ABSTRACT
Masculinity is as much a cultural construct as femininity but its different relationship to patriarchy produces different textual constructions and reading practices. Shows like The A-Team, which cater for largely male audiences, have less need to produce a double text that allows for oppositional or resistive meanings to be circulated. Their texts are structured to produce greater narrative and ideological closure, and there is little evidence that this closure needs to be resisted by a significant number of audience groups. The more typical reading strategy is likely to be one of negotiation, as male subcultures, situated differently in the social system, seek to accommodate their social situation with the dominant ideology. Masculine texts appear to be less polysemic than feminine ones because masculinity’s relationship to patriarchy is less resistive than femininity’s.
