The Troubled World of Modern Masculine Identities, by Reggie Yates

BBC3 has always been the pouting, too edgy for lectures member of the BBC family, which could explain why it’s being told to leave the house by February.

In its twilight years, the slouching undergraduate has furrowed its brow, taken some selfies in a library to show it’s sophisticated and commissioned a slew of rather good documentaries, all of which could’ve prevented its eviction had they been done sooner. Ex-CBBC presenter Reggie Yates of Reggie Yates’s Extreme Russia fame, is your guide to Extreme UK, in which he explores challenges to hitherto dominant masculine identities now being forced to reshape and answer one big question: what makes you a man in 21st century Britain?

In the first episode Gay and Under Attack, Yates uncovers ongoing persecution of LGBTQ+ members of ethnic minority groups. His appealing dearth of academic loftiness lends symmetry to the processing of information as presenter and viewer learn alongside each other. Tolerance and acceptance are Yates’s easily discernible messages in very short supply in the socially conservative ethnic minority communities under scrutiny. Homophobia and transphobia are often espoused by friends and family members of estranged victims, who view homosexuality as a failure of parenting or a selfish abnormality. Destructive views are dismantled as articulate young people spell out the blindingly obvious: why would someone choose a sexuality that could still disgracefully result in social exile? Prejudices are often culturally ingrained and justified by scripture.

Every story needs a villain, and religious people have predictably filled that role. As an atheist I have no time for primitive superstition but social conservatism is not the preserve of people with imaginary friends. Interviewing Christian or Muslim advocates of gay marriage and gay adoption would’ve made this a different programme, thereby challenging the perception that homophobia is exclusive to the devout. Whether that would’ve made good television or not is another matter. Young socially conservative viewers would most likely disagree with the programme’s message and cling tighter to their beliefs, therefore we should stop pretending the BBC is an impartial observer. If you’re going to be biased however, you could do a lot worse than exposing the plight of those marginalised purely because of their sexuality and gender in the fifth largest economy in the world.

Embattled middle-class men! Gather your arms, legs and Yorkie Bars because episode two, Men at War, is all about advancing men’s rights against the onslaught of those well-known proponents of regression, feminists. Advocates of gender equality are the unfortunate targets for men blighted by a range of issues from unemployment to a lack of success with the opposite sex. Easy targets for satire they may be, but meninists are a symptom of the modern lad’s evident inability to express themselves freely for fear of emasculation. Inexpressiveness rooted in archaic expectations of male stoutness allows venom-dispensing fruit machine Roosh V to channel angst in a toxic fashion. Roosh, in whose bile meninists trust, is the saviour of the sexually frustrated, the arch-proponent of facile hatred towards a gender facing continued discrimination professionally and socially.

He deals in shock and lives off awe, which becomes apparent because Yates very generously allows him to speak where others would’ve silenced him to look virtuous. By doing so Yates lets Roosh assassinate himself with his absurd notions about men being victimised by attempts to end the gender pay gap without appearing smug. It is however hard to believe a south Londoner could be so incredulous about the existence of such vituperative views. What is apparent is that young men have been hurt by women, which is not in doubt: false rape claims are made by despicable opportunists and young girls are capable of playing nasty mind games that can damage an unconfident man’s self-esteem. But to use the promotion of awareness about high suicide rates among young men as a sheath for venting personal grievances is insidious. Like the fascist who blames migrants for high rates of unemployment, meninists are embarking on slimy proxy wars against women’s rights activists by using emotive issues to crush the drive towards equality. Muppets like Men Against Feminism undermine exploration of male-related mental health concerns by promoting them in the same breath as criticising women’s rights, which can only alienate potential sympathisers.

A blizzard of six packs (upsettingly not the alcoholic variety), gym fanatics and raging egotism accosts us in the final episode, Dying for a Six Pack. The pitiful equation of low self-esteem and societal pressure placed on men to attain a Herculean physique makes this the saddest of the three episodes. Flabby tummies will be patted proudly as partners gaze wistfully at the parade of aspiring clothing models driven to compete against each other for strangers’ approval. Undoubtedly some watchers will intensify their workout routines, but it’s sad to think that so many men equate strong masculinity with an imposing figure.

The ferocious rapidity with which ideal masculine traits have changed over a short space of time can be attributed to a volatile cocktail of easily accessible men’s health magazines, social media and the ascent of individualism. Profiled obsessives are defined by wanting to feel better about themselves and more importantly earn recognition from others for their physique, which they feel will validate them. For Welsh builder Kyle, the road to perfection is endless and fruitless. Like the meninists suffering personal issues, gym disciples race away from troubled history into damaging territory. Their pursuit of the perfect body is powered by the most corrosive neo-liberal values. Like rapacious bankers who wrecked the economy in 2008, more is never enough. Like the hedge-fund vulture religiously committed to high risk-high return dogma, fanatics like Kyle devote themselves to routines that jeopardise their wellbeing. The tragic case of Yorkshire lad Ollie who died chasing his ideal figure from an over-reliance on anabolic steroids conclusively shows that a prominent 21st century male identity is rooted in a pristine surface and spiritually arid interior. They are glossy shells, the embodiment of the ‘you can be whoever you want to be’ lie spun by capitalism, attempting to numb self-doubt in the modern day church of the gym.

Yates’s presenting style is noticeably humble and relaxed, if at times naïve. The loose informality might cause aneurysms in the Mailograph’s offices but his effortlessly louche persona makes it work. If John Humphrys tried something similar, I fear the headline would be ‘ageing school teacher raves about Antarctic Monkeys.’ Yates’s sincere inquisitiveness connects with younger people because his voice doesn’t radiate pomposity, but the lack of intellectual hubris is at once the show’s strength and weakness: he doesn’t patronise the viewer but comes across as amateurish because he doesn’t have BBC-sanctified diction associated with trustworthy documentaries. The snob in me laughed the first time I heard Yates and fellow presenter Stacey Dooley: they sounded like two kids from my area cobbling together anecdotes for an A-level Sociology project. It’s easy to sneer, but BBC3 have confronted the notion that only white middle-class men and woman make documentaries sound intellectually credible by choosing what you could call atypical presenters. By the end of the series Yates had fully won me over and to BBC3’s credit, choosing atypical presenters democratised knowledge and made serious subjects accessible to a young audience.