the excellent Cynthia Enloe so rightly put it. If women are not directly victims of war, then their only role is as some sort of conflated meta-housewife, keeping the home fires burning.

It is essential to the construction of a martial masculine identity, itself an immensely influential  hegemonic masculinity, that combat is exclusively male. And in a world were conflict is increasingly technologised, fluid and based less on ‘fronts’ it is hard work for the social and cultural discourses to maintain that strict gender division.

So thanks for your comment Kristy. That’s my take on women and the military.

Generation Kill – a study in hypermasculinity.

Oh that’s right, I don’t just talk about regular masculinities, I talk about hypermasculinities.

In the last week or so seven of my hours were spent watching  Generation Kill – a HBO produced 2008 miniseries,  from Ed Burns et al. It’s a 7 part miniseries that tells the story of a Marine Recon Units involvement in the invasion of Iraq. On a production level, it is superb, visually impressive, well shot, acted and written. 

What was of particular interest to me, and relevent to this blog, was the depiction of masculinity in Generation Kill.  I should also point out that I am not attempting to form any detailed or conclusive analysis of masculinity in the series. It is very dense and to do it justice requires more time and commitment than I can offer at the moment, so please read my thoughts as a few notes and broad impressions relating to the series as a whole.

Now, it might be obvious, but I’ll still say it – in terms of representation of masculine identity, The exclusively homosocial world of marines in  wartime is a pretty extreme example. An archetypal hypermasculine identity.  Hypermasculinity is term used to describe a masculine identity, that is in one or more ways, extreme; marines, pro-footballers, Tom of Finland are all good examples.

And from my “extensive” research (ie – reading comments on IMDB from Marines and other service personnel/veterans) it seems that Generation Kill is a reasonably accurate depiction of events, and more importantly for us, the culture and lifestyle of marines at war (I have no objective way of verifying this, and in some ways, there is no point – but to me, it certainly feels a lot more real than other war drama).  There is a LOT of misogyny, racism & homophobia, both casual and very explicit represented in the series. My thoughts about this are mixed. One one hand it is good to see a realistic representation of an oft valourised community, a counterpoint to common sanitized representations. On the other hand Generation Kill risks further glorifying a culture of hate, oppression & violence. This is something I think true of all representations of war, including anti-war texts; Anthony Swofford, the author of Jarhead noted how movies like Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now where popular with Marines, and that their reading of those films was not necessarily one critical of war. Not much can be done about subjectivity, and if you ARE going to produce war dramas, I’d rather they were like this than say, something from Bruckheimer.

What I found particularly interesting and good about the depiction of masculinity in Generation Kill was the was it demonstrated the powerlessness, real or imagined at the core of hypermasculinity. These Marines, trained, physically and psychologically to be and believe in themselves as elite warriors, have a very limited realm in which to exercise any power. One notable scene shows some marines observing a hamlet for possible mortars, they radio in that there are only women and children in the village, only to see it blown up by artillery minutes later. In other instances the marines are shown as identifying genuine military threats, or obtaining legitimate intelligence, and are ordered not to act on it.  Their powerlessness is also demonstrated in a scene where they encounter some Iraqi farmers, naked – their clothes stolen by Iraqi soldiers. The naked Iraqis ask the  marines what the can do about it, and all they can do is give them some water and drive on. Their powerlessness is also represented on a more micro level, they are poorly equipped, for example their state of the art technology is useless without batteries. Seen in this context their aggressive masculine posturing is a veneer, a comforting and communal lie to make their lack of agency less galling.

Generation Kill also represented a few other things in notable ways; the standard trope in war dramas is for the soldiers to be traumatized or deeply affected by the act of killing, and many in Generation Kill where shown like this, especially one soldier who (perhaps not accidently?) shot some children. But refreshingly, for a representation of this type, several soldiers were shown as not only unaffected by their acts of violence, but revelled and relived their experiences, and sought more grotesque acts of violence, and treated the mutilated bodies of dead civilians and enemy soldiers as entertainment.  That Generation Kill shows a varied and complex range of reactions to sanctioned violence is a good thing, it challenges the traditional understanding of war time masculinity, and problematises the dominant understanding act during, and after war. It isn’t comfortable, but it (again) feels true.

Interestingly though, I noticed that Generation Kill did not depict or deal explicitly with rape or sexual violence. It formed a large  part of how the marines speak about women (and men) – but to my recollection no physical sexual violence is depicted. I am not sure why this is the case, as the show is not at all uncritical or glossing over the unsavoury – and the absence of this aspect of war surprised me.

Generation Kill is television, it is about war, and I’m sure a lot of people who watch it, will not do so critically, and enjoy it for the explosions, violence and tension. In this Generation Kill will not hugely promote a deeper understanding of masculine identity or gender relations.  But if someone is at all inclined to view Generation Kill critically, they will find a rich and nuanced representation of hypermasculinity, and one which, quite explicitly, expresses the powerlessness and anxiety under the muscles and bravura posturing, at times heartwarming, but for me at least, overwhelmingly sad.