{"product_id":"straight-white-men-cant-dance-american-masculinity-in-film-and-popular-culture-9781350443563","title":"Straight White Men Can't Dance: American Masculinity in Film and Popular Culture","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eStraight White Men Can't Dance: American Masculinity in Film and Popular Culture \u003c\/i\u003einvestigates a trope proliferating throughout popular American media over the last half-century: that straight white men can't dance.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAddie Tsai traces this reiterative moving image of vaudevillian buffoonery in film, television, and video from the mid-1980s to present-day. During the height of homophobic hysteria in response to the AIDS epidemic, dance began to be used as a marker to scrutinize white men's position within homosexuality and masculinity. Therefore, white men could misperform \u003ci\u003egood \u003c\/i\u003edancing to more securely sit within hegemonic masculinity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTsai establishes how ethnic mimicry within American popular media, even that of white masculinity, is produced and reiterated from the 19th-century theatrical practice of blackface minstrelsy. This history resurfaces in one of the exceptions to the trope: when white men use the \u003ci\u003ehip \u003c\/i\u003ecurrency of blackness to affirm their (dancing) masculinity through theft and positionality. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy revealing how dance in American popular media reifies and problematizes gendered and racialized economies, \u003ci\u003eStraight White Men Can't Dance \u003c\/i\u003edemonstrates how the image of the buffoonish white male dancer operates as a smokescreen for the more violent manipulative forces of the reigning figure of white supremacy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAddie Tsai\u003c\/b\u003e is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Creative Writing at William \u0026amp; Mary, USA, where she is Affiliate Faculty in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eDear Twin \u003c\/i\u003e(2019), included in American Library Association's Rainbow List in 2021, and \u003ci\u003eUnwieldy Creatures \u003c\/i\u003e(2022), a Shirley Jackson finalist for Best Novel. They collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater on \u003ci\u003eVictor Frankenstein\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCamille Claudel, \u003c\/i\u003eamong others. She is the founding editor in chief for \u003ci\u003ejust femme \u0026amp; dandy\u003c\/i\u003e. Her articles have been published in \u003ci\u003eLO: TECH: POP: CULT: Screendance Remixed \u003c\/i\u003e(2024), \u003ci\u003eThe Bloomsbury Handbook of Dance and Philosophy \u003c\/i\u003e(2021), \u003ci\u003eSlapstick: An Interdisciplinary Companion\u003c\/i\u003e (2021), and \u003ci\u003eThe International Journal of Screendance\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Academic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51661385892114,"sku":"9781350443563","price":126.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_59fa031f-e52a-4756-bb7f-7ce9e925e602.jpg?v=1760442020","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/straight-white-men-cant-dance-american-masculinity-in-film-and-popular-culture-9781350443563","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}