Abstract:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The term performative male has circulated widely in online discourse to describe a male persona perceived as inauthentically performing progressivism, feminism, and emotional sensitivity in order to appeal to women. This figure is constructed through a recognizable assemblage of semiotic resources, including commodity signs (e.g., matcha drinks, tote bags, vinyl records by female artists), stylized aesthetic choices, and exaggerated invocations of feminist discourse, whose stance toward gender is treated as strategic rather than sincere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building on existing scholarship that draws on Agha\u2019s (2003) notion of enregisterment and Eckert\u2019s (2008) discussion of personae, this study analyzes performative male discourse as the formation of a persona constituted through indexical cues. Extending Jaffe\u2019s (2016) concept of fields of indexicality, I argue that the performative male emerges through a constellation of stance-bearing semiotic signs that cohere into a recognizable style. However, these discourses are also saturated with what I term contradictory indexicality: progressive gender stances are juxtaposed with cues of insincerity, producing layered metadiscursive evaluations. Across videos, on-camera reactions, and commentaries, this figure is reflexively constructed and flattened into an emblem of inauthentic masculinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Engaging Gal and Irvine\u2019s (2019) theorization of language ideology, the analysis demonstrates how ideological processes of erasure selectively suppress conflicting indexical cues, transforming complex stance configurations into a coherent \u201cfake\u201d persona. Importantly, while parody appears to expose the citational nature of gendered performances (cf. Butler 1990, 1997; Inoue 2006), the mockery surrounding performative males does not ultimately destabilize dominant gender ideology. Instead, it reaffirms an unmarked normative masculinity in which feminist engagement are rendered fundamentally incompatible with \u201cauthentic\u201d manhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the study considers how sexuality and race enter the field of interpretation through indexical indeterminacy, as signs associated with the performative male intersect with indexical associations related to gay identity, femininity, or Asianized cultural imaginaries. Through processes of indexical recontextualization, appropriated semiotic resources are at times mobilized to evaluate those very groups as inauthentic, thereby revealing the layered and unstable nature of indexical meaning. By situating performative male discourse at the intersection of indexical and ideological reproduction, this study contributes to ongoing investigations in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics concerning indexical disalignment in sexuality discourse identified by Barrett and Hall (2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reference<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agha, Asif. 2003. \u201cThe Social Life of Cultural Value.\u201d Language & Communication 23(3\u20134): 231\u2013273.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Butler, Judith. 1997. Excitable Speech. New York: Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. \u201cVariation and the Indexical Field.\u201d Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4): 453\u2013476.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gal, Susan, and Judith T. Irvine. 2019. Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hall, Kira and Rusty Barrett. \u201cSexuality Discourses: Indexical Misrecognition and the Politics of Sex.\u201d Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 53, 2024, pp. 127-46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inoue, Miyako. 2006. Vicarious Language: Gender and Linguistic Modernity in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaffe, Alexandra. 2016. \u201cIndexicality, Stance and Fields in Sociolinguistics.\u201d In Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates, edited by Nikolas Coupland, 86\u2013112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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