X-Men bromance: film, audience and promotion

Abstract

Dyer's influential texts Stars and Heavenly Bodies posited the notion of celebrities, in his case film stars, as symbolically significant entities in the expression of cultural values and discourse. Contemporary celebrity culture and the rise of social media has seen a decline in the type of symbolically significant film stars first examined by Dyer, yet the notion of social substantiality still holds true. With varying levels of success, contemporary celebrities, by virtue of their online presence, constitute an influential factor in the ebb and flow of modern culture. They set trends, influence dialogue, and focus attention on issues. However, to compete for attention in the cluttered space of mediatised celebrity culture, group interaction has become key to going viral. Celebrity bromances in particular have increased in recent years and are now being used as a marketing technique. Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are among the large names attached to the X-Men film franchise. During the promotion of Days of FuturePast, the bromance between the actors featured prominently in media interviews and audience commentary alike. Although the use of the celebrity bromance was not confirmed as a promotional strategy, it provided a means to generate interest and discussion. This paper will explore celebrity bromances in contemporary culture through a case study of the X-Men bromance, focusing on the analysis of a promotional video and the online response from audiences.

A wen-wu Approach to Male Teenage Chinese Sports Fans’ Heteronormative Interpretation of Masculinity

“…It is important to note that the CP rhetoric adopted by these performatively heteronormative male teenage students is bolstered by masculinist narratives of male bonding. Such narratives are in line with the traditional discourse of brotherhood long-established in indigenous Chinese culture, and its Western counterpart, ‘bromance’, is widely used in the media (Lam and Raphael, 2018). In China, male bonding is always narrated through the eyes of men, and the ‘oath of the peach garden’ is symbolic of narratives of this kind (Louie, 2002).…”