Of wife guys and family defenders: Towards a typology of 21st century celebrity husbands

This article considers the cultural emergence and ramifications of two linked masculine cultural types: the ‘wife guy’ and the ‘family defender’. A cultural figure defined by an avowedly uxorious disposition and the public celebration of his spouse, the wife guy is a prominent exemplar of 21st century celebrity masculinity. This article argues that the wife guy typifies the strenuous lengths mainstream popular culture goes to negotiate the intractable ‘problem’ of the ambitious and achieving woman and to ratify couplehood as a safe harbour in a post-#MeToo mediascape suffused with heteropessimistic affect. First emerging to identify a social media influencer subtype, the term has accrued a more expansive usage and is now routinely applied to men operating at higher echelons of stardom. Overlapping in many ways is what we term the family defender, which marks a point at which an association with one’s wife takes on attributes that converge with toxic masculinity, justified through rhetorical claims centred on defence of the family. We see the wife guy and family defender as marking different points in a spectrum of masculine performativity operating within the heterosexual marital union. This article uses several celebrity case studies to chart different points on this continuum.