Adam Sandler as (questionable) masculine ‘role model’: towards an analysis of disgust and violence in Adam Sandler's comedian comedy

ABSTRACT

Adam Sandler's film work has been critically vilified and paid little attention by academics. This article suggests that his work justifies sustained academic attention, yet I conclude that he offers questionable masculine role models dependent on masculinity being asserted via ambivalent dis-identification with gay men and women. I argue this case via critique of the most sustained analyses of his workand via close readings of aspects of Sandler's films. I dispute Chapman's contextualisation of Sandler's film comedies in relation to thinking about masculinity and gay men. These changes have arisen in response to feminism and the lesbian and gay movement. I argue that Chapman's contextualisation of, and the ambiguities of Sandler's engagement with, feminism and gay men needs more critical attention. Further, I argue that we should actively read Sandler's films using Seidman's idea of comedian comedy and that focusing attention on such comedies’ tensions with narrative film enable us to direct our critical attention on the ambivalences present in Sandler's movies. His films show resistance to relinquishing some privileges of dominant forms of masculinity (physical violence) and demonstrate disgust withthe sexuality, bodies and behaviour of gay men.

KEYWORDS:

• Adam Sandler
• masculinity
• liberal feminism
• comedian comedy
• violence
• disgust

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the timely and insightful interventions of the editors of this special edition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neil Washbourne

Dr Neil Washbourne is senior lecturer in Media Studies, School of Cultural Studies and Humanities, Leeds Beckett University. He has published widely on media and politics including the book Mediating Politics: press, radio, television and internet (2010, Open University Press). He is on the editorial boards of Celebrity Studies and Media Education Research Journal. His emerging research explores live and mediated comedy performances. He will teach a new module in 2018; Comedy, Media and Diversity (diversity in romantic comedies and stand up.)