Straight Male Privilege in Popular Social Analysis

• In Event: 035 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Media/Film

Abstract

This analysis of popular storytelling identifies two forms of privilege: The receipt by older men of the uncompensated service of young straight women, and the lack of notice given to intersecting relations of sexual, gender, and age inequality as structuring elements in the lives of straight men. Both of these are staples of Hollywood-style feature motion-picture storytelling, and typically bear analysis only as part of a set of larger patterns. But an instance of the latter privilege in the U.S. television series The Wire bears notice because the show was sold and widely appreciated as an exception to the usual narrative rules. Subjecting social organization to analysis and critique rarely attempted in motion picture entertainment, the show helped to theorize race and class inequalities in an urban landscape. But it also distinguished heroes from villains and found a way to pay a compliment to one of the former, a retirement-age black detective, by providing him a dose of straight, male privilege that went unremarked in this otherwise analytic show. I conclude by suggesting that popular-narrative analysis of organizational processes can satisfy an audience by making the occasional compromise, depicting heroes and rewarding them with the unexamined privilege of straight sexuality. In this context, as in many others, young women serve as rewards for heterosexual men. Straight privilege appears to have remained immune to critique in the stories told about, by, and perhaps for straight men.

Author

• Neal King, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University