the secret script at USA Networks (aka the enmeshed male)

I already have my copy, so I’ll take myself out of the running for the book prize, but I’m very interested to see what people think (shifting images/performances of gender is something of an interest of mine).

I think part of it is owed to an overall destabilization and fragmentation of identity, especially as defined along the traditional determinants (gender, race, age, and so forth). While these things still have a tendency to set parameters around our social mobility and political power, they no longer do to the extent that they once did, and they’ve certainly loosened the grip on our access to culture and cultural materials with which to articulate our identities. The “enmeshed male” is one of a number of relatively new masculine identities that have found growing representation in recent years.

But I think more precisely, more might be revealed about what hasn’t changed than what has. While the main three protagonists are all men riding high brought low, as you say, it isn’t through personal failure, but structural failure. Burn Notice and Royal Pains feature good men falsely blamed, while White Collar presents a double failure in the system (first imprisoning a guy who the text goes out of the way to present as harmless and admirable, then failing to actually keep him imprisoned). So it’s not so much that they’ve been brought low, but rather, the institutions of power that they were a part of were. The criteria of power and success were upended around them. So in a sense, they remain unconstrained heroes — rogue from institutions of power and now making their way using their individual power and relationships.

This to me seems to reflect a cultural shift in which structural power is perceived as no longer as neatly and assuredly aligned with masculinity as it has been in the past. This narrative of the criteria for personal value shifting along with the loss of power is a very comforting one in light of any “crisis of masculinity” (e.g. the Men in Power club at Uchicago).

We’re also seeing a fragmentation and cross-pollenation of audiences, which is introducing new subjectivities. I wonder too if Ms. Hammer, and the rise of women writers and creators in TV has something to do with it. The narrative of individual power overcoming structural imbalances, oversights, and wrongs is a long-time feminine fantasy. And not to mention the increasingly collaborative construction/curation of the materials that create our social imaginaries and the increasingly publicness of audienceship that’s making us more and more aware of our very linkedness, but also making us assess and categorize the types and values of our relationships. And . . . I’m going to stop now because I write an essay.

hmm, this is better than my theory that Burn Notice is Batman.

I think it’s a post-1973, post-patriarchal vision of man as a social being instead of man as a microking.

The institutional failure concept seems very important here. All of us have had the feeling that we’ve been put down or wronged by “the man.” And we’ve all wished we could pull ourselves up by the bootstraps the way America teaches us to get back at them. This is really nothing new in terms of our entertainment. The Bourne Identity, The Fugitive, The A-Team, frankly put in any “spy gets turned on by his own” melodrama.

The real difference in these shows is it shows that the men are truly damaged by the failure of the institution, and actually have to rely on others to help them live a life. This is more true to life, and perhaps influenced by more women being involved TV and it’s creation. This may also explain the sort of tight-knit nurturing group of people surrounding the main characters, and our self-identification with family and trust may explain the popularity.

However it should be noted that many other shows that are extremely popular have damaged male characters that have no problem whatsoever with wielding insane power around. Mad Men, The Sopranos, Deadwood. These guys take shit from no one. And we love them for it. Or maybe I should just say I love them for it. So I don’t know if there is really a “shift” or if it is just expanding the horizon of shows about fighting “the man.”

The first question this post brought up for me was, Does a string of shows with a similar premise on a single cable channel commissioned by a lone CEO with a formula spell a cultural change? Plus the main character of 1 of the 4 shows (25%) is female. But let’s go with it.

At the risk of being accused of gender bias, part of the answer to the question in the post may have to do with the formula-maker in question being female. The role and behavior of men in the shows may be a projection, rather than reflection of the state of cultural affairs. Still, let’s go with it.

The Economist recently reported on a Pew study, which found that there are now more female than male college graduates in the 30-44 age group. Women are now more likely to have more education than men in families where there’s an education disparity between spouses. As a result, women have narrowed the income gap in families. “The growing economic clout of women increases their power within marriage.” And even where men earn more, women tend to have the final say on how family finances are spent. All in all, men have come to rely more on women in terms of general livelihood.

In the cultural sphere, there may be a recognition of this evolving role of men as primary bread winners (bacon bringers, depending on your taste) and lonesome heroes. IMO, the changing role of men has to do, in part, with the changing role of women.

Another factor may be the fallout from the Bush II presidency. The go-it-alone, every-man-for-himself style of politics, both internationally and domestically, failed to work as envisaged and practiced, and it led to more ill than good all around. Even the 2nd Bush administration recognized this, and we saw a much more cooperative behavior by them. As an embodiment of the rogue, macho man who fell from the my-way-or-the-highway, riding-high pedestal, Bush (and his cultural reflections like Jack Bauer) may have triggered a cultural reaction that sees, or wishes to see, men as more social and communitarian animals.

see Ed Brenegar’s extended response at his blog here http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/leading_questions/2010/02/collaboration-welcome.html.

Thanks Grant, always love reading your work.

It seems to me that one of the core pieces of information left out is the viewership demographics of the USA network. Using website viewership* as a proxy(which, indeed, has its issues), we find that lower-income, childless women are the highest percentage of viewers.

Two major trends of recent years are rampant un / under employment and the shifting of support patterns. The first trend is rather self-explanatory, but the latter is complicated and multi-faceted. The first part is simply due to the economy, with people previously supporting themselves that are no longer capable and need to turn to their inner circle for support. Secondly, as was noted early, as women are more likely to be have a college education than their male counterparts and as women continue to expand their capacity to be equal wage earners, shifting inter-personal and relationship boundaries. Who is suposed to pick-up the tab after dinner? The person with the greater income? Timing in relative proportion to income? The man? And finally, support is shifting with technology, where ambient presence is felt by many — people have hundreds of “friends” on facebook, yet there are growing trends of loneliness, where meaningful, supportive and unconditional connections are dying. Yet, in light of the first economic trend, many are finding themselves flung deeply back into these small, supportive organic webs.

Within the context of these trends, the main demographic (lower income single women) will most strongly identify with those in the supporting roles of the protagonist (with the exception of In Plain Sight, where the protagonist is the one doing the supporting). As one of their main roles is now in the fiscal and emotional support of a down-and-out loved one, they are reaping the emotional benefit of seeing how their support is required, cherished and helping the protagonist. They see their role as indispensable — both in life and in the show.

Sources:
* http://www.quantcast.com/usanetwork.com

SNL did a hysterical sketch on Burn Notice last night. It’s the 8th highest-rated show in cable, yet no one knows what it’s about.

Women have outnumbered men on college campuses at an average of about 57% of the student population since 2000 (NYTimes.com 2/05/10: http://nyti.ms/bi7hB4). Fewer women are dropping out of the workforce to have children and more men are dropping out of college to join the military, pursue entrepreneurial interests, or stay at home with the kids (I know 2 men who do — their wives are better educated and making more money). Simply, more women are working their way into the influential sphere of senior management.

Just over the holiday, I believe I heard the statistics have changed that 1-in-5 households now have the woman as the higher-earner (please correct me if I’m mistaken).

To me, it’s both something to celebrate and something I find concerning. I think it is a great thing that women are employing the opportunities presented, but it is not without pause that I wonder where is the fighting spirit amongst the men.

Here’s my analysis of it:
1) themes of recovery, especially important given the economic downturn
2) theories on people being happier if they don’t bowl alone hitting popular culture

If you read any magazines targeted at women you will see the variations on recovery as a dominent theme. But images of strong individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps are too “hard-core”, too intimidating. We prefer to understand these stories in the context of support.

also wanted to tip my hat to ed brenegar as his notion of collaboration fits this notion of relationships of support and the challenge (threat?) of collaboration and cooperation.i particularly appreciate his inclusion of the CSI and NCIS franchies here – as they have always struck me as heroically idealized family dramas – constructed from the most disparate characters possible.

Men (and women) used to be able to rely upon working for one company for 10, 15, 20, or more years if they chose to do so. Employees who showed “corporate loyalty” in remaining with the company on a long-term basis earned decent retirement pensions and benefits.

To get out of honouring retirement pensions, benefits, and liveable wages, corporations have declared bankruptcy to reorganize. Corporations are turning over their workforce regularly in order to hire less experienced workers or importing workers with H-1B visas who will accept lower wages to do the same jobs. Corporations are also outsourcing, contracting work out and using more temporary workers to avoid paying benefits.

In short, most people can’t expect steady work any longer.

Add into that the futility of dealing with the U.S. judicial system (overloaded) and the various agencies and levels of government (overloaded and more interested in serving their big donors or protecting their turf) which leave a lot of people “falling through the cracks” and feeling helpless.

Then the “traditional” family unit was devalued so lots of people are single or divorced.

Viewers can relate to main characters who were stomped on by the system(s) and have to turn to whatever assistance is available in their social networks.

Interesting point. I think you are into something, the latest Dove commercial follows the same line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuexzKkMIDc&feature=pyv

I think the programming on USA has captured the means by which to prove that the lead character is heroic and reflects the emerging need/benefit of relying on others in our technologically complex culture.

The point of the USA characters being “brought down” by their environment is a classic person-perception issue. The presence of a clearly “unfair” conflict with a powerful organization that brings a good man down, provides quick and solid proof to us of heroic status. In the absence of obviously unfair conflicts of this magnitude, we would need considerably more evidence to assure us that this person is indeed heroic. How many such episodes would USA need to show just to get us to that point?

Also, the key characters in these programs all have a distinct role as leaders of their teams and they would not succeed without the teams. Our iconic hero characters used to be completely capable doers as well as moral leaders.

The “enmeshed” nature of each of the male characters and their various teams strikes me more as a reflection of the evolving complexity of our culture and technologies. In fact, only through the talents/intelligence of a group we can get to effective problem resolutions. The “burned” agent is enmeshed with his team, each of whom provides a consistent facet of the work that needs to be done (computer research, bomb making, etc.). The concierge physician focuses on the highly complex medical aspects of each emergency, his team handles all of the practical (hence the capable physician assistant) and business oriented (a manager handling: concierge contracts, taxes, etc.) necessities. In the realm of procedurals, NCIS’ Gibbs provides leadership that includes savy utilization of his distinctively talented sub-ordinates – following his “gut” as to what to do next. He cannot do much/any of the technical work that each of them can, but he is the one who provides the unwaveringly correct direction.

Watching old John Wayne movies or “Dirty Harry” one man heroics now just reinforces how dated these icons are, when we are experiencing the kind of shift toward a culture that simply requires leading a team that combines all the skills necessary, to accomplish anything.