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.

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.

No Rocking the Boat when it comes to cinematic representation

 

I love a good pun-based title.

The other night I watched The Boat That Rocked – a 2009 film by Richard Curtis of Love Actually fame. Wikipedia Tells me that it will be Called “Pirate Radio” in the US & have a November release date.  It is a comedy about a Pirate Radio based offshore on a boat,  in ’60s Britain – hence the title(s).

This film is nostalgia. Nostalgia in the music, the clothing (the lovely selection of knits were a personal highlight), the beautifully clear montage shots with immaculate looking cars, clothes (and prominently) radios evoked images of a halcyon, idealised past. That was, as someone who didn’t live it and doesn’t quite buy the hype, a little irritating.

Unfortunately, for me and for this blogs theme, the representation of sexuality, & masculine identity (on the almost exclusively homosocial boat – but more on this later) is nostalgic as well. And the glorification of homophobia, sexism and arrogant masculinity is not what I would call a Good Thing.

The movie valorises a masculinity familiar in the trope of rock and roll. This is not particularly surprising, nor on its own is it a Bad Thing. The casual sexism and homophobia are somewhat more concerning.  There are several scenes which particularly grated with me. Early on in the film the young protagonist, Carl, gets involved in a cunning scheme, instigated by Dave to lose his virginity on the one day a month ladies (with the notable exception of the Felicity the lesbian cook – who’s sexuality is mentioned more often than her name, and doesn’t REALLY count as a woman) are permitted to visit the homosocial realm of the Radio Rock Boat.  And while I understand loss of virginity is a staple of the ‘ol coming of age story, in this particular instance it involves a loss of virginity via deception of the woman involved. Granted, the potential rape never actually eventuate, but the way it was presented and treated reminded me of the worst of Benny Hill.

The treatment of the female cook (hey, what a surprise there) Felicity, is also terrible. She can be summed up in two words: Lesbian & Cook. The exact lines sadly escape me now, but there are several explicit references to her (and I paraphrase) – ‘not being a real woman’, and ‘not counting’ because of her sexuality. Oh, and all the other female ‘groupie’ characters were depressingly homogenous in their beauty. Well done Richard Curtis. This would be more tolerable if it was presented in the context of historical accuracy in attitudes towards women and sexuality, (would a bit of implicit criticism be too much to ask for? Apparently yes) but I didn’t even get a hint of that.

But it’s not just the lesbians who get some terrible and offensive representation. There is a scene where all and sundry are playing “never ever” it emerges that Angus (played by the charming Rhys Darby) has had sexual experiences with another man.  The other characters do not treat this revelation with the respect and open mindedness one could hope for.  At this point in the film I was not particularly surprised by this, but it still disappointed me.

After struggling for a while to find a positive aspect to this films attitudes towards gender and masculinity, I managed to come up with a small point; there is quite a diversity in the male characters physical attractiveness and body types. But even this is minimal, given the forgiving lens of nostalgia and the ensemble nature of the film. And certainly in comparison to the representation of women and femininity it’s nothing to applaud.  But that’s all I could find.  It would have been easy to include some positive stuff about father/son relationships but even those themes were surprisingly superficial.

I have no real objection to superficial and light weight cinema, or nostalgia for its own sake. (Across the Universe comes to mind)What is a real problem here is that The Boat the Rocked does not discriminate with its nostalgia. I’d be quite happy if the film painted a happy and sacred picture of 1960’s music, pirate radio, fashion, and anti-authoritarian attitudes. It’s when rape, sexism, homophobia and normative concepts of hegemonic masculinity are lumped in with the same (excuse the pun) boat that it becomes offensive and counterproductive. Historical representations, of whatever type, say something about the time and place in which they were made,  and nostalgia is not an excuse to represent less rosy elements of our history in an uncritical or even positive way.