The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private - Hardcover

Bordo, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374280657 ISBN 13: 9780374280659

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1999

Synopsis

A bold, unconventional cultural exploration of the male body and its current place in the Western World examines contemporary perspectives on masculinity in everything from Playboy to Michael Jordan to the recent Viagra craze.

About this title

Review:

Shock waves riveted the Mattel, Inc., boardroom in 1961 when female executives suggested that Barbie's boy-toy, Ken--in keeping with Barbie's own physiognomy--ought to be a little more anatomically correct. No one was suggesting 1.25-inch-to-1-inch-scale plastic genitalia, mind you, just a modest groin bulge. But male execs at the toy company were scandalized; the suggested modifications did not make Ken more "authentic" in their eyes--they made him pornographic.

My, how things have changed. In The Male Body, Susan Bordo (who snagged a Pulitzer nomination for 1993's Unbearable Weight) offers a frank, sprightly, and, yes, educational look at the male nude as an index to attitudes about sexuality in the broth of media and pop culture in which, like it or not, we all stew. While the Greeks were unafraid to celebrate masculine beauty, men have been strangely sexless throughout most of Western history--until Hollywood rediscovered the male body when Marlon Brando first shed his T-shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire. It's only been in the '90s, however, that the male image has gone so far as to reclaim its penis. From de facto censorship to near idolatry, has ever an organ made such a journey in one brief decade? But it's not the penis alone that makes a man a man; perhaps, Bordo concludes, it's time for us to rethink our metaphors of manhood. --Patrizia DiLucchio

About the Author:

Susan Bordo holds the Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities at the University of Kentucky, where she is also a professor of English and women's studies. She has written several books, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Unbearable Weight.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0374280657
• ISBN 13: 9780374280659
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 358