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“How’s That Workin’ for Ya?”: Hegemonic Masculinity, Daytime Talk, and theCultural Politics of Dr. Phil’s “Get Real” Therapy
Abstract
: This paper analyzes Phillip McGraw and his popular talk show,
Dr. Phil
, to argue thattelevision’s recent representations of self-help legitimize the politics of hegemonic masculinity in post-September-11 America. Our textual analysis of the
Dr. Phil
show focuses on those performative and televisual aspects of the program that reveal McGraw’s strategic production of his brand of strong, masculine therapy. Television’s visual and linguistic significations of Dr. Phil’simposing physique, Southern/Texan gentlemanliness, militaristic and corporate rhetoric, maritalloyalty and happiness, and his containment of a largely female middle-class audience weave together the contours of McGraw’s manly “Tell It Like It Is” talk therapy.
1
A very early version of this paper was presented in 2005 on a panel in the Cultural Studies Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Phil
“How’s That Workin’ for Ya?”: Hegemonic Masculinity, Daytime Talk, and theCultural Politics of Dr. Phil’s “Get Real” Therapy
Dr. Phil is a media icon. Psychologist Phillip McGraw—performer, author, and celebrity–has achieved a peak of popularity in the talk show world second only to Oprah Winfrey, whointroduced him to television audiences in 1998. Parlaying the
Oprah
show’s initial endorsement of his expertise into a springboard for greater fame, McGraw or “Dr. Phil,” as he is referred to ineveryday parlance, launched his own talk show,
Dr. Phil
, in 2002. Fans and critical observerstracking the arc of McGraw’s television career witnessed the steady ascent of his brand of “get real”therapy in 2004, barely two years after the launch of his own talk show,
Dr. Phil,
in 2002. TheSeason 3 premiere of
Dr. Phil
in fall 2004 showcased McGraw’s Hollywood star power with a two-hour primetime special that featured A-list actresses Nicole Kidman and Halle Berry sharing theirexperiences of motherhood. McGraw was also successful in inserting his show into the moreweighty terrain of electoral politics the same year; he is the only daytime talk show host to interviewboth 2004 presidential candidates—George W. Bush and John Kerry—at length about theimportance of family and fatherhood in their private and public lives. McGraw’s recent mediaappearances outside his talk show document his transformation from an expert on the Oprah showinto the nation’s leading celebrity psychologist. On the one hand, CNN’s visual images of a kindMcGraw counseling displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina in Houston, Texas, underscored hispublic citizenship; on the other hand, dating Web site
Match.com’s
promotion of McGraw as thelove doctor to clients testified to his competence in the realms of love and intimacy.“Tell-It-Like-It-Is-Phil,” as Oprah branded him, is currently seen on more than 200 televisionstations that together represent more than 99% of the national viewing public (King WorldTelevision, 2005). Oprah’s company, Harpo Productions, created his Los Angeles-based talk show,which news media touted as premiering to the highest Nielsen ratings of any syndicated TV showsince Oprah’s own premiere (
USA Today
, October 15, 2002). Noting
Dr. Phil
’s attentive,enthusiastic, and loyal demographic of adult female consumers (women, 25-54 years-old),distributor King World announced it would renew the series through the 2013-2014 season, ensuringthe longevity of McGraw’s television career.
The
Dr. Phil
show, which ranks in the top five of syndicated programs, averages more than 6.5 million viewers daily. His web site notes that he is theauthor of six #1
New York Times
bestsellers, including
The Ultimate Weight Solution: The Seven Keys to Weight Loss Freedom
,
Family First: Your Step-by-Step Plan for Creating a Phenomenal
2
Dr. Phil
Family
, and most recently,
Love Smart: Find the One You Want, Fix the One You Got
. His bookshave been published in 39 languages, with more than 24 million copies in print. Dr. Phil’s successhas launched son Jay McGraw’s career as self-help adviser to teen audiences in print and ontelevision; his wife, Robin, recently penned her own bestseller,
Inside My Heart: Choosing to Livewith Passion and Purpose
. In spite of his popularity, McGraw’s cultural influence has beenexamined by only one study (Egan & Papson, 2005), which determined that his show is one exampleof a religious conversion narrative on daytime talk programs. However, we see McGraw’s personaand program as unique within the daytime talk genre for their enactment of hegemonic masculinity,which we argue is significant within the historical context of post-September-11 American culture.
Our textual analysis of hegemonic masculinity in the
Dr. Phil
show draws on the intellectualmomentum of recent cultural studies work, which has reminded us that masculinity, as much asfemininity, constitutes the cultural fabric of gender relations (Beynon 2002; Butler 2004; Connell1995; Hanke 1990; Trujillo 1991). We argue that McGraw’s popular brand of “no nonsense”bootstraps television therapy echoes the traditional masculinity actively resuscitated in the culturalpolitics of George W. Bush’s post-September-11 America. In fact, setting the stage for the televisualproduction of his masculine expertise, Dr. Phil entered the public arena in 1998 as the shrewd “hero”who rescued Oprah Winfrey from the clutches of cattle barons when they sued her for slanderingbeef as a dangerous food. Oprah’s tearful expression of gratitude to McGraw (“he gave myself back to me”) – a tall, White middle-aged man standing at her side on her show – provides a powerfulearly script for
Dr. Phil
’s subtext of tough yet reasoned and reasonable masculine authority(Hollandsworth 1999). From his imposing physical presence to his emotional and professionaldemeanor, Dr. Phil’s curriculum of psychic comfort for the nation’s women, men, and families gainslegitimacy through his embodiment of strong, straight and righteous white masculinity. McGraw’smasculine approach to self-help, one might assume, would make him more popular among men thanthe woman-centered advice books that populate the genre, including John Gray’s
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
. Yet, his direct and aggressive therapeutic approach does not meanthat the nation’s men have flocked to his studio. McGraw’s relationship with the men he counsels onstage and the minority of men in the audience is sometimes portrayed as a tense one. Despite theirscarcity in his audience, men are represented equally on the
Dr. Phil
stage. McGraw notes that the“husbands of America” fear and resent his advice, but that their wives “drag” them to watch the
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Hegemonic Masculinity and Daytime Talk TV
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| Category: | Uncategorized. |
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| Upload Date: | 07/11/2009 |
| Copyright: | Attribution Non-commercial |
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