Tucker Max, author of “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” fascinates me. Not only has he voluntarily defined himself as a “raging dickhead,” but he also epitomizes stereotyped masculinity. His self-construction as an unapologetic incarnation of the male id—that force that craves sexual gratification, whose libidinal energies know no economy and no limit—appears disingenuous, in part because it adheres so closely to cultural cliches. Regardless of the veracity of his sexist ramblings, Max’s beer-pounding, sex-crazed, female-objectifying persona seems too ready-made to be real. After reading one of his war stories, each of which features an incredulous diversity of bodily fluids and misogynous one-liners, the question inevitability arises: Is Max an actual flesh-and-blood human being, or a stock character from an unoriginal beer commercial populated with breasty twins? Even his name—Tucker Max—reads like a bad advertising slogan.

Max has pathologically appropriated every trope of steroid-supplemented masculinity imaginable. He has detached, unemotional sex; he objectifies women; he frequents strip clubs. As Max asserted in a recent interview, “There aren’t a whole lot of people in culture that are unapologetically masculine,” implying, of course, that he numbers among the lucky few. Claiming absolute ownership of the term “masculinity,” Max purports to speak for all heterosexual men. His appeal, it seems, lies in his ability to replay all of their sexual fantasies, frustrated by such inconveniences as feminism and statutory rape. Elevating hackneyed myths of masculinity to the status of reality, Max’s writing raises a salient question: What consequences ensue when our cultural Punch-and-Judys appear as actual, embodied people? Moreover, what happens when these walking stereotypes assume the prerogative to legislate the male ideal—and, by extension, the female ideal, defined as it is in relation to the former? And what does this say about the tenuous line our culture draws between reality and representation?

The unfortunate success of Max’s endeavor speaks to the formative power of gendered stereotypes. Marked, in his own words, by a sort of philandering cretinism, Max resists intellectual analysis. Yet there is something undeniably postmodern about him—he appears as a pastiche of the very stereotypic images which he conveys in his writing. Constructed by the forces over which he claims creative agency, Max, as Dorothy Parker would quip, is “trapped, like a trap in a trap.” With their images of males, females, sex, and sexuality, Max’s yarns locate themselves within a loaded semiotic field. Yet, rather than subverting the stereotypes he embraces, Max merely reinforces them, then relishes in his complicity.

The media constantly represent our actions for us, even our most intimate gestures. We watch kisses romantically rendered on the silver screen, then wonder where our personal paradigms of smooching originate. Are we simply mimicking the scene from the movie, or are we acting in accord with some sort of natural, authentic urge? In today’s mediated culture, it’s difficult to tell what portions of our identities we truly own and what portions are mere media creations. Max’s popularity inheres in his self-portrayal as the latter: He is the generalized image, the disembodied pose, par excellence. “My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole,” reads the first sentence on his website; for both his fans and his critics, Max’s identity need not possess any more nuance. The bleach-blonde female posing with him is similarly abstracted. Her face censored by the bland phrase “your face here,” she too becomes a stock character.

Beyond his reification of females as sex objects, what makes Max so insidious is his conflation of not only his own identity, but also masculinity itself, with pure stereotype. Indeed, when contributors to Urban Dictionary define Tucker Max as “the ideal example of ‘the Man,’” “the role model of every guy on Earth,” and even “Jesus” incarnate, it’s difficult to detect whether they are being ironic or sincere. There is certainly comedy in the fact that nearly all of Max’s actions comply with the most threadbare caricatures of masculinity—yet gag gifts don’t make three-year runs on the New York Times bestseller list. Commoditized for a mass audience, misogyny sells.

Deriding Max for his sexism is like Bruno lampooning Southern pastors for their homophobia: It’s almost too easy to be fun. Personalizing the anonymous force of patriarchy writ large, Max makes himself an obvious target. Impugning the stereotype for self-consciously being a stereotype is a worthwhile, yet circular, endeavor. As readers, we possess no means to distinguish the truth of Max’s stories from his fabrications and exaggerations; in his writing, the real blends seamlessly with the representation of the real. Sadly, we cannot simply snub Max’s work as a self-indulgent exercise in free speech. By valorizing the spectacle and the gendered stereotype, Max’s writings prove the continued relevance of both.

Courtney A. Fiske ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House. Her column appears on alternate Wednesdays.