Journal of Popular Television, The - Masculinity and Contemporary Television, Jun 2021

Although billed as a ‘crime TV drama’, the Netflix series Unbelievable (2019) is more of a docu-drama. The correspondence between fact and fiction creates a powerful empathic relationship with audiences, the nature of which is comprehensible through how this film, alongside more traditional format documentaries on the online platform, engages ‘the real’ through representing bodies and actions that manifest cinematically in ‘the aesthetics of the frame’. What can be described as the occurrency of these manifestations is found both in a present- and past-oriented description of material facts, whether actual or imagined, and a future-oriented sense of becoming that derives from a relationship that docu-subjects and characters have with potentiality in the progression of the story. Some films describe what people do or have done, while others write docu-subjects and characters as people who have a view to the future. This takes the form of both an objective sense of agency qua freedom and autonomy and a subjective sense of psychodynamic potential formed by representations of their conative orientations towards a future. The sense of possibility that emerges reflects a more nuanced and subjectivized sense of becoming than explained by Ilona Hongisto as constituted by the generation of ‘imagination’, ‘fabulation’ and ‘affection’.

Derry Girls (2018–present) playfully satirizes regionalism and first-person narrative while re-enacting a collective memory of the Troubles. A close reading of the series’ opening montage provides the basis for a fuller understanding of the programme’s nuanced critique of efforts to look back on Northern Ireland in the 1990s and make sense of it all with the benefit of hindsight. In lieu of the reassurances of authoritative extradiegetic commentary, the series’ opening monologue provides a humorous account of the unresolved tribulations of adolescence and, in the larger political frame, a community’s continuing inability to situate itself as a region within the United Kingdom.

Netflix’s Queer Eye (2018–present) is often criticized for reinforcing neo-liberal American fantasies of transformation of the self that distract from urgent transformations of economic, political and social worlds. Nonetheless, I use paratextual and textual analyses to argue that the verbal and physical intimacies between the Fab Five are rare in American popular culture, and offer us reworked embodiments of American manhood. It is through these intimacies that the Fab Five enable us to think through the following questions. What does it mean to be a man in contemporary American popular culture? What does it mean to be a man with other men? What does intimacy between men look like?

This article will study the world of American professional wrestling in connection to the reception of masculine tropes by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) fans. Wrestling fans, who are in majority male and traditionally come from the American working class, are in the unique position to voice, or scream, their opinions of positive or negative masculine behaviours that they see live in the ring. Since it is a scripted show (or in wrestling jargon, a ‘work’), it offers us a fascinating insight into how men view masculine behaviour as they view the action from a fictional distance. As unlikely at it may seem, I will argue that based upon their live reception of positive and negative masculine traits, modern WWE fans are surprisingly liberal in their condemnation of masculinist beliefs such as misogyny, having a hatred of oppressive patriarchal systems and, mostly recently, opposing the sleazy objectification of women. I will additionally challenge accusations that wrestling is a fundamentally misogynistic industry, with particular reference to the modern reception of female wrestlers as serious athletes, rather than erotic valets leading males to the ring, or as sex objects in general, with reference to the successful 2015 ‘Divas revolution’ and the company’s decision to rename them ‘superstars’ in all broadcasts – giving them equal status to their male counterparts.

Before 2005, Michael Portillo was a reviled populist, right-wing British Conservative politician. Seemingly, he is a now a mellowed national treasure due largely to his approachable, friendly, prolific series of travelogues, Great British Railway Journeys (2010–present). This multi-series documentary has been a remarkable BBC success: delivering upbeat music, dynamic camera work, a repetitive format, rosy-tinted Victoriana and celebratory subject matter, the programme makers ensure that the programme is feel-good, cosy, nostalgic and soothing. But Portillo’s political inclinations are apparent: Portillo, sometimes quite subtly, expresses consistently his passion for free enterprise, for the supposed benefits of historical colonialism, for the monarchy, for the military and for social liberalism. A believer in an enterprise-encouraging small state and in personal liberty and social mobility, Portillo’s politics chime in directly with the current thinking of the Conservative Party leadership. In short, the apparently benign travelogue series promotes Portillo’s mainstream post-Thatcherite British Conservatism: an analysis of the ubiquitous programme’s understated but clear Conservatism counters right-wing accusations about the BBC’s alleged leftist bias.

Holby City (1999–present) is a stalwart of British television media. Since its conception in 1999, the show has continued to attract contemporary audiences who tune in to passively, and passionately, experience turbulent battles between life and death. However, the locus of interest is not on the patients within Holby’s wings, but rather the staff themselves; it is their emotional, psychological and pedagogical development which spurs the plot forward and grips viewer attention. Through the use of medical pedagogy, Holby City becomes a drama of perpetual Bildungsromane, where relationships between peers, mentors and mentees are under consistent pressure. Furthermore, this pedagogy does not merely ensure Holby City’s series continuation but becomes a site of transformation, challenging preconceived ideologies of toxic masculinity. This is never more apparent than in the character of Sacha Levy (Bob Barrett), whose emotional availability, vulnerability and religious spirituality directly challenge concepts of the self-destructive ‘burnt-out’ male medic. This article explores the character of Sacha Levy in Holby City, demonstrating how the show’s writers engage actively in research to directly confront stereotypes of toxic masculinity and Jewish underrepresentation in the contemporary medical drama.