‘Justin Bieber Sounds Girlie’: Young People's Celebrity Talk and Contemporary Masculinities

Kim Allen, Laura Harvey, Heather Mendick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In this article, we explore the ways that contemporary young masculinities are performed and regulated through young people's relationship with celebrity. We address the relative paucity of work on young men's engagements with popular culture. Drawing on qualitative data from group interviews with 148 young people (aged 14-17) in England, we identify 'celebrity talk' as a site in which gender identities are governed, negotiated and resisted. Specifically we argue that celebrity as a space of imagination can bring to the study of masculinities a focus on their affective and collective mobilisation. Unpicking young men's and women's talk about Canadian pop star Justin Bieber and British boyband One Direction, we show how disgust and humour operate as discursive-affective practices which open up and close down certain meanings and identities. We conclude that while there have been shifts in the ways that masculinities are performed and regulated, hierarchies of masculinities anchored through hegemonic masculinity remain significant.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalSociological Research Online
Volume20
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Aug 2015

Bibliographical note

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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