Skip to content
1981
Volume 1, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2050-070X
  • E-ISSN: 2050-0718

Abstract

Abstract

This article considers the male undershirt within discourses of distinctive Australian national dress styles, bush wear and swimwear. Through the case study of Chesty Bonds advertisements, this article will argue that the undershirt became a symbol of strength, virility, heroicism and mateship during the 1940s and 1950s. In aligning the Chesty Bond character with iconic Australian heroic types the surf lifesaver and the bushman advertisers were able to draw on mythologies of masculine cultural identity to promote the undershirt as a staple of the hegemonic male wardrobe. Through an analysis of the Chesty Bond comic-strip advertisements, I will argue that the athletic undershirt contributed to discourses of national identity in which the white male was dominant, and women and non-Anglo-Celtic men were marginalized, seen as being outside the Australian archetype.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/csmf.1.2.147_1
2014-03-01
2024-11-03
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/csmf.1.2.147_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error