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The "Mock-Macho" Situation Comedy: Hegemonic Masculinity and Its

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The "'estern Jooma/ofCommunkatirm,62(1) (Winter 1998), 74---93 Winter 1998 75 more specifically, to begin to explicate their parodic mode of masculine discourse. In this essay, I examine Home Improvement (from Sept ember 7, 1991 The "Mock-Macho" Situation Comedy: t o the present ) and Coach (from February 28, 1989 through May 14, Hegemonic Masculinity 199 7), with a focus on the way in which signs of "masculinity" are e xpressed and played off one a nother within the parodic mode of US and its Reiteration television situation comedy. The goal of this analysis is not to define a new comed ic genre, but to identify some ofthe features and complexi­ t ies of this comedic mode, and to examine the implicatio ns of mobilizing Robert Ha nk e this type of gender parody for hege monic masculinity! Variou s efforts ha ve been made to theorize the specific effectivity of TlU:; essay examines how Home Improvement and Coach play off the stereotypes of humor (Berger, 1987 ) and comedy (Palmer 1987, 1994), to critique the conventional masc ulinity in order to descri be how these texts work to reiterate hegamcnic masculinity. The an alysis focuses on how the "mock-macho" sitcom takes gendered assumptio ns of comic theor ies, and to explore women's m a~ lin i ty as an object. of its own discoul'lle and tnd ecee pleasure in the eeahse ucn of relations hip to laughter (Gray, 1994). Palmer (1987 ) a rgues tha t comic murolinity IIll II gender performance. This study 8Ug:ge&tll some of the features and a rticulation invokes baekground expectationsof plausibili tyand im plau­ complexities of this discursive strategy lind draws on Butler's (1990 ) concept of"g\>nder sibility, which , in tum , "stem from the discourses of the social forma­ parody" to tbecriee "mock-macho" gen der performances and their ramie effectivity. The t ion." As he explains , "jokes create com ic impact ., . by the cont radic­ f'Nl3y conclud {'ll with an eseeesment cr the ambivalen t gender polities of "mock- ~ho" situation comedies . t ion of di sc ursively defined expectations" (p. 139 ). In Palme r 's formulation of the "logic of the absurd" specific to comedy, implausible actions or events r einforce'a given discours e, while plausibility "consti­ tutes an a ttack up on the discourse in t erms of which the action is seen An essential aspect of power is that it only likes W laugh at its own jokes . as absurd"(p. 179 ). However. it is one thing to describe the effectivity of -PetA:or Slotl:rdijk (1987 ) t his logic a nd quite another to theorize the rela tion between situation It', a dll.ngerou5 game, tha t oomedy plays, Sometimes it tella you the troth, sometimes it comedy and social re la tions of power. delays it. On the one hand, Palmer (1987) suggests that humor is "neither - ElvillCoote-llo (199.f) essentially liberatory nor conservative ... its very ba sis is amhiva­ lence" (p. 2 13).2 On the other hand, work in feminist media studies has OMEDY, ACCORDING TO NEALl-; & KRuTNIK (1990), traffics in the identified how feminine discourse in r elati on to soap ope ras is often C"surprising, the improper, the unlikely, and the transgressive in parodic: order to make us laugh"(p. 3). Moments oftel evision comedy typical ly "involve a de parture from a no rm, whether the norm be one ofaction, It makes fun of domina nt practices an d discursive notions. By playing in this way with a ppropria te behavior, conventional dress. or stereotypical fea tu res" (p. the conventio n.. ofthe dominan t discourse, feminine diseourae ecnst jt utes itse lf all 'oth er' 67). At the same time, as Bathrick ( 984) a ptly notes, situation to it, and displa ytia poten tial resistance. (Brown, 1m . p. 190) comedies situate us, off@ri ngsomeofthesubjectpositions which women Women's reco nstruction of humor and play with language, as Gray and men may inhabit to make se nse of their own lived gender rela tions (1994) suggests. is a way for women to "insert themse lves into history a nd realities . This is indeed the case with HOmR Improvement and as agen ts ofcha nge" (p. 36). However, there are limi ts to the subversive Coach, two popular ABC sitcoms. Analysis of these se ri es provides an potential ofsuch comedy, for the "sitcom's dependence upon a consumer opportunity t o explore sit uation comedies as gender comedies , and, culture for its very existence will almost certai nly preclude a laughter which provokes analysis of consumerism itself' (Gray, 1994 , p. 45). Behind these conside rations lies an ongoing debate over whether humor and comedy are basically subversive or conserva tive. But as the ROBERT HAII.'l{E (PhD., University of Pennsylvania, 1987) is Visiting Profess or of Sociology, Ryel'llOn Polytechnic Univenrity. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An earher veraion epigraph to this essay suggests, humor often entails the ccmmunica­ of this essay ...·u presented at the 1993 Intern ational Communication Association t ion of paradox (Fry. 198 7). Thus , comic articulation can be defined as a emjerence, Wa ~ h i n gto n , D.C. The author wisbes to than k L. DeLa na Browning. Tom semiotic process that is both "subversive a nd conservative. offensive Sch umadlel", TholllM Byers., and the three anonymoull reviewt"ra fur their usefu l and inoffensive, serious and ridiculous" (Palmer, 1987, p. 182); comic C1i ticisJn8 and valueble s uggestiens. narrative is simultaneously plausible and impla usible (Palmer, 1994 ). 76 The "Mock-Macho"Situation Comedy Winter 1998 77 In light of the fundamentally incongruous nature of comedy, the from below) into its opposite, cynicism (the male power bloc tells the question then becomes how we can theorize television's contribution to truth about themselves and denies any ability to do anything about it). the hegemonic process when masculine discourse takes itself as an object of its own discourse in order to parody elerrients of dominant This essay advances a suspicious, rather than cultural populist, (masculinistl ideology? We can begin to answer this question and the reading of "mock-macho" humor within the contemporary sitcom genre. specific issues it raises by examining two contemporary situation Such a reading differs from Miller's (1987) aesthetic conception ofthe comedies, Home Improvement and Coach. sitcom genre, and from his humanistic critique of its relation to American consumer culture. For Miller, even when "pseudopatriarcha­ Home Improvement and Coach represent a paradoxical discursive list fantasy" is replaced with "pseudofeminist fantasy," such comedic event: masculine discourse which takes up masculinity as an object of texts only serve to promote television's assault on "individuality," and to its own discourse. In both series, a parodic mode of discourse is promote consumption as a way oflife. (However, Miller goes on to claim deployed to address white, middle class, middle-aged men's anxieties that the sitcom's recoding offatherhood through "routine autosubver­ about a feminized ideal for manhood they may not want to live up to, as sion" is evidence of an anti-patriarchal trend in television.) This well as changes in work and family life that continue to dissolve argument has merit if one accepts Miller's conception of genre and separate gender spheres within white, professional-managerial, class "patriarchy." life. At the same time, queer theory and politics have further pluralized More recently, Mellencamp (1992) has analyzed sitcoms from a and relativized the gendered meanings of "home," "family," "romantic feminist, nee-Freudian, and Baudrillardian perspective. While she love," and even "mass culture" (Doty, 1993). These discourses, along contends that through witticisms and other transgressions the domi­ with the discourses of the "men's movement," intersect to produce the nant discursive code of patriarchy might be undone, Mellencamp also broader discursive context in which "mock-macho" sitcoms such as acknowledges that the sitcom's strategy for containing women as Home Improvement and Coach have appeared. Thus, it is within this ''wives'' and "mothers" is always contradictory and open to alternative context that we must examine how "mock-macho" sitcoms function as a readings based on women's experiences of and dilemmas within discursive strategy through which the force relations of masculinity patriarchy. On the otherhand, Craig (1996) has taken a more determin­ and femininity take effect. istic view of recent domestic sitcoms. In his discussion of Home Mock-macho sitcoms like Home Improvement and Coach offer view­ Improvement, Craig describes how this popular "producerly text"· is ers more than a postmodern spectacle of unenlightened or unrecon­ designed to enable both female and male viewers to derive different meanings and pleasures from the same series. Although the series structed manhood. By making a mockery of masculinity, these comic takes masculinity and power as its theme, and the producers evidently narratives simultaneously preserit men as objects of laughter and as intend to offer a "mildly feminist satire of men," Craig argues that it subjects moving between "old" and "new" subject positions. While this works to "restore (women's) consent by pointing out the inevitability process of resubjectification may not signify a change in social struc­ and the 'naturalness' of ... modernized hegemonic masculinity" (1996, tures of hierarchy and inequality, such comic texts can imply a lack of p.70). reverence for conventional masculinity, especially as it is defined in terms ofcompetence and infallibility. As Gray (1994) suggests, humor, While sitcoms offer many sources of contradiction for women view­ like sexuality, is a changing social construct; thus, the popularity of ers, which some series may even foreground (e.g., men as bumbling but these sitcoms suggests a shiftin the nature and parameters of domestic loveable fathers as inEverybody Loves Raymond), what is unique about sitcom performance, as male comic television actors ridicule their own Home Improvement and Coach is their self-conscious foregrounding of lack of self-knowledge and as more male viewers have learned to laugh masculine discourse.
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