The book that helped change the way we look at men….
Why is bodybuilding a form of transsexualism? What do football and anal sex have in common? Why is Top Gun such an flamingly ‘gay’ movie? Why is male vanity such a hot commodity? And why oh why do Marky Mark’s pants keep falling down?
In this highly influential collection, first published in 1994, Mark Simpson argues for the vital centrality of homoeroticism and narcissism in any understanding of the fraught phenomenon of modern masculinity. Male Impersonators is a penetrating, ticklish but always serious examination of what happens to men when they become ‘objectified’.
From porn to shaving adverts, rock and roll to war movies, drag to lads’ nights out, Male Impersonators reviews the greatest show on Earth – the performance of masculinity.
PRAISE FOR MALE IMPERSONATORS:
'Simpson pulls the pants off popular culture and wittily winks at the Freudian symbols lurking beneath.' – The Modern Review
'Mark Simpson's Male Impersonators could do for male sexuality what Camilla Paglia did for women, finding latent homo subtexts to Marky Mark, Clint Eastwood and Tom Cruise's baseball bat.' – Melody Maker
'This set of high-spirited essays displays more insight into the masculine mystique than has the decade of earnest men's studies that preceded it. Simpson has an unerring eye for the inner logic and pretences of a wide range of masculine enterprises and symbols. THIS IS QUEER THEORY WITHOUT THE JARGON AND IS A MUST FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THINGS MALE. GENERAL AND ACADEMIC READERS AT ALL LEVELS ' – Choices
‘What is happening when men and their sexualities become the focus of the camera’s gaze? Mark Simpson’s brilliant, witty, up-to-the-minute analysis shatters complacencies, old and new.’ – Alan Sinfield, University of Sussex
'Mark Simpson detects and dissects the myths of machismo and its attendant media circus with refreshing gusto and wit.' – John Ashbery
‘It’s not only women who don’t have the phallus – men don’t have it either – just the inadequate penis! This book cheered me up with the reminder that when it gets down to it, both sexes are just great pretenders.’ – Lorraine Gamman
'Like me this book plays with men. Provocative, irreverent, acerbic and witty, it offers one gigantic intellectual orgasm after another.' – Margi Clarke
'A brilliantly-positioned array of firecrackers, elephant traps and banana skins designed to trick conventional maleness into showing it's true hand, or some extremity.... SIMPSON CAPERS LIKE ROBIN GOODFELLOW, STRIPPING OFF THE FIG LEAVES WITH EXUBERANCE.' – The Observer
'CLEVER, ENGAGING, INCISIVE.' – The Guardian
‘EMINENTLY READABLE.' – My Prime
'Male Impersonators quickly reveals itself to be different and, arguably more insightful than many previous 'Masculinity books'.... It has an excellent readability factor compared to many others freighted with dull writing.'
– Perversions
'A DEFT AND PERSUASIVE DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT.'
– Stage and Television Today
'These smashingly provocative essays by the spunky Brit writer Mark Simpson detonate myths, stereotypes and icons, gay as well as straight. The psycho-social line separating homo and hetero maleness, he fulsomely shows, is much fuzzier than Robert Bly and Pat Buchanan find it to be.'
– Lambda Book Report
Why is bodybuilding a form of transsexualism? What do football and anal sex have in common? Why is Top Gun such an flamingly ‘gay’ movie? Why is male vanity such a hot commodity? And why oh why do Marky Mark’s pants keep falling down?
In this highly influential collection, first published in 1994, Mark Simpson argues for the vital centrality of homoeroticism and narcissism in any understanding of the fraught phenomenon of modern masculinity. Male Impersonators is a penetrating, ticklish but always serious examination of what happens to men when they become ‘objectified’.
From porn to shaving adverts, rock and roll to war movies, drag to lads’ nights out, Male Impersonators reviews the greatest show on Earth – the performance of masculinity.
PRAISE FOR MALE IMPERSONATORS:
'Simpson pulls the pants off popular culture and wittily winks at the Freudian symbols lurking beneath.' – The Modern Review
'Mark Simpson's Male Impersonators could do for male sexuality what Camilla Paglia did for women, finding latent homo subtexts to Marky Mark, Clint Eastwood and Tom Cruise's baseball bat.' – Melody Maker
'This set of high-spirited essays displays more insight into the masculine mystique than has the decade of earnest men's studies that preceded it. Simpson has an unerring eye for the inner logic and pretences of a wide range of masculine enterprises and symbols. THIS IS QUEER THEORY WITHOUT THE JARGON AND IS A MUST FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THINGS MALE. GENERAL AND ACADEMIC READERS AT ALL LEVELS ' – Choices
‘What is happening when men and their sexualities become the focus of the camera’s gaze? Mark Simpson’s brilliant, witty, up-to-the-minute analysis shatters complacencies, old and new.’ – Alan Sinfield, University of Sussex
'Mark Simpson detects and dissects the myths of machismo and its attendant media circus with refreshing gusto and wit.' – John Ashbery
‘It’s not only women who don’t have the phallus – men don’t have it either – just the inadequate penis! This book cheered me up with the reminder that when it gets down to it, both sexes are just great pretenders.’ – Lorraine Gamman
'Like me this book plays with men. Provocative, irreverent, acerbic and witty, it offers one gigantic intellectual orgasm after another.' – Margi Clarke
'A brilliantly-positioned array of firecrackers, elephant traps and banana skins designed to trick conventional maleness into showing it's true hand, or some extremity.... SIMPSON CAPERS LIKE ROBIN GOODFELLOW, STRIPPING OFF THE FIG LEAVES WITH EXUBERANCE.' – The Observer
'CLEVER, ENGAGING, INCISIVE.' – The Guardian
‘EMINENTLY READABLE.' – My Prime
'Male Impersonators quickly reveals itself to be different and, arguably more insightful than many previous 'Masculinity books'.... It has an excellent readability factor compared to many others freighted with dull writing.'
– Perversions
'A DEFT AND PERSUASIVE DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT.'
– Stage and Television Today
'These smashingly provocative essays by the spunky Brit writer Mark Simpson detonate myths, stereotypes and icons, gay as well as straight. The psycho-social line separating homo and hetero maleness, he fulsomely shows, is much fuzzier than Robert Bly and Pat Buchanan find it to be.'
– Lambda Book Report
