Mr Regular: How Hypermasculinity In Cars Has You All Fooled

Hypermasculinity is the exaggeration of male qualities. You know what this is even if you’ve never heard the term before. You’ve seen it before. Look at the grotesque swollen muscles on male action movie starts. Look at the cartoon builds of comic book heroes. Hear the aggressive “take-what’s-mine” talk of Mad Men.

Now apply the same observations to cars. See the arching shoulder muscles on display over the front fenders of the Corvette C7. Hear the aggressive fightin’ words of the Dodge Hellcat’s exhaust. We petrolheads call it music, a little in the same way that trapcore is music.

The natural man is not veiny and striated. The feral car doesn’t pop, screech, and after-fire. But to sell a car, you have to appeal to the base instincts of what we think masculinity looks like. Cars are becoming hyper-masculine representations of transportation.

Size matters, so get your tape measure and let’s look at dimensions; we’re going to compare human sizes to car sizes. Historically, strong men are at least six feet tall. You need a strong male presence in a movie? That presence must be six feet tall. Hell, look at online dating websites like OkCupid where women often write the phrase ‘You must be over six feet tall…sorry’ right in their profile. If tall equals good, then very tall must mean even better.

Look at this worked-over Toyota 4Runner as an example. Oh yes, so manly. So tall. You know what height means and you know exactly what big tyres represent. Look at the 4Runner’s roof-line that sits seven feet off the ground! It’s the same height as your average NBA star with a shoe endorsement deal.

Hypermasculinity doesn’t have to be muscular, though. It can be physiological as well. Take this shoe-polish and trendy-musical-taste Aston Martin. The Aston doesn’t shove itself in your face with chrome wheels and a sawtooth grille like the C7 Stingray, but it still has a long (not tall) hood and a tumescent V8 beneath. This is a car for the guy who thinks the business card scene in American Psycho is a how-to guide for graphic design and not a representation of Bateman’s crumbling self-image (which it is).

The Aston name aligns itself with a secret agent who, over the years and in various portrayals, smacks women on the bottom or about the face, uses them as human shields, or even shoots them point blank. We excuse this display of hypermasculinity because this machismo is dressed well, is wealthy and is physically very fit. A man frowns. A man feels anger, but he never feels compassion. A man’s baseline is “rrrrrgh.”

Now look at the Dodge Challenger. The tops of its headlights are cut off. The edge of the hood-line droops over the top of the headlights. This creates a hypermasculine brow like a man would develop after years of last-call fistfights in Fishtown. Men fight. Fighting is good. Stand-up for yourself. Stand up for what you believe in. Fill you inner monologue with energy drink slogans! The punch-drunk face of the Dodge Challenger hugs your testosterone and forms a very convincing argument for steroid-like supplements that you can get in the gym.

Hypermasculinity isn’t limited to V8 alpha-cars. Look at my ‘D-in-gym-class’ Honda Fit. Even though it has a 108hp single-cam four-cylinder engine, it still puffs up its side skirts and frowns like an elementary-age boy in the varsity football yearbook group picture. Hell, the Honda Fit even has a do-nothing spoiler in the rear. “Rawr,” my Fit says, “I’m a ferocious road-champion. I’m a grower, not a shower!”

Speaking of penises, have you noticed that steering wheels are getting thick and knurled lately? The steering wheel diameter is about the size of a porn star’s manhood. Trust me, I’ve measured (you don’t know my past!). The idea behind thick steering wheels is that you can think you’re holding something that is symbolically you. And guess what? All this hypermasculinity works!

Expect manufacturers to keep up the ‘broshopping’ of car photos, making them big and veiny with shrunken passenger heads to make the body look bigger. Expect marketing men to work a proper expletive into a car name someday. “Hellcat” is just the beginning of this automotive hypermasculine explosion.