Bending the codes of masculinity: David Beckham and flexible masculinity in the new millennium

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes sporting icon David Beckham as the embodiment of a form of flexible masculinity, one that is manufactured by both Beckham and others including the media and promotional industries to target and appeal to male consumers, consumers who are increasingly being regarded as citizens of brand communities. Employing a multi-methodological approach of contextual analysis, critical textual analysis, and specific production discourse about advertisements, I examine a series of advertisements that feature David Beckham to illustrate how he represents a range of masculinities. From this, it becomes evident that Beckham manifests a form of flexible masculinity, providing male consumers with a pastiche of visual masculine representations from which some men can socially (re)construct and negotiate their own masculinity. In the discussion, I argue how Beckham's embodiment of flexible masculinity serves to negotiate and extend the boundaries of gender, bend the codes of masculinity, and diversify the available options of masculinity, all within the particular context of a global consumerist society, discourses of a crisis of masculinity, and the growing civic obligations of male citizen-consumers to construct their identity through consumption.