Hegemonic Masculinity in 90's Pop Culture

The other day I was watching "Roseanne" - I can't lie, it's one of my favorites! - and I noticed that the episode was called "Stand On Your Man."

In this episode, we can see hegemonic masculinity at it's "finest" in 1990's popular culture. In the first clip, the first 2 minutes or so, we can see Dan and his "buddies" playing poker and adhering to their ideas of hegemonic masculinity within their society. Arnie's ex-wife nancy has recently come out as a lesbian, which he feels is a threat to his masculinity.




This entire episode deals with issues of masculinity, as Dan feels he must display his masculinity and "protect" Roseanne now, after she is attacked by a man in her restaurant. We can see this in the last few minutes of the clip above, and in the first few minutes of the following clip. The part of this episode which first caught my attention begins around 5 minutes through in the following clip: Arnie comes to talk to Nancy to "reaffirm" his masculinity after learning that she is a lesbian.