Lad Culture - Origins

Origins

The term "new lad" was blended by journalist Sean O'Hagan in a 1993 article in Arena.

Part of "the postmodern transformation of masculinity...the 1990s 'new lad' was a clear reaction to the 'new man'...most clearly embodied in current men's magazines, such as Maxim, FHM and Loaded, and marked by a return to hegemonic masculine values of sexism male homosociality". At a time when "men saw themselves as battered by feminism", one could also consider that "laddishness is a response to humiliation and indignity...the girl-power! girl-power! female triumphalism which echoes through the land".

Lad culture now reaches beyond men's magazines to movies such as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and to the TV sitcoms, Men Behaving Badly and Game On. The Men Behaving Badly and Fantasy Football League television programmes present images of Laddishness that are dominated by the male pastimes of drinking, watching football, and sex. These are presented as being ironic and "knowing". (The masthead of Loaded is "for men who should know better".)

The American equivalent has been termed "'Frat Boy Nation'...a backlash against the sensitive, pro-feminist male" of a very similar order.

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