Hegemonic Masculinity and Femininity as portrayed in "Beauty and the Geek"

Hegemonic masculinity assures the dominant position of men over women, and some men over others. The hegemonic male is often characterized by their aggressiveness, strength, and self-reliance. Women, on the other hand, are seen more as subordinates, and are taught to concede to men’s stronger will and provide the emotional and social support. The CW’s reality television series, Beauty and the Geek, in some instances, disrupts the ideals of male dominance set by hegemonic masculinity and in some cases the female holds a stronger representation of this role.

Beauty and the Geek, a show which they call a “social experiment” in which eight beauties are paired up with eight geeks compete in a series of competitions for a chance to survive each elimination and be the one couple to win a money prize in the end. The beauties are typically attractive yet unintelligent girls who portray femininity as wearing nice clothes, having perfect hair, a fake tan, being skinny, and wearing a lot of make up. These girls typically fit the hegemonic norm of how girls should look an act. They follow the reality television female trend of beauty and no brains. “The genre teaches us that women categorically “are” certain things—for example no matter their age, they’re “hot girls,” not self-aware or intelligent adults.” (Pozner 97) The girls play up the fact that they are ditzy and only think about beauty and shopping, as one girl states in her interview “when I see a really nice pair of shoes I have a shoegasm.” However, these girls probably make themselves seem dumber in their audition videos to fit the norm, which will gain the attention of the reality television audience. Otherwise, why would they pride themselves in being unintelligent?

As Pozner states, a brain in a bikini is not going to get any attention; this show was popular specifically for portraying beauties without brains and nerdy guys. In the trivia challenge, they ask the girls questions that may be easy for anyone to answer however geared more towards males or the “braniacs,” just so people can be entertained by their responses. “Yet when women aren’t embarrassingly stupid, they’re condemned for being smart.” (97) The smarter girls are seen as a challenge and are often first eliminated from the show, because no one wants to see the smart girl win, they want to see an underdog story in which the less intelligent girls drastically change and rise to the top. Another characteristic of the hegemonic female is that they’re most typically portrayed as white. “Not only are the women cast on these shows supposed to be hot, dumb, and licentious, but they’re also, for the most part, white.” (98) In fact, the female cast of Season 2 features one black girl, one Asian, and the rest are white.

In the first episode, the show itself disrupts hegemonic norms because the girls get to take a dominant role in choosing which geek they would like to be their partner. The geeks are all shy and do not know how to act around the girls, they are intimidated. After choosing a partner, the couple gets to go into the house and choose their bedroom. As each couple goes into the house the same pattern is visible; the girls run ahead choosing which room they want to live in and the men simply comply with the girls decision, not having much say in the matter. While moving in their luggage, one of the beauties asks, “Can I have a strong guy to help me?” This is an example of the normal expectations of a male, however the geeks in the show are seen struggling to lift the heavy luggage up the stairs.

Most of the “geeks” do not fit hegemonic male norm because they are weak, passive, and not confident in their self-reliance. While the hegemonic male may have physical strength often seen in sports, these men instead have talents such as solving a Rubiks cube behind their back in under a minute. The guys display many female characteristics including the showing of emotions, as one of the geeks, Tyson, said “I prefer not to have things buttered up, go ahead and hurt my feelings.” Another one of the geeks, Josh, also disrupted the norm of a male by wearing a “man purse.” Josh also displayed inferiority around the females because he couldn’t sleep in a room “with someone that beautiful” so by choice he slept in the closet.

There was one geek in particular who did, however, fit the dominant characteristic of a male, though it is almost overbearing. Chris definitely takes the dominant role in his pair, making all the decisions and not letting his partner have a say. During the trivia challenge, each pair got to choose which of the two would answer the question. Chris took charge of answering the first question, and for the second his partner said she would like to answer, but he wouldn’t let her and took the question again himself. Most of the other guys, however, allowed their female counterpart to answer the question. Chris and his partner won the challenge and got the privilege of being able to switch teams around, and again, in this situation he took the dominant role and went on a “power trip” asking the other players questions and intimidating the group. Though his partner didn’t want to switch the teams, Chris’ decision ruled and he got his way. While he displays this pattern of superiority, the other geeks interrupt a sense of male domination and patriarchy. “It's about standards of feminine beauty and masculine toughness, images of feminine vulnerability and masculine protectiveness.” (Johnson 94) The females in the show display beauty and feminine qualities, however most contradict the vulnerability and the males lack toughness and their sense of dominance.

Though some characters stuck to the hegemonic masculine or feminine norm, others disrupted it displaying the qualities usually represented by the opposite sex. For the most part, the males in the show took the more subordinate, passive role and the females were dominant over their partner. In the end the two learn to work as a team with their different talents and characteristics. In the words of a geek, “I’ll help you out with the computers you teach me what to wear and I think we’ll both be happy.”


Works Cited

Pozner, Jennifer L. "The Unreal World." Learning Gender: 96-100.

Johnson, Allen G. "Patriarchy, The System." It’s Not Just About Gender: 91-98.