Guest Lecture for Sociology of Pop Culture Spring 2009 seminar

1. Homosociality, White Male Bodies,
and “The Bromance”

2. Key Terms
 Homosociality
 The male gaze

3. What happened to the “buddy
flicks”?
Murphy and Reinhold
Redford and Newman
“[The buddy film] reconfirmed white
male self-identity within radically
Hope and Crosby
shifting social and political frames;
these men without women defined
themselves in opposition to the
(absented) other.” (Fuchs, 1993: 196)
Glover and Gibson

4. What does a “bromance” look like?
Who gets to be involved in one?

5. Why is this genre so popular?
 Films provide a humorous narrative for the confusion
of the middle-class white male.
OR
 Films act as another exclusive forum about
transitioning masculine norms.

6. Are these “bromances”?