Straight White Men Can''t Dance : American Masculinity in Film and Popular Culture
by
Addie Tsai
Book Details
Format
Hardback or Cased Book
ISBN-10
1350443565
ISBN-13
9781350443563
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint
Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Manufacture
GB
Country of Publication
GB
Publication Date
Sep 18th, 2025
Print length
216 Pages
Weight
476 grams
Dimensions
24.10 x 16.60 x 1.90 cms
Product Classification:
United States of America, USAc 1980 to c 1989c 1990 to c 1999c 2000 to c 2009c 2010 to c 2019c 2020 to c 2029Relating to Minority Ethnic or ethnically diverse peoples and groups of the UKRelating to non-stereotypical gender rolesFilm theory & criticismDanceFilm history, theory or criticismDancePopular cultureGender studies: men and boysEthnic studies / EthnicityEthnic groups and multicultural studiesPopular cultureGender studies: menEthnic studiesEthnic minorities & multicultural studies
Ksh 15,300.00
Manufactured on Demand
0 in stock
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Quality
Fast
This book analyses movement from white men on screen in order to discern how dance in American popular culture reflects gender and race ideologies. In particular, it focuses on the 'straight white man can't dance' trope and how it is used to leverage status and influence.
Straight White Men Can''t Dance: American Masculinity in Film and Popular Cultureinvestigates a trope proliferating throughout popular American media over the last half-century: that straight white men can''t dance.
Addie Tsai traces this reiterative moving image of vaudevillian buffoonery in film, television, and video from the mid-1980s to present-day. During the height of homophobic hysteria in response to the AIDS epidemic, dance began to be used as a marker to scrutinize white men''s position within homosexuality and masculinity. Therefore, white men could misperform gooddancing to more securely sit within hegemonic masculinity.
Tsai establishes how ethnic mimicry within American popular media, even that of white masculinity, is produced and reiterated from the 19th-century theatrical practice of blackface minstrelsy. This history resurfaces in one of the exceptions to the trope: when white men use the hipcurrency of blackness to affirm their (dancing) masculinity through theft and positionality.
By revealing how dance in American popular media reifies and problematizes gendered and racialized economies, Straight White Men Can''t Dancedemonstrates how the image of the buffoonish white male dancer operates as a smokescreen for the more violent manipulative forces of the reigning figure of white supremacy.
Addie Tsai traces this reiterative moving image of vaudevillian buffoonery in film, television, and video from the mid-1980s to present-day. During the height of homophobic hysteria in response to the AIDS epidemic, dance began to be used as a marker to scrutinize white men''s position within homosexuality and masculinity. Therefore, white men could misperform gooddancing to more securely sit within hegemonic masculinity.
Tsai establishes how ethnic mimicry within American popular media, even that of white masculinity, is produced and reiterated from the 19th-century theatrical practice of blackface minstrelsy. This history resurfaces in one of the exceptions to the trope: when white men use the hipcurrency of blackness to affirm their (dancing) masculinity through theft and positionality.
By revealing how dance in American popular media reifies and problematizes gendered and racialized economies, Straight White Men Can''t Dancedemonstrates how the image of the buffoonish white male dancer operates as a smokescreen for the more violent manipulative forces of the reigning figure of white supremacy.
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