Rural masculinity, work, and media representation

Philip Morris retired their iconic "Marlboro Man" in 1999. Projecting an image of masculine strength in untamed nature, the smoking cowboy was an image of a ruggedly physical rural laborer that sold millions of filtered cigarettes. Indeed, when devising the character, the broadest consensus around a signifier of masculinity in focus groups was the cowboy figure. The Marlboro Man is gone now-- Philip Morris discontinued the ad campaign as cigarette advertising was largely regulated away in the late 90s, and plenty of former Marlboro Men died of smoking-related illnesses. But more broadly-- does the cowboy do the same kind of cultural work in conflating rural lifestyles and livelihoods with masculinity as it used to?

Although the cowboy is still an instantly recognizable image for many Americans that signifies hard physical labor in rural places, and the attendant masculine associations, real cowboys are few and far between in 2017. Some trace the end of the cowboy era to the invention of barbed wire, which happened in the 1870s. The cowboy is not the only association with rural livelihoods and masculinity-- loggers, miners, and oilfield workers have all been theorized as archetypes of rural masculinity. The key component? Work as the defining component of masculinity. 

I. Work and rural men

What is "masculine" about rural work? Jobs in extractive industries require a high degree of skill and mastery to avoid serious injury or death on the job. They necessitate physical strength, resilience, and stamina. Although these defining traits are by no means "essentially" masculine, American culture genders them that way. 

In addition to the on-the-job masculine traits, extractive industry was the driver for the strongly gendered narrative of the white man "conquering the wilderness" in the West. The men engaged in such work were heirs to the dual goals of establishing white hegemony in the West and bringing its bounty into the dominion of the United States. 

Rural livelihoods outside of extractive industry also display these traits- such as a high degree of serious danger in the grain farming industry. Farming, too, has historically been a way for rural men to display traditionally masculine traits like strong work ethic, tolerance for danger, and physical strength. 

II. Media representation and the post-work rural man

What happens to rural men's sense of self when jobs leave town? Although rural economies were once heavily dependent on traditionally masculine jobs, many rural economies have shifted from these industries to a more diverse spate of jobs, not all of which are "masculine" in the traditional sense (see, for example, hospital work or tourist re-enactments of extractive industry). How are men in these areas developing masculine identities without masculine work to perform?

Rural men are not forging their identities in a vacuum-- there is an enormous media apparatus designed to observe, repackage, and resell 'rural lifestyles' to rural people. Through media representation, one can track a changing culture of rural masculinity. Although hard work is still valorized in country music, big ticket consumer goods and pleasure-seeking consumption are increasingly ways to express a manly identity. See, for example, the transition from songs glorifying blue collar work like "East Bound and Down" and "Six Days on the Road", to songs like "Truck Yeah"-- glorifying the high dollar commodity of a truck.

Similarly, see the commodification of hunting-- once a male-gendered method of obtaining sustenance for the family unit, now the touchstone for a dizzying array of camouflage products for both men and women as a signifier of rurality. Again, the emphasis on work for the development of rural identity has been supplanted by consumption.

The rural lifestyle media also depicts toughness to the point of pugnacity as a masculine value. Readiness to fight has always been part of country culture (and not limited to men). Recent developments in country culture have included an amplification of this vein. Mixed martial arts has enjoyed a boom of popularity in rural places, following after the perennially popular professional wrestling that emerged from rural carnival sideshows in the 1930s. Manly posturing by rural men around fighting and physical conflict has always existed-- but now it is commodified and resold to rural viewers.

Rural masculinities are shaped and refined by media representation. In the absence of the structuring force of work, the media of "country culture" packages and redistributes an image of the rural man as a consumer and flaunter of masculine products and a self-assured, sometimes pugnacious figure, but less and less as a worker. This new rural masculinity may unfortunately be a fragile self-image to maintain without a paycheck. The result is bad for family structures and may cause mental illness among those unable to sustain job-centered self concepts. It may be possible to frame these issues as symptoms of toxic masculinity and not rural problems. However, the rhetorics of toxic masculinity are sold to rural men by the bushelful in political discourse, and maybe that alone is cause to take a closer look at how rural men are constructing their self-image.