ABSTRACT

This chapter explores Todd Chrisley's performance of religion and gender. His metrosexual persona promotes neoliberal norms including a new model for white, male Christian headship. Evangelical Christian notions of freedom are consistent with neoliberalism, and scholars have noted their symbiosis. In Chrisley's case, flaunting may be a strategy to mask and mitigate his need for dominance and control which, at the same time, addresses the "crisis of masculinity." The substance of the lessons – personal responsibility within a cohesive and financially successful family unit, as well as the unthreatening style in which it is delivered – reflect the neoliberal dimensions of Chrisley's patriarchy as mediated by popular entertainment. Some commentators have read Donald Trump's election as a sign that straight, white, Christian men feel threatened and endangered. The real goal of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, argues Sender, is to "reform a heterosexual masculinity compatible with neoliberalism," or, in other words, to turn men into metrosexuals.