It's no laughing matter… Boys’ humour and the performance of defensive masculinities in the classroom

Abstract

This article explores the centrality of humour in the performance and maintenance of a defensive masculine identity among a group of white, Irish, working-class boys in school. A series of extracts from the field demonstrate how that humour is deployed in versatile and creative ways in order to refuse and subvert a direct questioning of traditional, hegemonic masculinity in the classroom. In the specific context discussed here the boys are responding to a recent Irish educational initiative known as the Exploring Masculinities programme. This programme, through its presentation of ‘alternative’ masculine identities, offered an overt challenge to long-established and deeply felt understandings of what constitutes a ‘real man’. Analysis of the responses of the boys to the programme materials suggests not only the importance of humour as a defensive and supportive tool in the continuance of traditional hierarchies of maleness, but also the repressive nature of the boys’ compulsory ‘hard-man’ masculinity. Replete with misogynistic and homophobic references, this humour and its deployment shows a rigidly structured masculine identity, rooted in the past and heavily entrenched in their present.

Keywords:

• young masculinities
• humour
• subversion
• performance
• ethnography
• school

Notes

 1. This research was conducted and funded as part of doctoral field-work at the School of Media, Dublin Institute of Technology.

 2. It is important to note that the prevalence of ‘laddish’ masculinities is not a problem solely for disadvantaged schools, or for disadvantaged working-class boys. Phoenix and Frosh (2001) and Frosh et al. (2002) critically discuss the relationship between popularity and the performance of ‘laddish’ masculinities across social class, while Jackson discusses ‘laddishness’ amongst both young men and young women in a school setting (2006, pp. 12–23).

 3. Hillside School is a pseudonym, as are all proper names used throughout.

 4. In the Hillside boys’ vernacular the derogatory ‘suck’ means ‘swot’. It is derived from the phrase to ‘suck-up’ and signifies a boy who openly studies hard, behaves too well, and obeys the teacher too readily.

 5. For a full discussion of the programme materials and for an overview of the negative and influential media controversy surrounding the programme see Gleeson 2000, Mac an Ghaill et al. 2002, Gleeson et al. 2003, Barnes 2007.

 6. Paul contributed to the programme materials and has been a staunch supporter of the need for curricular interventions for boys in Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE).

 7. See Frosh et al. (2002) for their discussion of the work young men do to maintain their desired status in relation to the hierarchical structuring of masculinities.

 8. See Jackson (2006, pp. 8–11) for her critical discussion of the importance appearing ‘laid-back’ and of not being seen to ‘try too hard’. Effortlessness in school work, social success, and sporting success is key to being ‘naturally’ cool as opposed to being perceived as ‘inauthentic’.

 9. Hillside is a typical Irish Catholic boys’ school run by the teaching order of the Christian Brothers. Reflecting this, each classroom at Hillside features a large ‘Holy Statue’ as they are known.

10. The importance of ‘man's work’ meaning skilled manual labour was the key component of Willis's (1977) lads’ masculinity. That it still remains central over 30 years later is discussed critically with relation to class, gender, and race by both McDowell (2003) and Nayak (2003).

11. ‘Wanking’ means masturbation in the boys’ slang.