Bawdy Blows: VET Tv and the Comedy of Combat Masculinity

Abstract

It is a practical truism that hypermasculine rules of engagement pervade U.S. military culture. Veteran Television (VET Tv), the self-proclaimed “Comedy Central of the military,” amplifies it to the ribald. This article takes up the online network’s contention that bloodthirstiness, indecency, cocksureness, and libidinous impudence characterize the new normal of the post-9/11 male soldier. By examining its comic framework for aligning bawdry with masculinity in bello (in or at war), I argue that VET Tv promotes the vice of male decadence in the guise of military virtue, particularly by making women the stooges for flippant misogyny, unadulterated maleness, and warlike eroticism on the home front.

Keywords:

• Bawdry
• humor
• masculine
• militarism
• misogyny

Note

Notes

1 Menoetius was a son of Clymene (goddess of both fame and disgrace). He was a prideful, brash Titan, full of anger and prone to violence. What Hesiod called a “mad presumption” led to his slaying at the hands of Zeus.