“Booyah Jim”: The construction of hegemonic masculinity in CNBC ‘Mad Money’ phone-in interactions

Abstract

This paper presents hegemonic masculinity as it is achieved during interactions between television host Jim Cramer and his callers in the “Lightening Round” segment on the CNBC television show “Mad Money”. Cramer's persona and interactions adhere to a hegemonic masculinity dominant in American culture, and they create a sphere in which it is the only normative identity possible. This hegemonic masculinity is created by the use of specific phrases (e.g. the “booyah” salutation), actions (e.g. compliments to the host), by the insertion of sports as a topic of discussion, and by Cramer's dominant positioning as an expert. After presenting these features we demonstrate how this arena creates problems for the very few female callers participating in it. We therefore conclude that the “Lightening Round” helps to construct and reproduce masculinist authority in this mass-mediated window into the world of finance.