Flexing Italian American Masculinity and White Diversity on Man Caves

Abstract

This textual analysis of Man Caves explores how former National Football League (NFL) star turned DIY Network host Tony “Goose” Siragusa uses Italian American stereotypes of the funny fatso, gangster, and unskilled worker, rooted in his life story, to “flex” hegemonic masculinity in ways that articulate what I call White diversity. This contradictory identity claims both victimhood and privilege for White ethnic masculinity. Analyzing Siragusa’s flexing of Italian American masculinity is especially timely in our present historical moment when White supremacists claim ethnic “diversity” to assert an aggrieved status without disavowing privilege. Siragusa’s flexing of Italian American masculinity reflects the wider historical moment in which White men, beyond White power movements, may claim an aggrieved but privileged status. The conclusion considers ways out of White diversity that feminist scholar-activists may pursue.