Tansits Week 13 - Masculinity in Sports

Over the past thirteen weeks, this class has discussed the many cultural “norms” associated with media and its coverage of sports – both good and bad. This week we delved into how masculinity has grown into the dominant face of sports and sports media. Author Nick Trujillo wrote in his piece, Hegemonic Masculinity on the Mound: Media Representations of Nolan Ryan and American Sports Culture, about how the career of Nolan Ryan and the media coverage surrounding it essentially made Ryan into a hero.

Trujillo begins his writing by setting out the five features of hegemonic masculinity in American culture, which are: physical force and control, occupational achievement, familial patriarchy, frontiersmanship, and heterosexuality. The piece goes on to makes it clear that because sports are presented in the media the hegemonic masculinity is in effect presented by the media, and naturalizes the ideal to make it seem acceptable. This is a key role played by the media that through simply presenting the sports culture, it’s promoting a much larger psychological message whether it is intentional or not. Nonetheless the message is made clear and eventually picked up by advertisers and other outlets to make the masculine hegemony a cultural “norm”.

In this article, Trujillo basically takes the five features of hegemonic masculinity in American culture and shows examples of how coverage of Ryan’s career exemplifies each and everyone. Through reading the clips and bits that Trujillo pulled from major newspapers at the time they were published, an embellished picture begin to be created not so unlike that created of Babe Ruth. Writers seemed to drive this ideal that Ryan was literally “the man” of all men, in every essence of masculinity. Personally it seemed not far off from what reporters did to build up Ruth’s persona, but it was in a different more personal way invading the private life of Ryan. Overall Trujillo’s point is clear that there is a distinct hegemonic masculinity surrounding sports and that the media was the key player in building that in the case of Ryan.