The Gendered Motorcycle: Representations in Society, Media and Popular Culture

Description

What happens to gender at 120mph? Are Harley-Davidsons more masculine than Yamahas? The Gendered Motorcycle answers such questions through a critical examination of motorcycles in film, advertising and television. Whilst bikers and biker cultures have been explored previously, the motorcycle itself has remained largely under-theorised, especially in relation to gender. Esperanza Miyake reveals how representations of motorcycles can produce different gendered bodies, identities, spaces and practices. This interdisciplinary book offers new and critical ways to think about gender and motorcycles, and will interest scholars and students of gender, technology and visual cultures, as well as motorcycle industry practitioners and motorcycle enthusiasts. Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Series Editors’ Foreword Introduction: Why the Motorcycle? Book Outline 1. A Mobile Technology of Gender Surveying the Terrain: Tracking the Field A Mobile Technology of Gender Part I: Film 2. Too Fast or Too Slow: Ideological Constructions of Speed and Gender Slow and Steady: Easy Rider and the Male ‘Time Out’ Fast and Furious: Beating just about Everything and Anything Conclusion: Gearing Up and Slowing Down . . . to Average Speed? 3. Tribute to the Pillion: Seating Bodies upon the Heterosexual Matrix Male Rider and Female Pillion: Seating Gender upon the Heterosexual Matrix The Female Rider with the Male Pillion: Carnival, Freedom and Containment Third ‘Seat’: Petrol Tank as a Bed Queer Riders: Same-Sex Rider and the Pillion Conclusion: The Burden of the Pillion Part II: Advertising 4. Girl on a Motorbike: Technology of Youth, Subculture and Rebellion Bikerchick: Enter Kate Conclusion: Static Mobility and the Stylisation of Apathy? 5. Luxury as a Gendered Discourse: Chanel’s Ducati and Davidoff’s Triumph Mind/Body Subject/Object Wilderness/Urbanity Conclusion: ‘Escaping’ on a Post-Feminist Motorcycle Part III: Television 6. Gastro-Motorcyclism: Culinary Gender and Class The Rise of Gastro-Motorcyclism Normative Discourses of Culinary Gender and Class: Chef or Home Cook? New Culinary Masculinities Conclusion: The Paradox of Meals on Two-Wheels 7. The Techno-Metrosexual: Guy Martin and the Motorised Discourse of Hybrid Masculinity Techno-Metrosexual Body: Motorised Discourse of Masculinity Feeling the Vibrations: Homosocial Techno-Love and the Queering of Technology Ideology of Dirt I: The Mark of Class Ideology of Dirt II: Unpretentious Anti-Celebrity Conclusion: Techno-Metrosexual or just Metrosexual 2.0? Part IV: Anime/Manga 8. Nuclear Dreams: Dis-Orienting the Human/Machine in Akira The Machine-Body: Escape or Eviction of Human Identity? Nuclear Flesh: Containing the Uncontainable Technostalgia: Future is Back Then Conclusion: An ‘Old’ Future? 9. Bosozoku and Japanese Subcultural Masculinity: Thunder, Lightning and Everything Frightening in Bad Boys Theorising Bosozoku Bad Boys: Bosozoku Masculinities Thunder and Lightning ‘I want to be like Eiji’: Japanese ‘Bad Boy’ Conclusion: Women and Bosozoku . . . Kamikaze Girl? Conclusion: A Typology of Motorcycle Meanings: Gender and Technology Freedom and Independence Travel, Adventure and Transformation Design, Technology and Performance Speed, Danger and Risk Deviance, Rebellion and Crime Final Rev Notes Bibliography Filmography Index