Bending the codes of masculinity: David Beckham and flexible masculinity in the new millennium

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes sporting icon David Beckham as the embodiment of a form of flexible masculinity, one that is manufactured by both Beckham and others including the media and promotional industries to target and appeal to male consumers, consumers who are increasingly being regarded as citizens of brand communities. Employing a multi-methodological approach of contextual analysis, critical textual analysis, and specific production discourse about advertisements, I examine a series of advertisements that feature David Beckham to illustrate how he represents a range of masculinities. From this, it becomes evident that Beckham manifests a form of flexible masculinity, providing male consumers with a pastiche of visual masculine representations from which some men can socially (re)construct and negotiate their own masculinity. In the discussion, I argue how Beckham's embodiment of flexible masculinity serves to negotiate and extend the boundaries of gender, bend the codes of masculinity, and diversify the available options of masculinity, all within the particular context of a global consumerist society, discourses of a crisis of masculinity, and the growing civic obligations of male citizen-consumers to construct their identity through consumption.

Notes

^1.Dunbar, ‘Dennis Rodman’, 264–5.

^2.Kenway, Kraak and Hickey-Moody, Masculinity Beyond the Metropolis, 4–5.

^3.Barthel, ‘When Men Put on Appearances’; Edwards, Men in the Mirror; and Mort, Cultures of Consumption.

^4.White and Gillett, ‘Reading the Muscular Body’.

^5.Connell, Masculinities.

^6.Wetherell and Edley, ‘Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity’.

^7.Rowe, ‘Modes of Sports Writing’, 153.

^8.Whannel, Media Sport Stars.

^9.Dunbar, ‘Dennis Rodman’.

^10. See Whannel, Media Sport Stars.

^11.Edwards, Men in the Mirror; and Mort, Cultures of Consumption.

^12.MacInnes, The End of Masculinity.

^13.Connell, Men and the Boys.

^14.Kimmel, Manhood in America, 5.

^15.Coakley, Sports in Society.

^16.McDonald and Birrell, ‘Reading Sport Critically’.

^17. Ibid., 284.

^18.Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’, 223.

^19.Scherer and Jackson, ‘Sports Advertising’; and ‘Cultural Studies’.

^20.Patterson and Elliott, ‘Negotiating Masculinities’, 241.

^21. See Goldman, Reading Ads Socially; and Jhally, Advertising and the End.

^22.Jackson, Andrews and Scherer, ‘Introduction’.

^23.Stern, ‘Textual Analysis in Advertising’, 67.

^24. See Birrell and McDonald, Reading Sport, 12. They suggest: ‘Celebrities need to be read within their political and historical context. The keys to why a particular event happened at this particular point in time and in this particular place might lie in local politics or in the larger cultural contexts that surround it.’

^25. J. Day, ‘Because He's Worth It?’, Guardian Unlimited, http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,97534300.html (accessed September 20, 2005).

^26.Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’; and Vincent, Hill and Lee, ‘The Multiple Brand Personalities’.

^27. ‘Beckham Agrees to $250M Deal with MLS’, TSN, January 11, 2007, www.tsn.ca/soccer/story/?id = 191771.

^28.Cashmore, Beckham; Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’; Giardina, ‘“Bending It Like Beckham”’; Harris and Clayton, ‘David Beckham’; , ‘Beckham as a Historical Moment’; ‘Burdens of the Flesh’; , ‘Sports Stars’; ‘Punishment, Redemption and Celebration’; and Media Sport Stars.

^29.Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’; , ‘Punishment, Redemption and Celebration’; and Media Sport Stars.

^30.Harris and Clayton, ‘David Beckham’.

^31.Vincent, Hill and Lee, ‘The Multiple Brand Personalities’.

^32.Wetherell and Edley, ‘Negotiating Hegemonic Masculinity’.

^33. Ibid., 337.

^34.Griffin, Strong Women, Deep Closets, 25.

^35.Oliffe, ‘Embodied Masculinity’, 428.

^36. Personal communication with M. Chavarot, March 7, 2009.

^37. Ibid.

^38.Sturges, Gunfight at the OK Corral.

^39. Advertisement available for viewing at www.youtube.com/watch?v = QoFDjWQY8Qk.

^40.Kimmel, The History of Men.

^41. Ibid., 94.

^42. Ibid., 31.

^43. Advertisement available for viewing at www.youtube.com/watch?v = JITG9n42QFk&feature = related.

^44.Fiddick, ‘Beyond the Domino Theory’; Hoch, ‘School for Sexism’; and Messner, Power at Play.

^45.Jeffords, The Remasculinisation of America; and Leed, ‘Violence, Death and Masculinity’.

^46.Addelston and Stirratt, ‘Last Bastion of Masculinity’; and Jackson and McKenzie, ‘Violence and Sport’.

^47. See Jackson and McKenzie, ‘Violence and Sport’, 435. They describe hegemonic masculinity as the ‘dominant form of masculinity which currently exists and embodies many of the stereotypes that we commonly associate with society's expectations of men's natural behaviour: active, adventurous, courageous, domineering, unemotional, rough, aggressive, even violent’.

^48. Personal communication with M. Chavarot, March 7, 2009.

^49. Ibid.

^50.Coad, The Metrosexual.

^51. ‘The Beckham Brand’, Yahoo News, March 23, 2008, http://60 min.yahoo.com/segment/152/david_beckham?comment_offset = 41.

^52.Milligan, Brand It Like Beckham, 60.

^53. See http://www.coty.com: ‘Coty Inc. is one of the world's largest and most successful beauty companies with sales of $1.95 billion in 2004. With operations in more than 25 countries, Coty Inc. boasts a global brand portfolio of unrivalled breadth and scope, spanning the three core categories of fragrance, colour cosmetics and skincare in the prestige, mass and masstige distribution sectors.’

^54.http://www.coty.com.

^55. Ibid.

^56. Costello, ‘Coty Hopes to Score with Beckham’, Women's Wear Daily, September 19, 2005, http://www.wwd.com/related/article/99746.

^57. Notably, David Beckham is not the only male sports celebrity to endorse men's underwear. Others who have appeared on billboards for underwear advertisements include Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Palmer for ‘élance’ Jockey, New Zealand rugby union player Dan Carter also for Jockey, professional tennis player Yannick Noah for Sloggi, NBA basketball superstar Michael Jordan for Hanes and Swedish football player Freddie Ljundberg for Calvin Klein.

^58. ‘David Beckham Shows Off Golden-bulge in Armani Ad’, Daily Telegraph, http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph (accessed August 19, 2008).

^59.Coad, The Metrosexual, 67.

^60. http://www.emporioarmani.com/underwear/.

^61. ‘David Beckham Shows Off Golden-bulge in Armani Ad’, Daily Telegraph, http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph (accessed August 19, 2008).

^62.Coad, The Metrosexual, 88.

^63.Cashmore, Beckham, 125–6.

^64.Rahman, ‘Beckham as a Historical Moment’.

^65.Coad, The Metrosexual; and Simpson, ‘Meet the Metrosexual’, SALON, http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/7/23/metrosexual (accessed June 22, 2003).

^66.Edwards, Men in the Mirror.

^67. Personal communication with M. Chavarot, March 7, 2009.

^68.http://www.coty.com.

^69.Vincent, Hill and Lee, ‘The Multiple Brand Personalities’.

^70. ‘David Beckham Shows Off Golden-bulge in Armani Ad’, Daily Telegraph, http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph (accessed August 19, 2008).

^71.Kimmel, ‘Reading Men’.

^72.Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’.

^73. Campbell, ‘Beckham is Most Influential Man in the UK’, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/feb/02/football.deniscampbell (accessed September 23, 2008).

^74.Malin, American Masculinity under Clinton, 190.

^75. M. Stirling, ‘Real Madrid Scores the Ultimate Goal’, The Wall Street Journal Europe, June 19, 2003, A6.

^76. Campbell, ‘Beckham is Most Influential Man in the UK’, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/feb/02/football.deniscampbell (accessed September 23, 2008).

^77. M. Parris, ‘For a Footballer to Wear a Sarong and Ping Nail Varnish Took Courage’, TimesOnline, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article683565.ece (accessed September 23, 2008).

^78.Harris and Clayton, ‘David Beckham’.

^79. See Smart, The Sport Star, 156. Smart states: ‘It has been his ability to strike a dead ball, to cross with precision, to make long passes with unerring accuracy, to compete enthusiastically throughout the duration of a game, and to score important goals for his club and international team that have been distinguishing characteristics which press and television coverage have identified and embellished.’

^80. See Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’; and Whannel, Media Sport Stars.

^81.Cashmore, Beckham, 128.

^82.Smart, The Sport Star.

^83.Whannel, Media Sport Stars, 202.

^84.Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’, 225.

^85.Cashmore and Parker, ‘One David Beckham?’.

^86.Clare, On Men; Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity; and Gee and Jackson, ‘Leisure Corporations’.

^87. Personal communication with M. Chavarot, March 7, 2009.

^88.Coad, The Metrosexual, 197.

^89.West, ‘Men, the Market and Models’.

^90.Goldman, Reading Ads Socially.

^91.Gee and Jackson, ‘Leisure Corporations’; and Turrow, Breaking Up America.

^92.Turrow, Breaking Up America.

^93.Edwards, Cultures of Masculinity, 43.

^94. Syed, cited in Smart, The Sport Star.

^95.Featherstone, Undoing Culture, 82.