MTV's Jackass: Transgression, Abjection and the Economy of White Masculinity

• Published in: Journal of gender studies Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 57 - 72
• Main Author: Brayton, Sean
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis Group 01-03-2007; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Abjection; American culture; Backlash; Bakhtin, Mikhail M; Broadcasting; carnivalesque; Civil rights; Countermovements; Cultural studies; Discourse; Feminism; Gender; Gender studies; Heterosexuality; homoeroticism; Humor; Humour; Inflection (Morphology); Lesbianism; Males; Marginality; Masculinity; Mass media; Men's movements; Motion picture criticism; Motion pictures; Reflexivity; Sexuality; Sketches; Social movements; Social privilege; Television; Television programs; Text analysis; Theme; Victimization; Victims; white male backlash; White people; Whites; Womens rights
• ISSN: 0958-9236; 1465-3869
• DOI: 10.1080/09589230601116190

In the post-civil rights era, it is argued that some white men have adopted a marginalized positionality. This 'white male backlash' is often described as a distorted attempt to wrest social privilege from civil rights, feminist, and gay/lesbian movements. Through 'reflexive sadomasochism' the white male subject is able to simultaneously express an aggressive and receptive identity. While this overt narrative of white male victimhood is a recurring theme in popular film it has only been discussed within the action-drama genre. In response, I rely on a textual analysis of the popular film and television series Jackass to explain an alternative version of white male victimhood, one that loosely resembles Bakhtin's carnivalesque. Jackass complicates an already complex discourse of white male disadvantage by portraying an abject white masculinity through parody and humour. Heteronormative white masculinity is reframed as antiheroic and marginalized, but it is also exposed to relentless mockery. Several sketches of Jackass are loaded with homoerotic inflections that potentially trouble a rigid heteronormative masculinity. As an ambiguous text devoted to grotesque realism and the 'low other', Jackass might signify a contemporary form of burlesque. In this light, the film appears to reaffirm dominant assumptions of white masculinity even as it lampoons the values of bourgeois society.