Beer, Babes, and Balls
Masculinity and Sports Talk Radio
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Looks at contemporary sports talk radio and its relations to both traditional and newer forms of masculinity.
Description
Beer, Babes, and Balls explores the increasingly popular genre of sports talk radio and how it relates to contemporary ideas of masculinity. Popular culture plays a significant role in fashioning identities, and sports talk radio both reflects and inspires cultural shifts in masculinity. Through analysis of the content of sports talk radio as well as interviews with radio production staff and audience members, scholar and avid sports talk radio listener David Nylund sheds light on certain aspects of contemporary masculinity and recent shifts in gender and sexual politics. He finds that although sports talk radio reproduces many aspects of traditional masculinity, sexism, racism, and heterosexism, there are exceptions in these discourses. For instance, the most popular national host, Jim Rome, is against homophobia and racism in sport, which indicates that the medium may be a place for male sports fans to discuss gender, race, and sexuality in consequential ways. Nylund concludes that sports talk radio creates a male bonding community that has genuine moments of intimacy and connection, signifying the potential for new forms of masculinity to emerge, while simultaneously reproducing traditional forms of masculinity.
David Nylund is Assistant Professor of Social Work at California State University at Sacramento. He is the author of Treating Huckleberry Finn: A New Narrative Approach to Working with Kids Diagnosed ADD/ADHD and the coeditor (with Craig Smith) of Narrative Therapies with Children and Adolescents.
Reviews
"This rather brief yet ambitious book … is … readily accessible to a more general audience, and is a welcome addition to the growing literature on masculinity and the masculine identity creation process. " — CHOICE
"Nylund's self-reflexivity (largely because he is trained as a psychotherapist) of both loving sport and sports talk radio, but standing firmly for his pro-gay, pro-women, and pro-racial equality beliefs, might position Nylund as the perfect spokesperson for opening up the airwaves, the third space, for the inclusion of those previously marginalized by sport. " — from the Foreword by Eric Anderson
"Nylund examines the inner workings of the creation of Jim Rome's virtual radio culture in compelling and thought-provoking ways. " — Andrew C. Billings, Clemson University