LOOKING AT MEN: CELEBRITY AND MASCULINITY

The Celebrity Culture Club presents: Looking at Men: Celebrity and Masculinity

7th June 2019. The Allbright, 11 Rathbone Place, W1T 1HR.

‘Masculinity can be a cult’ said Hollywood actor and NFL star Terry Crews in a recent interview with GQ. Meanwhile, Piers Morgan trolled Daniel Craig on Twitter for looking like ‘#emasculated007’ when wearing his baby in a sling. Celebrity culture both reflects and shapes gender norms in our society, It’s a space in which all sorts of ideas are circulated, tested, and reinforced about how to be/what it is to be male. And yet, to be part of celebrity culture is to be looked at – a feminised position in a society otherwise dominated by the male gaze. At the 6th Celebrity Culture Club, our panel from academia and the media industry will be looking at men and masculinity in celebrity culture.

SpeakerS

Featured

Dr Bridget Dalton

Commercial semiotician for cultural insight agency Sign Salad, for whom she conducts in-depth reports on the cultural coding of masculinity. She has a PhD on (mostly male) Modernist poets.

Meriem Adib

Award-winning film maker who has worked with male celebrities such as Idris Elba, Premiership footballers, Bear Grylls and James Cracknell. She campaigns for safer conditions for sex workers.

Professor Joanne Begiato

Associate Dean (Research and Knowledge Exchange) at Oxford Brookes University specialising in masculinities and author of books including Manliness in Britain 1760-1900: Bodies, Emotions and Material Culture.

Nels Abbey

Writer, broadcaster and former banker, and the author of Think Like A White Man. His new book, The Hip-Hop MBA: Lessons in Cut-Throat Capitalism From The Moguls of Rap, is out in 2024.

Tim Hughes

Brand strategist and owner of the consultancy The Brief Doctor. From 19 years working with TV channel brands from Dave’s Witty Banter to TLC’s high-femme reality shows, he is well acquainted with the ways audiences are (sometimes unhelpfully) imagined to be gendered.

Chair

Featured

Dr Hannah Yelin

Reader in Media, and Culture, Oxford Brookes University. Host and Founder of Celebrity Culture Club. Chair of the Creative Industries Research and Innovation Network.