The ‘boy scouts’ and ‘bad boys’ of skateboarding: a thematic analysis of the bones brigade

Abstract

Skateboarding has emerged from an alternative subculture to an influential action sport, boosted by recent inclusion in the Olympic Games. Central to debates in both academic and practice communities are the tensions between skateboarding as a lifestyle and ethos, and skateboarding as an Olympic discipline. This article presents a thematic analysis of The Bones Brigade (Peralta, 2012) documentary which follows the rise of Tony Hawk, a high profile skateboarder, and the team he skated with during an important historical era in skating. All are men, presenting an opportunity to investigate masculinity in the sport. We reveal how these pivotal figures embody flexible and overlapping formations of hyper to alternative masculinity. Importantly, we also highlight forms of emotional connection and expressiveness that can unify all skaters. Such insights promote a deeper understanding into diverse formations of masculinity and various expressions of identities in skateboarding and with insights for other action sports.

The Social Mediatization of Lifestyle Sport: Continuity and Novelty in the Online Skate Subculture

“…It also helps establish the general relation between skateboarding and media to make more fulsome arguments below. While histories of skateboard media exist elsewhere in scholarly literature (Camoletto & Marcelli, 2018; Dinces, 2011; Willing et al, 2020), I try to introduce new considerations below.…”

You're Skating on Native Land: Queering and Decolonizing Skate Pedagogy

“…Skateboarding's rebellious ontologies (ways of being) and epistemologies (ways of knowing) have grown alongside public demands for its regulation and its burgeoning commercial appeal (Chiu, 2009;Willing, Green, & Pavlidis, 2019). Chiu (2009) notes that while skateboarders redefine the purpose of public space, their transgressions have inflamed reactionary politics of exclusion.…”

The Film Kids 25 Years On: A Qualitative Study of Rape Culture and Representations of Sexual Violence in Skateboarding

“…People constantly “do gender” through everyday action and interaction, and negotiate and renegotiate what …[that] means’. Hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995) is maintained through social processes, such as physical domination, aggression, competition, sexism and homophobia, and has been useful for the study of men’s friendships, rivalries and identities in previous studies of skateboarding videos and documentaries (Willing et al, 2020; Yochim, 2010). Studies of ‘lad culture’ (Phipps et al, 2018), which is more directly associated with boys and young men, also connect this type of masculinity to expressions of rape culture and sexual violence.…”