Journal Article Review

Journal Article Review

                Lisa Kirby, in her article Cowboys of the High Seas: Representations of Working-Class Masculinity on Deadliest Catch, discusses the portrayal and fascination of masculinity in today’s pop culture, and how that viewpoint of society has changed in recent times.  She offers the reader a very intriguing analysis of pop culture’s view on masculinity and both good examples and good reasons for why this viewpoint has changed.   I’ll summarize the article here and give my own feedback on her analysis.

Kirby begins by noting the opening sequence of Deadliest Catch, which is a show on Discovery Channel about Alaskan King Crab fishermen, who, every fall, set out into the Bering Sea to catch crab in what is generally regarded as the most dangerous job on the planet.  The opening sequence is very fixated on the dangers of the task at hand, and emphasizes the “deadliness” and treachery of crab fishing.  In fact, the closing scene of the opening credits is a sea side funeral service.  Obviously, it is the show’s goal to portray these men as heroic and courageous, as they risk life and limb to get this high profile delicacy that blue collar workers such as themselves rarely could afford to dine upon.  Kirby is quick to point out however, that this is not the same light that blue collar men have always been portrayed in pop culture.

Consider the 1990s, and the popular TV shows of the time:  King of Queens, Roseanne, All in the Family, The Simpsons, etc.  What do all of these shows have in common?  The men in each of these shows are blue collar, and are portrayed as idiotic, simple minded, and in general, “buffoons.”  They are essentially there for comic relief and themselves and their careers are not heroic or respectable, even if they are good intentioned.  Now, consider the shows of the last decade that have been most popular among TV Viewers like Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers.  These men are heroes, and risk it all to do their job.  They are looked up to for their manual labor, unlike their reality show counterparts of the 90s.  There has been a radical shift in the portrayal of blue collar workers.  Kirby thinks she has the answer to the catalyst of this shift: 9/11.

This certainly makes sense to me.  In the wake of 9/11, America wanted heroes.  We need heroes in our everyday lives and this terrible act of violence against our country brought that to the forefront of everyone’s mind.  While this certainly got the ball rolling, is there perhaps another shift that is happening at the same time, exacerbating this cultural shift?  Kirby believes so, and she believes it is the growing popularity among society to the adrenaline rush of danger and life-on-the-edge living.  Deadliest catch is popular no doubt in part to the fact people can get hurt on the show.  It’s the same reason we’re fascinated with magicians being buried alive or locked underwater, and why we’re fascinated every time we see a car crash.  Sure, there is the chance someone will get hurt, and for some reason, the human brain is drawn to this potential, and we want to see it more and more.

Overall, I must wholeheartedly agree with Kirby on her analysis, and in fact I see essentially zero flaws in her argument.  Furthermore, nearly every popular show I consider in the 90s and today seem to follow the same patterns she has laid out here.  I think of shows like Home Improvement and Married with Children, and quickly realize that all of them follow the same template as the others Kirby mentioned of that time, with the blue collar men being ridiculed and present for comic relief as the idiot that couldn’t get a better job.  Then, I consider the second point in her analysis, which is that new shows have a different trend.  Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, as she mentioned surely do.  Then I think of other shows that are popular today, including in my own house like Gold Rush, Dirty Jobs, Ax Men, Deadliest Roads, Swamp People, and Billy the Exterminator and it quickly becomes obvious the shift she mentions is most certainly real.  All of these shows follow blue collar men that are now celebrities and idolized for the physical jobs they do.  Furthermore, while I cannot prove or disprove that 9/11 was the catalyst for this shift, it makes sense and the timing fits.  That is to say I cannot think of any other reason that this shift in masculinity perspective would have changed, so I have no reason to disbelief this hypothesis. 

I believe that the points Kirby makes in this article are undoubtedly important in today’s pop culture.  With the current trends in society that, to me at least, are frightening, it’s relieving to see a shift in attitude that I feel is a positive one.  Men are exactly that, men.  They are masculine and courageous, and are leaders of our households.  The fact that some men work more with their hands and others more with their brains doesn’t mean that blue collar men are stupid, idiotic, or otherwise incapable of a desk job, just how white collar men are not ignorant to physical labor and skills associated with it.  I know some extremely intelligent blue collar people who are both very smart, and very successful, and I have furthermore seen white collar men who have absolutely no business managing people from behind a desk.  The color of your collar has zero merit in the quality of one’s mind or abilities; it is simply what you have chosen to do with 1/3^rd of the time in your life.  Men should not be ridiculed or put down for deciding to take a blue collar role, and in fact, these men should be celebrated.  They have taken a much bigger risk than us white collar job seekers; they have gone against the grain, against the pressures of society pushing white collars around men’s necks.  I salute the plumbers, electricians, welders, handymen, and perhaps most of all, the garbage men of our society.  Without these people, our society would truly fail, and our economy would surely crumble.

References:

Kirby, L. (2013). Cowboys of the High Seas: Representations of Working-Class Masculinity on Deadliest Catch. The Journal of Popular Culture, 46(1), 109-118. (2013, February). Retrieved August 21, 2014, from Franklin University Electronic Journal Center.