“He’s a total TubeCrush” : Postfeminist Sensibility as Intimate Publics
- Submitting institution
-
Coventry University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 19309932
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
10.1080/14680777.2017.1367701
- Title of journal
- Feminist Media Studies
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 996
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 6
- ISSN
- 1468-0777
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- August
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
1
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This article was part of the project ‘TubeCrush as Connected Intimacies’ supported by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant (SG162199, £5,813.00).
The article uses TubeCrush, a website that features unsolicited photographs of men on the London Underground, as an example of a visual archive of the desirable masculine body. It interrogates public counter-discourses that align TubeCrush with either a ‘post-sexism’ narrative (“we’re all equal now”), or a ‘reverse sexism’, where men experience sexism and are unable to voice victimhood because of feminism.
These counter-discourses demonstrate a need for research to acknowledge how a postfeminist sensibility shapes masculinity. It addresses this gap by suggesting a ‘postfeminist intimate public’. The intimate public (Berlant, The Female Complaint, 2008) allows the authors to address the public debate about TubeCrush, since it is defined a space where a community is brought together through sentiment and complaint is redirected to normativity.
Applying Evans and Riley’s notion of a postfeminist intimate public, the analysis challenges accounts of post-or reverse sexism, showing how the attractive masculinity celebrated on TubeCrush is embodied by whiteness, financial wealth and muscularity and physical strength.
The research has been highlighted through press articles in The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Independent, The Statesman, as well as in ‘lifestyle’ media Pink News and LGTBQ Nation, and Evans was interviewed by The Evening Standard and Londonist. Evans was invited to present the research at The British Academy’s public lectures, with 80+ attendees. A podcast interview with Evans features on The British Academy’s website, and has received 1644 listens.
The article led to an invite to contribute to Digital Intimate Publics and Social Media (eds. Dobson, Carah & Robards, 2018), to join the Beauty Demands Network (led by Prof Heather Widdows, Birmingham University), and contribute to the blog post On Outrage and Images of Attractive Men.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -