Masculinity In Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle

In a more recent politically and culturally diverse world, many contemporary authors take it upon themselves to create novels exploring our diversity. In Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle, Beatty decides to critique our society’s strict and confining gender stereotypes and standards. Using irony and symbolism, Beatty crafts interesting characters, scenes, and dialogue to suggest that no one person is one-dimensional, and when society attempts to confine our multi-dimensional selves, many times we suffer from negative consequences. Through characters like Gunnar and Scoby, Beatty challenges the stereotypical masculinity expected of black males and what responses may occur as society attempts to box them in.
During the first half of Beatty’s

novel, we quickly become aware to how he wishes to break down our expectations of masculinity. The Gun Totin’ Hooligans are a prime example as to how Beatty uses irony to illustrate how easily society’s stereotypes of masculinity, especially amongst gangsters, can be broken and how little consequence comes from doing so.

After the death of their fellow gangster Pumpkin, the GTH attempt to avenge Pumpkin’s death by raiding a rival gang. However instead of simply going in, guns blazing, the GTH dress in drag. While one would expect them to hate their seemingly emasculating facades, the gang members seemed to revel in their femininity. According to Gunnar, his friend Psycho Loco seemed to enjoy himself the most, “admiring his lusty visage in his compact, Psycho Loco flapped his false eyelashes [and blew himself a kiss”(p. 106). Psycho Loco, the leader of the GTH, a seemingly masculine societal position, enjoyed dressing in drag. And not only Psycho Loco, but the rest of the gang seemed to revel in their newfound femininity as well, “They fought over who would have the largest breasts and who would wear the expensive Wanton perfume.

They stuffed halter tops with blue toilet paper, daintily knotted blue scarves about their necks, smothered pleated blue skirts, cringed as they slipped their blue-painted toenails into blue high heels and blue-steeled .25 pistols into blue leather handbags”(p. 107). All these young gang members ready to shoot another rival gang, seemed to revel in their drag performance more than the rush of a drive-by. Ironically these young men enjoyed their newfound femininity more than the masculinity expected of them in society. And none of the gang members looked down upon each other for doing so. Beatty’s use of irony here, sets the tone for the novel’s view of stereotypical masculinity: not all men are solely masculine.
Not only do men not solely embody masculinity, they also do not express the toughness and invulnerability associated with masculinity at all times. For instance Gunnar, for majority of the novel, acted as a wallflower, never truly getting involved in other’s escapades unless needed. Gunnar’s voluntary subordination becomes apparent when he gets involved with Betty and Veronica. The girls chase Gunnar around the neighborhood, determined to steal his virginity, even if by force. As Gunnar runs from the girls he tells a man that the girls are “chasing [him]. They’re going to kill [him]”(p. 81). From the beginning, Gunnar holds no position of power in their relationship. Even towards the end of Gunnar’s molestation, the girls remain in power; instead of Gunnar having the final say, Betty and Veronica left, “arguing on the appropriate term for a boy’s losing his virginity”(p. 83). Usually when one pictures men and sex, they imagine the masculine figure in control, However Beatty chose to place Gunnar as subordinate to Betty and Veronica. And ironically, Gunnar enjoys his role, “singing ‘Oh Happy Day’ at the top of [his] lungs.. . [and] still singing when [he] got home”(p. 83). Despite not being the stereotypical suave man in his sex life, Gunnar took pride in simply being involved. Again Beatty uses irony to illustrate how a masculine gangster like Gunnar, can enjoy his subordinate sex life.
And Beatty continues to show Gunnar’s contentment with his role as subordinate, through his relationship with his wife, Yoshiko. Not only does Gunnar meet Yoshiko through unorthodox methods, a “purchased” marriage, but their relationship is also very unorthodox. After their initial meeting, Gunnar and Yoshiko lay in bed and as Gunnar drifts off and begins to dream, he wakes “to find Yoshiko’s index finger worming its way toward [his] prostate”(p. 173). Usually the idea of anal sex associates itself with gay men, individuals that society believes to be less masculine than straight men. However, ironically Gunnar, a seemingly straight male, allows his wife to perform an emasculating sexual act. Although initially Gunnar thinks he may be “punked for life,” in later chapters Gunnar and Yoshiko have a stable and loving relationship. Beatty use of irony in Gunnar’s relationships with women in his life, illustrates that men can have both feminine and masculine traits and be completely okay with doing so.
However Beatty also attempts to show the other side of the coin, characters who cannot bring themselves to balance their true selves with society’s expectations of gender.

Beatty specifically uses the character Scoby to show the negative consequences that can come from the strictly masculine stereotypes we force upon black men in particular. For instance, Beatty uses irony to critique our society’s expectations of a black man’s sports abilities. When Scoby becomes the star of the school basketball team, he begins to break from all the constant support everyone gives him for his ability to never miss a shot. Scoby tells Gunnar, “‘I’m no fucking Tiki doll, no fucking icon. Don’t folks have anything better to do with their lives than pay attention to what I’m doing?’. . . It’s not fair. I wasn’t born to make them happy”(p. 119). Ironically, instead of treasuring and basking in the glory and praise a star basketball player usually receives, Scoby buckles under it all. Now that the school expects nothing but greatness from Scoby, he feels pressured to be nothing but perfect. Scoby being a black male definitely does not help his case much either. According to sociologist K. D. Thomas, this stereotypical black masculinity “may narrow the scope of products associated with black masculinity and therefore restricts how black males can express their masculinity”(Thomas). Thus Scoby being a basketball player does nothing but restrict him to stereotypical black athlete expectations. And

through Scoby’s dialogue and interactions with Gunnar, Beatty shows us that these expectations do nothing but damage Scoby’s mental health.
While Gunnar seemed mostly content with his deviation from the stereotypical black athlete persona, Scoby did not seem to handle his own deviation well. Scoby’s eventual break from the pressures of his surrounding circumstances led him to suicide. Even though Scoby tried to break away from society’s expectations, he found himself being pulled back similar to how he could not bring himself to just miss a shot every now and then. Something just would not let Scoby miss (p. 119). But Gunnar seemed to understand exactly why Scoby could not bring himself to underperform or escape the pressures surrounding him. According to Gunnar, “Successful niggers can’t go back home and blithely disappear into the local populace. American society reels you back to the fold”(p.. 119). Normally we view success as a positive influence, something that motivates people and makes them happy. But again, in a twist of irony, Gunnar and Scoby feel pressured and brought down by the idea of their own success. In fact, according to an article written in International Journal of Men’s Health, “Conformity to masculine norms has been associated with elevated levels of depression in men. Men’s perceived failure to achieve internalised expected standards may in turn precipitate maladaptive self-conscious affect, including shame”(Rice). As mentioned by Gunnar, the boys feel constantly pressured to succeed for the sake of their role as black male figures of influence in society. But the confining expectations of black male athletes keep Gunnar and Scoby from truly being content with themselves, no matter how much success they achieve. Again Beatty’s use of irony illustrates the flaws in our expectations of males, especially black athletes.
In fact, Beatty seems to use the effects of basketbal on characters like Gunnar and Scoby to further illustrate the importance of breaking down these stereotypes. Beatty uses basketball to symbolize the duality of these two character’s views on their specific gender roles. Much like Scoby, Gunnar’s involvement in basketball makes him an object of stereotypical black masculinity. When Scoby stops shooting in attempts to cope with the pressure of performing well, Gunnar was then expected to score in Scoby’s place, becoming the new star of the game. To both Gunnar and Scoby, basketball symbolized the societal expectations of being an alpha male, someone who takes charge and gets the job done. However both Scoby and Gunnar decided to reject this type of basketball masculinity. For Scoby, he simply stopped performing as the stereotypical alpha male while Gunnar took a more nuanced approach. During basketball camp Gunnar spent most of him time at a college library because he felt that the library was the only place where he “could avoid white boys asking [him] if [he] thought blacks were closer to gorillas while tufts of unruly chest hair crept pas their collars like weeds starving for sunlight. [He] could hide from smarmy college basketball recruiters who’d never think to look for a black athlete in the library”(p. 165). Beatty and even Gunnar understood the irony of a black “alpha male” athlete studying in the library simply because he found educating himself to be more enlightening than playing basketball. Nothing would be more emasculating than finding a jock studying in a library for the fun of it. Again, Beatty uses irony to illustrate how easily Gunnar satisfies his desire to break stereotypical gender roles. Both Gunnar and Scoby found ways to defy what society wished them to be; however, as evident by Scoby’s suicide, each had varying successes.
Throughout The White Boy Shuffle, Beatty challenges the idea of masculine societal expectations through both Gunnar and Scoby’s life experiences and success. From their first introduction in a stereotypically emasculating drama class, Beatty does his best to show how both Gunnar and Scoby, two gang members, ironically do not embody society’s stereotypical views of masculinity. The two wrote poetry, listened to music, dressed in drag and explored philosophical life questions with each other. Throughout the first half of the novel, Gunnar and Scoby did as they pleased and seemed to enjoy themselves. However when basketball became a central influence in their lives, the two eventually figured death would be the only way to free themselves of the pressures of society. While Scoby did go through with his suicide, Gunnar stayed to help raise his daughter with Yoshiko. In a way Gunnar stayed to embrace another side of his life that was not stereotypically orthodox or masculine: his relationship with Yoshiko. Overall Beatty uses the irony in both Gunnar and Scoby’s lifetimes to illustrate the damaging effects and results of masculine stereotypes in men. In some cases like Gunnar, embracing the duality of their personality helps keep them sane. But if one were to ignore their duality and embrace “basketball”, the hypermasculine stereotype society expects them to uphold, they could end up like Scoby.