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This edited collection offers the first authoritative study of masculinity in the British situation comedy. The volume uses a distinctively intersectional approach combining a concern with the format of the television situation comedy (with its typical narrative conceits and characterisations, including stereotyping) combined with a focus on the specifics of male representation. This also allows for a consideration of other areas of identity representation such as class, sexuality, and ethnicity.
The British situation comedy has been a fruitful area for writers and actors to explore male characterisation with recurrent themes such as failure, an inability to make meaningful relationships, or issues coming to terms with changing attitudes to gender and the social position of men. Theoretical analysis of comedic strategies is combined with an awareness of how the television sitcom has been in conversation with the wider culture of Britain, giving expression to anxieties and conflicts sometimes too painful to address in any other way. Consequently, the seismic changes in male identity over a sixty year period are reflected in characters struggling to come to terms with a new landscape of identity.
The authors come from a variety of academic backgrounds with well-established authors sitting alongside new voices. A significant period of development in the situation comedy is mapped, with both classic, popular series and more esoteric entries. The volume should find wide interest within academia (media and cultural studies, gender studies) and the wider public as the British situation comedy continues to attract much attention both in the UK and internationally.
List of contents
1. Introduction by Steven Gerrard and Robert Shail.- 2. Billy s Army Game: The Performative Role of the NCO by Keith Dando.- 3. Masculinity and Failure: The British Sitcom in the 1970s by Robert Shail.- 4. Richard O Sullivan: A 1970s Man About the House by Mary Irwin.- 5. Good Times and God s Business The Fosters, Black British Masculinity, and Being Beyond Race by Peter Hughes Jachimiak.- 6. Reclaiming Mind Your Language (ITV, 1977-1979): Mocking White Masculinity in Post-Imperial Britain by Alex Symons.- 7. Men on the Inside: Masculinity in Porridge by Alix Burbridge.- 8. Stay-at-home Fatherhood in Motherland (2016-2022) by Rebecca Feasey.- 9. Clownish History: The White Clown in Blackadder by Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns and Eduardo Veteri.- 10. Welsh Masculinity in the British Sitcom by Steven Gerrard.- 11. Are We Not Men? The IT Crowd and Geek Masculinity By Rebecca Johinke.- 12. Hello Martin: Ever Decreasing Circles, Ever Decreasing Manliness by Robert Hensley-King.- 13. You Can Sort Your Life Out Anytime, the Pub Closes in Five Hours : Absurdity and the Man-child in Black Books. By Renée Middlemost.- 14. Cringe Masculinities and Workplace Dynamics: An Analysis of The Office through the Lens of Cringe Humour by Deepthi Krishna Thota.- 15. God Bless Hooky Street Only Fools and Horses, Del Boy, and the Enactment of Masculinity by Peter Hughes Jachimiak.
About the author
Professor Robert Shail
is Director of Research in the School of Arts at Leeds Beckett University and is widely published in the areas of film and media, visual culture, gender studies, and the culture of childhood. This will be his fifth book as an editor, in addtion to four monographs and numerous book chapters and journal articles. His research has been recognised with an AHRC Fellowship and a Leverhulme Fellowship.
Dr Steven Gerrard
is Reader in Film, Northern Film School, School of Arts at Leeds Beckett University. He has published extensively in film, media, gender studies, horror and science fiction, British popularculture and visual culture. Steve has written two monographs; has co-edited seven collections; edited one collection as sole editor; and contributed chapters to all those plus three other collections. He has also written twelve chapters for populist publications.
Summary
This edited collection offers the first authoritative study of masculinity in the British situation comedy. The volume uses a distinctively intersectional approach combining a concern with the format of the television situation comedy (with its typical narrative conceits and characterisations, including stereotyping) combined with a focus on the specifics of male representation. This also allows for a consideration of other areas of identity representation such as class, sexuality, and ethnicity.
The British situation comedy has been a fruitful area for writers and actors to explore male characterisation with recurrent themes such as failure, an inability to make meaningful relationships, or issues coming to terms with changing attitudes to gender and the social position of men. Theoretical analysis of comedic strategies is combined with an awareness of how the television sitcom has been in conversation with the wider culture of Britain, giving expression to anxieties and conflicts sometimes too painful to address in any other way. Consequently, the seismic changes in male identity over a sixty year period are reflected in characters struggling to come to terms with a new landscape of identity.
The authors come from a variety of academic backgrounds with well-established authors sitting alongside new voices. A significant period of development in the situation comedy is mapped, with both classic, popular series and more esoteric entries. The volume should find wide interest within academia (media and cultural studies, gender studies) and the wider public as the British situation comedy continues to attract much attention both in the UK and internationally.
