Real and unreal masculinities: the celebrity image in anti-trafficking campaigns

Abstract

Numerous scholars note the highly gendered nature of anti-trafficking responses. Much of the literature exploring anti-trafficking campaigns, however, focuses on the objectification of women and their placement as abject bodies, objects of violence, in pain and to be pitied. Nevertheless, few scholars explore how these campaigns portray men and shape masculinities. Using as example a highly publicised online anti-trafficking campaign, ‘Real Men Don't Buy Girls’, this article responds to this gap in the literature by exploring depictions of masculinities through this prominent anti-trafficking public service announcement. The article observes that this announcement serves not to reshape gender performance around trafficking, but instead further reproduces existing gender structures and power relations underpinning trafficking and child exploitation. It observes that the campaign re-instantiates hegemonic masculinities – framing men enacting this masculine form as ‘real men’ – while encouraging men to embody a virile, successful, consumerist, controlling, and patriarchal manliness. We observe that these characteristics are notably assigned to celebrity men. Meanwhile, it is noted that men who buy girls are set in binary opposition to these real men, being shaped as faceless, un-described, deviant, and ‘unreal’. The result is that the campaign not only patterns masculinities, but also objectifies the objectifier as well as women, recreating a gender ordering in which women and girls remain disempowered, and buyers of girls are ultimately denied subjecthood and thus the ability to change. This article, therefore, uses this one case study to call for anti-traffickers, researchers, and scholars to urgently consider, research, and reshape portrayals of masculinities in anti-trafficking literatures. It calls for greater diversity and fuller account for a broader spectrum of gender representations in the visual representations of those involved in, and responding to, human and child trafficking, in both our scholarly work and public action.

Keywords::

• human trafficking
• anti-trafficking
• masculinities
• social media
• celebrity culture

Notes

^1. Examples of such campaigns include Stop the Demand by the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center (2012), Men's Responsibility by CATW International, the Defenders USA project by Shared Hope International (2012), the Stop Demand campaigns by the Stop Demand Foundation (2011), and the Super Bowl 2013 I'm not buying it advertisement by Traffick911 (2011).

^2. From the THORN website: ‘We aim to disrupt and deflate the predatory behavior of those who abuse and traffic children, solicit sex with children or create and share child pornography. As these crimes are increasingly facilitated by technology, we invest in and deploy the latest technology as part of our ongoing fight to end child sexual exploitation.’ See https://www.facebook.com/wearethorn/info

^3. As online commentators have noted, the campaign is reminiscent of the ‘Real Men of Genius’, an American beer advertisement campaign, which was notable for its over the top irreverence and mock glorification of ‘manly’ achievements. The ‘Real Men Don't Buy Girls’ campaign draws upon a decidedly similar approach.

^4. As Moore notes, ‘People's criticism has created even more conversation. While we didn't want to offend anybody and it's certainly not our intention to make light of any issue we take very seriously, we see that it's actually doing what we intended.’ See http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Ashton-Kutchers-PSAs-for-Real-Men-Dont-Buy-Girls-campaign-starring-Bradley-Cooper-and-Sean-Penn–VIDEO-119971234.html

^5. A common critique of celebrity activism is this oversimplification of issues. To that end: ‘Look, this issue isn't AIDS or malaria,’ Kutcher says. ‘All you need to solve it is a little bit of thought and care. If the social web is anything, it's a collective consciousness.’ (della Cava, 2011).

^6. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (2011) and Department of State (2012), both report that stripping, live-sex shows and pornography are amongst the many activities into which trafficking victims, particularly women and girls, are forced. Polaris Project (2012), a US-based anti-trafficking non-profit organisation, identified that strip clubs are often venues where victims of trafficking are trained or held and are often ‘grooming’ locations for sexual servitude.

^7. Through October 2012, these statements could be found at: http://www.demiandashton.com/realmen/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah L. Steele

Sarah Steele studied degrees in Law, International Studies (focusing on Global Health Policy), and Criminology at the Flinders University of South Australia, and then completed a DPhil at University of Oxford. Her research continues to explore the interaction between law, inequality, gender, and health. Her work makes policy-relevant suggestions regarding new ways to formulate and speak about transnational issues such as human and organ trafficking, death tourism, as well as other global health and labour issues. Her work considers issues primarily in global health and public health law. It explores inequalities in health and the social determinates of health with particular reference to transnational and criminal provisions. Sarah has lectured in Medical Law and in Medicine, Body and Society, and supervised in Law and on global health and human rights papers in the HSPS Tripos. She has also lectured for universities in the UK, Australia, and the USA.

Tyler Shores

Tyler Shores is a writer and independent scholar, with research specialising in literature and digital technology, history of reading, and book culture. He received his graduate degree from the University of Oxford. At the University of California, Berkeley he taught a course on The Simpsons and Philosophy – which received international attention, and was the highest enrolled course in the department during its time. He has given talks on digital culture and literature, philosophy, and popular culture. He has worked as a director for non-profit book publishing, and has also worked at Google as part of Authors@Google, one of the world's most successful online lecture series. Tyler is a frequent contributor to Blackwell's Popular Culture and Philosophy book series, and is currently working on a scholarly work of nineteenth-century fiction and reading culture.