Protest Masculinity

Well it may be that time of the year when not much of anything is going on, and certainly not much in the way of blogging in this neck of the woods. I had to work yesterday, though I am so thankful it was online work as I try to adjust my lifestyle so that I am free of office politics.

I was reflecting on this as I visited my parents' neighbours, native Liverpudlians by birth, for a quiet Christmas drink and something to eat, when "Ray" dropped a bombshell, that amazingingly helped put things into proper perspective. He told the story of how he decided to walk up the street a while back, only to be accosted by two successive carloads of males. The first group asked him if he knew where Woolworths was, when, after directing them, they asked him if he would put on a pink tutu and pose for photographs. He refused. Ten minutes later, another car pulls up: "where is the hospital, mate? By the way, can you put this policeman's helmet on so we can take your photo?" Reluctantly, Ray agreed to this request, conditional on him turning his head away from the camera, so that his face couldn't be seen in the photo. That car then drove off. About 2 minutes later, the first car reappears, "mate, we need you to put that pink tutu on for us". Peering closely into the back seat, Ray could clearly see that the guy waving the tutu at him was none other than the disgraced "Rugby League Legend" Andrew Johns. Because the guys were getting more rowdy, having already buzzed him a few times up and down the street, Ray again compromised by holding the tutu up near his crotch, refusing to actually put it on. After much raucous laughter from Johns and co., and photo snapping, they drove off.

Ray is a guy in his fifties, who was wary of provoking a group of younger guys, not least because he feared it might escalate to the level of, "let's get the Pom", or something similar. He was also obviously pissed off about the bully boy tactics of targeting an older guy for homophobic humour, with the additional prospect that the image could then be used on the tv show, "The Footy Show", without seeking permission/disclosing the intended motive; "Smile, you're on Candid Camera" (it can hardly be coincidental that Andrew's brother Matthew is a "comedy" star of "The Footy Show").

In this instance we perhaps see evidence of the kind of aestheticisation of everyday life, which has featured here in previous blog posts. The stranger becomes even more anonymous, as no forethought is given to extending hospitality by attempting to engage in reciprocal communicative action. But because this incident most likely took place strictly for "kicks", rather than as an upcoming incident on a tv show, where it would have constituted a from of "work" (albeit masquerading as a polar opposite of "fun", leisure), I think it useful to contextualise it as part of the broader critical approach theorists have brought to categorising the different forms of hegemonic masculinity. The excellent piece I've pasted below speaks to the issues I've raised here, insofar as it distinguishes between two variants of working class "protest masculinity", namely an integrative and anomic form. The latter attracts more attention, in the context of tabloids in the United Kingdom for example, in reportage of incidents of "happy slapping" and the like. Inevitably, given the attendant sensationalism, this leads to neglect of the integrative potential of hazing rituals and so forth as perverse forms of workplace solidarity. No doubt the feedback mechanisms between the two can be powerful, in the sense that the projection of shame in the workplace can seek substitutes elsewhere (not least in the domestic sphere, where much violence has to do with compensation for a perceived lack of control).

It seems to me that Klaus Theweleit offers some resources in his account of "Male Fantasies" for understanding the ideal fantasy state where integrative and anomic masculinities fuse. It would be appropriate here to speak of "quest masculinity", as the accomplishment of rational objectives takes place through a confrontation with liminal affective states, more often fear or primordial loyalties rather than intimate relations per se, as the ultimate proving ground. Small wonder then that such fantasies are so easily commodified and pre-packaged. I've had enough experience in the service industry to observe the bedrooms of teenage boys decorated with "Lord of the Rings" and "Eragorn" posters, alongside the obligatory posters featuring Andrew Johns in action on the football field, to recognise the archetype when I see it. To walk into a bedroom decorated in this fashion, and see a bookshelf overflowing with Tom Clancy titles, is to experience a confirmatory authority firsthand. Leisure time in such instances is nothing less than an insidious part of the afterhours production line, a colonisation by rational techniques far more munane than Theweleit's extreme examples, or the activities of elites, say the notorious Skull N' Bones Club, would indicate ("here, tell us your sexual history while we circle jerk into the coffin you are lying in...."). I later learned that the young man in the Clancy case, who ironically used to live in Ray's house, was also a card carrying member of the Australian Young Liberals Party. And yes, I'm thoroughly sick of the obligatory appearance of "Top Gun" and "The Matrix" in the dvd collections too (for quest masculinity, going to work becomes imbued with a pompous Neo-style religious ambience, as [white boy] phantasised compensation for the disenchantment inflicted by increasing rationalisation).

I couldn't help then choosing a contrasting image with Johns, that of Raewyn Connell, formerly Robert Connell, international doyen of Masculinity Studies. She has come some way since early student days, when Robert was affectionately known around campus as "Prince Valiant", on account of his theatrical flair for purple knee high boots and the like.

In any case, this post is really just a long-winded excuse for saying, "Andrew Johns, you Sir, are a dickhead"....

Walker, G. W. (2004, Aug)
Disciplining Protest Masculinity Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Hilton San Francisco & Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, CA, Online <.PDF> Retrieved 2006-10-05 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p108485_index.html
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Abstract:

Protest masculinity is a gendered identity oriented toward a protest of the relations of production and the ideal type of hegemonic masculinity. To this point protest masculinity has been conceived as a destructive, chaotic and alienating sort of masculinity. This interpretation is incomplete, for it does not include efforts on the part of men to use protest masculinity for its integrative potential. This study is the product of ethnographic inquiry and documents skilled working class men using methods of social control to discipline protest masculinity and orient it into a less destructive and more harmonious state. At the end of the analysis, I propose a grounded nomenclature to manage the theoretical concepts. "Anomic protest masculinity" is the unguided and destructive sort. "Disciplined protest masculinity" is the product of intensive social control and functions to increase solidarity among working class men.

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p108485_index.html

Reply to Bryan's Query

Thanks for writing. I'm not familiar with the text you mentioned, and I'm presently unable to access the Torrent clips of John Berger. I'm hoping I can post them, but perhaps the BBC have exercised their intellectual property rights because they may be releasing a dvd of the series. If I can track down the clips though, I'll certainly archive them on this site (a bit more publicly accessible than the university library archive, which I may otherwise have to resort to).

Cheers

Generalizing the Grotesque

Staying with the "Ways of Seeing" theme for a moment, I was particularly struck by another provocative critique of representation in Senses of Cinema, which attempts to work through some of the implications of Susan Sontag's observation in On Photography that "surrealism is the art of generalising the grotesque". If we remain attentive to the issues accruing around such a strategy, particularly those pertaining to failures to specify adequate prescriptions of use, it becomes easier to typify the symbolic violence that follows on from decontextualisation. It occurs to me that a tremendous amount, and perhaps even the majority, of independent cinema purporting to reveal suburban or small town life as a thinly veiled cabinet of horrors, takes its cues from the aforementioned surrealist convention. What initially comes to mind are films such as Gummo, the minimalist aesthetic of which parallels Michael Lesy's work. It would hardly be surprising if it transpired that Harmony Korine is also an admirer of the Dogme manifesto, and such an elective affinity would certainly prove complementary to the critique featured in Senses of Cinema.

But in a more expansive frame of mind, I wonder if further unpacking might trace a common ancestry back to certain musical genres as well. Remember Big Black's track "Kerosene"? What "way of seeing" came into play in this instance? I am confident that further examples along these lines could easily multiply at an exponential rate?

Note though that I regard it as highly unlikely that the work of other figures, such as Witkin, or Arbus, could be characterised in the terms used here. It seems to me that greater care was exercised in such cases to document or situate the rarefied milieus in which marginalized subjects were made to exist, and the same might be true to some extent of Mapplethorpe's queer gaze.

I paste below an overview of the film adaptation of Wisonsin Death Trip, followed by an excerpt from a critical appraisal of the associated generalizing strategy:

"Writer/Director James Marsh's first feature, WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP, is an intimate, shocking and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that befell one small town in Wisconsin during the final decade of the 19th century. The film is inspired by Michael Lesy’s book of the same name which was first published in 1973. Lesy discovered a striking archive of black and white photographs in the town of Black River Falls dating from the 1890’s and married a selection of these images to extracts from the town’s newspaper from the same decade. The effect was surprising and disturbing. The town of Black River Falls seems gripped by some peculiar malaise and the weekly news is dominated by bizarre tales of madness, eccentricity and violence amongst the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace. People in the town are haunted by ghosts, possessed by devils and terrorized by teenage outlaws and arsonists.
Like the book, the film is constructed entirely from authentic news reports from the Black River Falls’ newspaper with occasional excerpts from the records of the nearby Mendota Asylum for the Insane. The film also makes use of the haunting black and white photographs taken by the resident portrait photographer of Black River Falls at the end of the 19th century. The film unfolds over four seasons and certain characters feature throughout the film as their criminal behavior lands them in the newspaper again and again. Jo Vukelich portrays Mary Sweeney, a cocaine snorting school mistress with a compulsion to smash windows, who frequently runs amok in the area. Another eccentric is Pauline L'Allemand (played by Marilyn White), a mildly famous opera singer who gets washed up in the town with no money and ends up going more and more crazy. A 13 year old boy (Marcus Monroe) murders an old man for kicks and then engages in sporadic gun battles with a pursuing posse. All the while, buildings are being torched by a bored teenage girl, a diptheria epidemic devastates the town’s infant population and all manner of strange suicides are being reported in great detail.
Presiding over the chaos of the newspaper stories and providing a linking device for the intricate screenplay is the character of the newspaper editor who is portrayed by actor Jeffrey Gordon. The stories from the newspaper are narrated by award-winning actor Ian Holm (recently seen in THE SWEET HEREAFTER). Director James Marsh notes “the newspaper was run at the time by an Englishman called Frank Cooper, so Ian was a perfect choice for us - his voice conveys an incredible range of moods - incredulity, moral indignation, sly humour - while remaining both authoritative and soothing."

http://www.wisconsindeathtrip.com/photos.html

“Colorado Death Trip”:The Surrealist Recontextualisation of Farm Security Administration Photos in Dogville

"While the human objects of Maharidge's report are identical to those portrayed by Williamson (and Evans), in Dogville the juxtaposition of the photos and the film's narrative is, of course, rather wilful. This combination is more of a “surrealist montage” (12) similar to the one in yet another classic photo book. Thirty years before von Trier took FSA pictures out of their context and combined them with a narrative that ended in serial rape and a massacre, Michael Lesy had combined historical photos from an earlier economic depression, that of the 1890s, with textual fragments from newspapers, documents and literary works which mostly dealt with murder, suicide, serial arson and all kinds of lunatic behaviour.
“Surrealism is the art of generalizing the grotesque” (13) – Susan Sontag remarks on Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip (14) and similar books, which place historical photos in new contexts. According to her, Lesy's book “argues that the whole country has been crazy, and for a long time” (15). In a similar vein the photos in Dogville's credit sequence have regularly been understood to generalise the bizarre milieu of Dogville and to imply that they are somehow indicative of the whole country. For example, Michael O'Sullivan writes in the Washington Post:
Over a montage of archival photographs of impoverished U.S. citizens, director Lars von Trier […] blasts the David Bowie song “Young Americans”. It's his way, it seems, of hammering home the message that the town we have just visited, and the bad behavior of its residents […] are meant to be taken as allegorical versions of our country and, by implication, us (16).


Quite a few American critics regarded this kind of generalising the grotesque as provocative, whereas another aspect of this surrealist montage of photos and film narrative has been completely ignored in the critical discourse on Dogville. “[E]ventually we look at all photos surrealistically” (17), Sontag concludes with regard to Wisconsin Death Trip and similar books. And Dogville indeed provocatively subscribes to this prognosis. In contrast to Lesy, von Trier does not appropriate undistinguished pictorial souvenirs which were produced by an obscure provincial photographer for commercial purposes. Instead, what is subjected to a surrealistic view in Dogville are examples of one of the most famous bodies of work in the history of photography, products of a federally funded project that had the “purpose [...] to demonstrate the value of the people photographed” (18). That precisely such photos are recontextualised in Dogville within a surrealistic pandemonium of rape and massacre – what might be called a “Colorado Death Trip” – is maybe the most irritating aspect of von Trier's provocative film".
© Holger Römers, October 2004

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/34/dogville_farm_admin_photos.html

Arms Control Wonk

Sam Roggeveen's compelling overview of the realistic potential of blogging is one of the most balanced I've read in the mainstream press. I've pasted it below. The piece refers to the armscontrolwonk blog, which attracted attention for breaking the story of China's testing of anti-satellite technology. Cutting edge reportage and analysis, obviously complementary to Acheron's links to other military technology sites:

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/category/outer-space/

Overhyped, but blogs are here to stay
Sam Roggeveen

December 14, 2007


Blogs have never completely lived up to their early hype. They haven't made many bloggers rich, or ushered in a new era of "citizen journalism", or wrested control of political debates from the mainstream media. But they are gaining political importance, and they are influencing the conduct of foreign and strategic policy.
Not only do academics, experts, bureaucrats and political staffers monitor blogs as part of their work, governments are starting to see that the medium itself can improve the way they do business.
Blogs from all over the world provide unique on-the-ground perspectives that can be critical to understanding a country or a crisis. Burma bloggers gave first-hand accounts during the regime's recent crackdown. An Iranian exile illustrated the barbarity of the Iranian Government by posting a video of a woman being hanged in a public square in Tabriz. And a Baghdad architect calling himself Salam Pax became a blog sensation with his first-hand descriptions of America's invasion of Iraq.
There are rich pockets of information like this all around the blogosphere. Chinese military-themed blogs have become a useful source for China watchers looking for new pictures of secretive weapons systems. Google Earth plays a part here too - an American blog recently confirmed the existence of a new class of Chinese submarines using commercial satellite images.
It is not just as witnesses that bloggers contribute to international security debates. Blogs can also bring a level of analysis to international events that governments and the media cannot always match. For instance, arms control professionals keep a keen eye on an American blog called Arms Control Wonk. It offers outstanding analysis by subject-matter specialists, and occasionally even breaks stories - its editor, Jeffrey Lewis, was first with the news in January that China had conducted a successful test of an anti-satellite weapon.
It took years of experience, a deep knowledge of the subject and excellent contacts among peers for Lewis to get this story. No news organisation in the world could have done it, because the skills are just too specialised. And by using his blog, he could get the news out instantly around the world, without help from the mainstream media.
The technology of blogging has radically reduced the economic and technological entry barriers for this kind of strategic and political analysis. Anyone with access to a computer and a modem can reach a worldwide audience at almost no cost.

That's good for political debates in highly specialised and technical areas such as arms control. The mainstream media, for sound business reasons, often shut subject-matter experts out of debates because their views don't interest a broad enough audience. Blogging gives these experts a voice that can influence policy.
Governments are learning that blogs can not only be observed but also used. US intelligence agencies are experimenting with blogs to improve their analysis of foreign countries and terrorist dangers. In an age where threats materialise suddenly and warnings are vague and fragmentary, blogs can spread news and analysis instantly, and allow others in the system to build on them, creating a clearer picture.
Blogging is also a highly accountable medium - if you have evidence, the convention is to cite it with a hyperlink. Readers can then check your sources with a single click. And if a blogger gets something wrong, attentive readers can quickly point out errors in the comments section, or on their own blog.
But there is a roadblock: government secrecy impedes the take-up of blogging as a bureaucratic tool. Blogs thrive in a culture of openness, whereas governments live in fear of leaks, so tend to leave big decisions to small groups of senior people. This inhibits the kind of innovative thinking that can happen when groups of people with fresh perspectives are allowed to tackle an old problem. It also makes it impossible for bureaucracies to exploit pockets of expertise they did not even know existed.
Politicians already see blogs as useful public relations devices, and a number of foreign ministries are using them in their public diplomacy. Now governments are beginning to explore blogging as a tool for improving international policy.
Blogging may have proven to be something less than a media revolution, but the slow spread of blogs into government suggests they are more than a passing fad.
Sam Roggeveen, a former intelligence analyst, is the editor of the Lowy Institute's blog (www.lowyinterpreter.org).

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/overhyped-but-blogs-are-here-to-stay/2007/12/13/1197135651507.html

"Ways of Seeing" youtube.com clips

I searched every possible combination of "John Berger" and "ways of seeing" on youtube yesterday and came up with nothing, but derridata has just tipped me off about youtube clips of the series featured on the following blog. I can't verify them till I get broadband access next week, but many thanks to derridata in any case (who has probably already watched them by now):

http://imomus.livejournal.com/294695.html

Also worth noting another observation posted on the [above] site:

For the record, what I believe to be the complete Ways of Seeing series (4 parts?) is available as a torrent on--http://karagarga.net

Vile Bodies: Ways of Seeing

Another year draws to a close, and I reflect on the usual failure to dutifully follow my "Must Read" list. Consequently I'm putting this up here as a prompter, "read John Berger's Ways of Seeing!". My former academic supervisor, currently handling a proposed journal article of mine with kid gloves so it seems, told me a few weeks back that the university library has the original BBC series on video, ready made as a teaching resource for the course he co-teaches with the chap responsible for the piece on the history of Australian electronica, which was earlier posted on this blog. Unfortunately, I'm not so well resourced, and my borrowing/viewing privileges have now lapsed at that venerable institution. I spent some time yesterday scouring the Net for any clips of Ways of Seeing, but came up empty handed. Sure, there's stuff available from a more recent series featuring Berger, which has to do with scientific creativity, another way of seeing I suppose, but I don't know at this stage how complementary it might be with my other interests in Joel Peter Witkin, Gunther Van Hagen, visible human project, as [possible] symptoms of our bioculture (for starters, I'm not sure off the top of my head if Berger talks to any biologists in the series, letalone how sympathetic the featured scientists are to the holistic systems building form of science most germane to the growth of a bioculture). I'd really like to test Berger's hypotheses, and certainly this seems plausible, in light of the reverential tones with which the accompanying book of the same name is still spoken of today in the circles of cultural sociology (I can't speak for cultural studies).

I've had to settle instead for posting a couple of sections from the series Vile Bodies which concentrated on Witkin. I also found a good overview of Berger's lasting influence which I thought worth archiving here as well:

http://www.johnberger.org/season.htm#press

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir

I think I may have found some answers to my previous queries about Sleazy. A simple google search brought to light how Coil filmed their "Love's Secret Domain" video in Thailand, (in a male go-go bar), with John Balance and Peter Christopherson later channelling their energy into a side project, a group called The Threshold HouseBoys Choir.I'm posting these clips here as I await broadband access so I can not only see if I like the music, but whether the cultural representation is in keeping with any of my hypotheses advanced in the previous post. All I know so far is that the Choir is somehow related to a festival involving the transgression of physical pain thresholds by young men in a trance state. I'm sure derridata will want to point out to me that the Coil clip is not for the title track, "Love's Secret Domain", but I look forward to reviewing it anyway.
Can't help chuckling at the memory of reports of Nick Cave walking out of a Coil live performance on the basis that it was "too gay" for his tastes! Must check if Chris and Cosey have done any interesting videos as well, with any bearing on some of the topics raised thus far.