man of action hero

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Man-of-Action Heroes: The Pursuit

of Heroic Masculinity in Everyday

Consumption

Cultura do Consumo

– Luiz Valério P. Trindade | 1st June, 2012 –

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START

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Authors

Craig J. Thompson Douglas B. Holt

University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) University of Oxford (UK)

BA – University of Stanford (USA)

MBA – University of Chicago (USA)

PhD – Kellog School – Northwestern (USA)

BS – University of Stanford (USA)

MA – University of Texas at Austin (USA)

PhD – University of Texas at Austin (USA)

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Purpose of the Study

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Major socioeconomic changes;

Routinized and less secure jobs;

Women independence and

entering into the marketplace ...

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Search for symbols to reaffirm their

status as real man through

compensatory consumption.

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American ideal of

the self-made man

More dependent

conditions of

wage earning

GAP

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The situation just

described

produces and

identity crisis!

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Symbol of Liberation

Antithesis of all the sources of confinment (including cars, offices,

schedules, authority, and relationship).

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As the authors have interviewed men in their homes and studied

the representations of masculinity advanced in mass culture, they

came to believe that the compensatory consumption thesis fail to

capture some of the most powerful masculine identifications that

men forge through their consumption.

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This has led them to the identification that, in fact, the so

called American ideology of heroic masculinity is threefold:

1 – Breadwinner;

2 – Rebel;

3 – Man-of-Action Hero.

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The Breadwinner Model

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The Breadwinner Model

Breadwinner masculinity is grounded in the

American myth of sucess. That it, the idea

that America is a land of boundless

opportunity, free from the social barriers to

individual mobility found on other countries,

whereby individuals from all backgrounds

(particularly immigrants) can grab the golden

ring if they work har and demonstrate

initiative.

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The Breadwinner Model

In the breadwinneer model, men work hard

and are dependable collaborators in a

corporate environment. They are willing to

devote themselves to their careers, playing

by the rules to climb within organizations

and communities toward material sucess and

higher status.

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The Rebel Model

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The Rebel Model

The first wave of American mass culture was

born around the Western adventurer.

These hunters and fur trappers were

represented as uncivilized, anarchic, and

fiercely independent men who survived

through courage, physical skills, and

cunning.

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The Rebel Model

In American mass culture, rebels are lionezed as the

paragons of idependence, potency, and adverture.

More warrior than father, more seducer than

husband, more class clown than serious worker, the

rebel poses a direct threat to the litany of norms and

obligations central to breadwinning.

Because rebels are both magnetic and threatening,

they are often scripted as tragic figures whose fierce

independence becomes their undoing.

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The Man-of-Action Hero

Model

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The Man-of-Action Hero Model

The most celebrated men of American culture are neither

bredwinners nor rebels.

Instead, they draw from the best of both models, resolving the

tensions between breadwinning and rebellion in a utopian

resolution.

These heroic men-of-action embody the rugged individualism

of the rebel while maintaining their allegiance to collective

interests, as required of breadwinners.

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The Man-of-Action Hero Model

The mass media is packed with stories of supremely

confident men who pay no mind to industry

conventions, invent a new way of doing things,

struggle tenaciously against seemingly

insurmountable forces, and improbably conquer the

establishment to found new industries.

The business press celebrates man-of-action

managers who practices creative destruction in order

to create powerful new companies from scratch.

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Bill Hewlett & David Packard

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The Hero’s Adventure

Why there are so many stories of the

hero in mythology?

Because that’s what’s worht writing

about. Even in popular novels, the

main character is a hero or heroine

who has found or done something

beyond the normal range of

achievement and experience.

A hero is someone

who has given hir or

her life to something

bigger tna oneself.

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Case 1 – Robert

General Profile

He’s a 47 years old dentist who has worked

hard for the past 17 years in order to build a

succesful practice in a Pensssylvania college

town.

Robert lives in a upscale neighborhood on the

outskirts of town with his wife of 21 years and

tow sons, aged 9 and 13.

He’s a keenly competitive man and

characterizes himslef as a political

conservative.

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Case 1 – Robert

He devotes na extraordinary amount of time and financial investment to

two avocations: auto racing and hockey card collecting;

He wanted to be the hero in a contest that the wordl considers as a

legitimate man-of-action pursuit;

Besides this man-of-action behavior he also demonstrates breadwinner

traits by the time he explains his desire to have a larger home;

His interest in hocke emerged due to his younger son starting to

practice it on a club team. He then started to watch NHL games, his son

begun a card collection and soon afterwards Robert took over his

collection.

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Case 2 – Donny

General Profile

He’s a high-school educated, middle-aged,

working-class man who earns his living

through a series of transient semi-skilled

service economy jobs;

He has worked as a cook in a institutional

kitchen, as a convenince store clerk, as an

ambulance driver, and as a nurse’s aid in a

psychiatric ward;

He’s overweight and stutters, and so he finds

most social situations to be uncomfortable.

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Case 2 – Donny

Donny does not fit into the model of a, so

called, traditional working class individual;

He is not fond of regular symbols of

masculinity such as football, hunting, bars,

bowling and so on;

He is kind of na enigma because on one hand

he rejects the Breadwinner Model but he also

posses a unique way of demonstrating his

version of heroic masculinity.

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To Sum Up

Robert

He’s an upwardly mobile

middle-class man who

frames breadwinner

masculinity in the terms

used by managers and

professionals; acquiring

occupational expertise,

acquiring possessions that

signify economic power, and

demonstranting competitive

achievements in prized

leisure contests.

Donny

His celebration of entrepreneurial

independence is also expressed in

his dream of striking it rich

someday as a fashion designer or

a software inventor. By cashing in

on his crreative talents, he

envisions attaining success and

respect on his own maverick term.

In both work and consumption,

Donny constructs hilself as a

caring hero who draws upon

feminine values to rebel against

working-class masculinity.

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THANK YOU!