Broification

On the Language of Bro Culture

[feministism]

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Broification

So you might be asking yourself, “what in the world is Broification?” and that’s totally cool because, as far as I know, I made it up. Here’s how I’m defining it:

The replacement of words, or parts of words, with ‘bro’ in order to alter their meaning such that they are interpreted as specifically masculine.

This process is only one of many ways that masculinity is re-asserted in order to avoid any association with femininity, thereby reducing the power of femininity and maintaining the existing power of masculinity.

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This video is a really great example of hegemonic masculinity and its impact on femininity and homosexuality. The UBC Wiki has a terrific definition to get us started:

“Hegemonic masculinity in Western culture is largely reflective of an authoritative, hyper-masculine, and heterosexual image of a man which simultaneously rejects traits and behaviours perceived as feminine. Some have referred to hegemonic masculinity in this context as an ‘anti-femininity,’ as it rejects any associations with traditionally feminine characteristics.” – http://wiki.ubc.ca/Hegemonic_Masculinity

The man’s reaction to being touched is largely defensive, as there is a strong connection between femininity and homosexuality. According to traditional gender divisions, emotions and nurturing are the realm of the feminine, and this includes touch (Rezeanu, 2015, p. 11). As such, male engagement in these kinds of activities has the potential to cause suspicion of homosexuality, which is ultimately the greatest threat to masculinity (Keith, 2011, [14:30]). So, what we’re seeing in the video is one man engaging in what is considered feminine activity when he touches the other man’s arm, causing a response intended to combat this and re-assert masculinity by denying homosexuality. What all of this tells us is that femininity is something undesirable - it’s a threat to masculinity and it must be guarded against. This has the effect of combating and reducing any power femininity might have, and maintaining the masculine-centric status quo.

Something that my friend JB pointed out to me is the fact that the man makes a point of speaking into the microphone at everyone in the room, giving himself an audience. He’s making sure that there is absolutely no chance that anyone can question his masculinity based on being touched by another man.

There are a couple of other things going on in this video that I’d like to talk about as well. First of all, note the correction in the captions - they cut out the word ‘don’t’ at 0:25. This is a move that speaks to the man’s power and privilege. For more on the impact of this kind of correction, please check out my friend Ruth W’s zine at https://twitter.com/importantpigeon/status/941411932044632064. However, in spite of the gender issues being expressed here, I think this speaks a bit to the issue of obtaining consent before touching another.

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Crisis of Masculinity

Michelle Lazar (2015) describes a crisis of masculinity resulting from the rise of feminism. According to this idea, feminism has given men a growing sense of powerlessness in response to the increasing status of women. It has created a kind of backlash, wherein men seek to overcompensate for this perceived loss of masculinity by re-asserting it in sometimes innovative ways.

This could be one explanation for the broification process, the idea being that the application of ‘bro’ gives words an indisputably masculine connotation. This means that men can act in ways that might be considered un-masculine without having their masculinity threatened. All they need to do is broify the words describing those actions, and suddenly masculinity is reinforced.

In the face of this crisis of masculinity, the idea of protecting and maintaining masculinity is really about rejecting the “onslaught” of femininity, thus maintaining its status as something undesirable and corrupting. Broification could be one form of this sort of protection - ensuring that it is well understood that the words being used are specific to a masculine context and that there is no chance of “contamination” by associations with femininity.

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Internet Stuff For Bros | The Bro Code

This is an online version of the Bro Code, but there are a few out there. It’s basically a set of rules for being a Bro.

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Bro Culture

In his 2011 film The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men, Thomas Keith examines the social impact of bro culture. He explains that hegemonic masculinity, and Bro culture as a byproduct of this, is all about power and control over women and femininity. It socializes young men into continuing to adhere to these dangerous attitudes that reduce the power of women by rendering them mere objects for male pleasure. Basically, Bro culture is a microcosm of the most toxic aspects of hegemonic masculinity because it reduces masculinity to “women, sports, beer, gadgets, clothes, Maxim” ([12:25]).

Here’s a link to the video if you’d like to watch it: http://macewan.kanopystreaming.com/video/bro-code. It may require a MacEwan University login to gain access, but I recommend watching it. Heads up, it deals with some very sensitive issues around sexual violence starting at about 20:15, so please watch it at your own discretion.

If you are a victim of sexual violence, here are some helpful resources you can check out:

http://www.wavaw.ca/

http://www.casac.ca/

https://www.rainn.org/get-help

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Expressing Masculine Solidarity

Scott Kiesling’s (2004) article Dude offers a great analysis of the use of ‘dude’ in male language, which I think can easily be applied to ‘bro’ and the process of broification. He argues that ‘dude’ allows men to bridge the gap between maintaining heterosexual masculinity through unattachment and distance, and the establishment of tight male bonds based on solidarity and closeness (p. 283). In essence, by using these masculine terms, men can engage in these intimate relationships with other men (or with bro-ified women, who have been given similar status to other men, but are generally no longer thought of as women) without having them read as feminine, thereby maintaining their masculinity (p. 283). It means that men can even eroticize other men - they can have a broner or brogasm - without having their masculinity compromised, because these occur within the context of a dude/bro relationship.

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A guy who is bromosexual is totally straight. In fact he will punch you in the face if you say that he's gay. He's so totally straight that he has sex with tons of chicks... sure his bro might be in the room with him, maybe videotaping it (with lots of close-ups of the penis)... or doing the same girl at the same time... with their penises touching... So what if he's always slapping his broham's ass... and always hangs out in the showers at the gym... and yeah, maybe he was in a few circle jerks in middle school... and sure he puts his penis and/or testicles on his friends' faces every chance he gets when they're passed out drunk... and sure that frat initiation thing was a bit weird, but... HE IS TOTALLY 100% NOT GAY.

This definition sort of plays with the boundary between what is and isn’t acceptable between bros. It really highlights the narrow line that broification walks between permitting intimacy and maintaining a suitably masculine distance from other men.

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This video does a great job at (hilariously) exploring some of the intimate activities men are permitted to engage in within the context of a bromance.

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These are some of the most common broified words.

Also, I highly recommend looking some of them up on https://www.urbandictionary.com/ because they are HILARIOUS.

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How I Met Your Mother‘s Barney Stinson is the quintessential Bro, and pretty openly identifies as such. He spends the majority of the show seducing and sleeping with as many women as possible. However, he is also able to have extremely close relationships with his bros, while never having his masculinity questioned.

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The video game Broforce is a great example of the connection between brofication and hypermasculinity, and the role these play in popular culture.

“When evil threatens the world, the world calls on Broforce - an under-funded, over-powered paramilitary organization dealing exclusively in excessive force. Brace your loins with up to four players to run ‘n’ gun as dozens of different bros and eliminate the opposing terrorist forces that threaten our way of life. Unleash scores of unique weapons and set off incredible chain reactions of fire, napalm, and limbs in the name of freedom.”            http://www.broforcegame.com/

The characterization of this game as “dealing exclusively in excessive force” and the play style as “run ‘n’ gun” is indicative of the hypermasculine values being expressed in this game. In addition, the video’s themes, such as violence, destruction, and excessive strength, certainly evoke masculinity.

Playable characters are based on existing hypermasculine characters from popular culture, but they are given Bro names. Some examples are Rambro, BroboCop, Brominator, Indiana Brones, and Double Bro Seven. One notable exception(???) is Ellen Ripbro, a parody of the character Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise. Some people have questioned whether Ripley constitutes a truly female hero, or if she is simply a woman playing the role of a man (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsR3praZF38). Nevertheless, the broification of her name and inclusion of her character in the Broforce game speaks to the reaffirmation of the masculinity of even a female character in a traditionally hypermasculine role.

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Behind the scenes. BroCode Haiku, courtesy of my dear friend JB.

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Acknowledgements

None of this would have been possible without the help of a whole slew of people.

For starters, I have to thank my Twitter pal, @pastellegeek for the inspiration, and my bff AC for teaching me how to use Tumblr (you can check out the one we did together for another project at https://anth421bookresponse.tumblr.com/).

I’d also like to thank my friends JB and Ruth W for helping me so much with the specifics of this project. You both taught me so much that made this blog 1000x better than it could have been on my own.

Of course, a shoutout to all my other on- and offline pals for being so rad and supporting me with this, whether it was by sending me helpful links, or just sitting with me while I blabbed about my thoughts. Y’all are the real MVPs.

Lastly, a special thanks to my #ANTH421 classmates (#linganthbuds / #suppotters <3) and Dr. SS for creating such a strong and supportive learning environment. You folks made this happen, and I am grateful beyond words.

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Additional Sources

Included here is the information for any of the sources cited that were not directly linked anywhere in the Broification blog.

Kiesling, S. F. (2004). Dude. American Speech 79(3), 281-305. Retrieved from http://library.macewan.ca.

Lazar, M. M. (2015). Construing the new oppressed: Masculinity in crisis and the backlash against feminism. In Milan, T. M (Ed.), Language and Masculinities: Performances, Intersections, Dislocations (100-116). New York: Routledge.

Rezeanu, C.-I. (2015). The relationship between domestic space and gender identity: Some signs of emergence of alternative domestic femininity and masculinity. Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, 6(2), 9-29. Retrieved from http://library.macewan.ca.