Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

“Desire to Be Connected to Nature”: Materialism and Masculinity in YouTube Videos by Salomon

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Men, Masculinities, and Earth

Abstract

This chapter explores representations of male mountain athletes in contemporary mountain sports media. The primary material consists of three recent YouTube advertisement videos produced and distributed by Salomon. The chapter shows how Salomon, a large multinational brand within the outdoor industry, attempts to enhance its environmental credibility by portraying its athletes as embodiments of new, connected and ostensibly ecological masculinities. However, despite subtle positive signs of changing masculinities, the chapter is critical towards these commercial attempts at environmental branding and calls for more explicated political commitment from mountain sports media and athletes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Indeed, Snyder’s famous poem John Muir on Mt. Ritter (1978) describes an incident where Muir nearly falls off a mountain but is saved through a preternatural physical-spiritual connection with it.

  2. 2.

    For reasons of linguistic pragmatics, I will use the words “nature” and “environment” throughout this chapter.

  3. 3.

    Catalan native speaker Jornet’s original meaning may have changed in the translation of this text and I interpret the word “attain” to refer to “reaching” or “approaching” the mountain. Other interpretations are also possible, including ones implying conquest.

  4. 4.

    Guilt Trip is mentioned here to provide context for Salomon’s positioning as an environmentally credible brand but is not discussed further.

  5. 5.

    Ironically, Jornet himself is keenly aware of how he is being used by his sponsors: “[we] are now on the era of personal branding, we are all not any more only a person but brands who need to act to be liked on a global social world. Myself the first thing I do when I finish an activity is to post my trainings on movescount and Strava, tell my feelings on Twitter, post a nice picture on Instagram and say something stupid and existential on Facebook” (2015a, grammatical errors in original). Further, a recent film of him depicts him divulging self-destructive thoughts and feeling “dirty” in part because of his work as a professional, sponsored athlete (Montaz-Rosset & Serra, 2018).

  6. 6.

    All materialisms within the environmental humanities rely on feminist thought and the work in Alaimo and Hekman’s Material Feminisms (2008) so the term material feminisms is mostly used in this chapter in favour of, for example, vibrant matter, new materialisms, or material ecocriticism.

  7. 7.

    See, for example, Bly’s Iron John (1992) for more on Jungian male archetypes and how the mythopoetic men’s movement (MMM) attempts to access men’s wildness through experiences in nature.

  8. 8.

    McCarthy’s findings are significant because they run counter both to some male mountaineers’ hypermasculine posturing as conquerors of mountains as well as mainstream media’s uncritical reiteration of such attitudes. My personal experience interviewing mountain athletes for a research project supports McCarthy’s notion that ecological attitudes are more prevalent in actual practitioners of the sport than mainstream media reporting would indicate.

References

  • Alaimo, S. (2001). Discomforting creatures: Monstrous natures in recent films. In K. M. Armbruster & K. R. Wallace (Eds.), Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism (pp. 279–296). Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alaimo, S. (2010). Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington, IN: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alaimo, S., & Hekman, S. (Eds.). (2008). Material Feminisms. Bloomington, IN: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alexander, S. M. (2003). Stylish hard bodies: Branded masculinity in Men’s Health Magazine. Sociological Perspectives,46(4), 535–554.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amer Sports. (2017, December 1). Salomon is ready to enter the billion euro league [Web page]. Retrieved from https://www.amersports.com/2017/12/salomon-ready-enter-billion-euro-league/.

  • Amer Sports. (2019). Environment [Web page]. Retrieved from https://www.amersports.com/responsibility/environment/.

  • Barber, K., & Bridges, T. (2017). Marketing manhood in a “post-feminist” age. Contexts,16(2), 38–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bennett, Jane. (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Benwell, M. (2019, January 16). Move aside, Gillette: four products to rile men who like their masculinity toxic. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/16/gillette-ad-mens-rightsactivists-woke-marketing.

  • Bly, R. (1992). Rautahannu [Iron John]. (L. Nivala, Trans.). Juva, Finland: WSOY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breivik, G. (2010). Trends in adventure sports in a post-modern society. Sport in Society,13(2), 260–273.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bridges, T., & Pascoe, C. (2014). Hybrid masculinities: New directions in the sociology of men and masculinities. Sociology Compass,8(3), 246–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caldwell, T. (2017, June 5). Why Alex Honnold’s free solo of El Cap scared. Outside. Retrieved from https://www.outsideonline.com/2190306/why-alex-honnolds-free-solo-scared-me.

  • Cohen, J. J. (2015). Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. (2017). Foreword: Masculinities in the Sociocene. In S. MacGregor & N. Seymour (Eds.), Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change (pp. 5–8). Munich, Germany: RCC Perspectives.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities. Cambridge, England: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2005). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dream Lens Media. [The Source]. (2019, April 2). Courtney Dauwalter: Ultra Running Documentary Film Exploring Courtney’s Source of Will [YouTube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQSiygnDm-U.

  • Ensor, S. (2018). The Ecopoetics of Contact: Touching, cruising, gleaning. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 25(1), 150–168.

    Google Scholar 

  • Estok, S. C. (2017). Virtually there: “Aesthetic pleasure of the first order,” Ecomedia, activist engagement. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 24(1), 4–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, M. M. (2002). “Nature” and Environmental Justice. In J. Adamson, M. M. Evans, & R. Stein (Eds.), The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, & Pedagogy (pp. 181–193). Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaard, G. (2014). Toward New EcoMasculinities, EcoGenders, and EcoSexualities. In C. J. Adams & L. Gruen (Eds.), Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth (pp. 225–239). New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaard, G. (2017a). Critical Ecofeminism. London, England: Lexington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaard, G. (2017b). Posthumanism, ecofeminism, and inter-species relations. In S. MacGregor (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment (pp. 115–130). Oxon: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gillette. (2019, January 13). We believe: The best men can be [YouTube video]. 2019. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPmuEyP3a0.

  • Goodbody, A. (2014). Ecocritical theory: Romantic roots and impulses from the twentieth century European thinkers. In L. Westling (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Environment (pp. 61–74). Cambridge, MA: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hultman, M. (2016). Green men? Exploring industrial-, ecological-, and ecomodern masculinity. Draft paper. Retrieved from http://www.genanet.de/fileadmin/user_upload/dokumente/Gender-Klima-Energie/Hultman_Green_Men._Exploring_Industrial-__Ecological-__and_Ecomodern_Masculinity.pdf.

  • Hultman, M., & Pulé, P. M. (2018). Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance. Oxon, England: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • International Skyrunning Federation. (2020). International Skyrunning Federation [Home page]. Retrieved from https://www.skyrunning.com.

  • Iovino, S. (2016). Ecocriticism and Italy: Ecology, Resistance, and Liberation. London, England: Bloomsbury.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Iovino, S., & Oppermann, S. (2012). Material ecocriticism: Materiality, agency, and models of narrativity. Ecozon@, 75–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ives, K. (2016). Climbing, fast and slow. Alpinist,54(8), 11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ives, K. (Producer). (2017, August 17). Episode 2: Beyond: Conrad Anker [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://alpinist.libsyn.com/beyond-conrad-anker.

  • Jornet, K. (2015a, January 16). The most important word of “freeclimbing” is free [Web page]. Retrieved from https://fastmountains.com/2015/01/16/the-most-important-word-of-freeclimbing-is-free/.

  • Jornet, K. (2015b). Speed: The why and how of a new Denali record (P. R. Roberts, Trans.). American Alpine Journal, 57(89). Retrieved from http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201213314/Speed.

  • Kellert, S. R. (1993). The biological basis for human values of nature. In S. R. Kellert & E. O. Wilson (Eds.), The Biophilia Hypothesis (pp. 42–69). Washington, DC: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerridge, R. (2017). Foreword. In S. Oppermann & S. Iovino (Eds.), Environmental humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene (pp. xiii–xvii). London, England: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klaver, I. J. (2003). Phenomenology on (the) rocks. In C. S. Brown (Ed.), Eco-phenomenology (pp. 155–169). New York, NY: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langer, M. (2003). Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty: Some of their contributions and limitations for environmentalism. In C. S. Brown (Ed.), Eco-phenomenology (pp. 103–120). New York, NY: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacGregor, S., & Seymour, N. (2017). Introduction. In S. MacGregor & N. Seymour (Eds.), Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change (pp. 9–14). Munich, Germany: RCC Perspectives.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (2005). Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (M. Nicolaus, Trans.). Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, J. M. (Ed.). (2008). Contact: Mountain Climbing and Environmental Thinking. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNee, A. (2014). The Haptic Sublime and the “cold stony reality” of Mountaineering. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century,19, 1–20.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (1993). Silmä ja mieli [Eye and Mind] (K. Pasanen, Trans.). Helsinki, Finland: Kustannus Oy Taide.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (1995). Phenomenology of Perception (C. Smith, Trans.). London, England: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miloch, K. S. (2010). Introduction to branding. In J. W. Lee (Ed.), Branded: Branding in Sport Business (pp. 3–9). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montaz-Rosset, S., & Serra, J. [Directors]. (2018). Kilian Jornet: Path to Everest [Motion Picture].

    Google Scholar 

  • Morton, T. (2010). Guest column: Queer ecology. PMLA,125(2), 273–282.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morton, T. (2016). Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Naess, A. (2008). Ecology of Wisdom: Writings by Arne Naess (A. Drengson & B. Devall, Eds.). Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint.

    Google Scholar 

  • National Institutes of Health. (2012, June 12). NIH Human Microbiome Project defines normal bacterial makeup of the body [Web page]. Retrieved from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-human-microbiome-project-defines-normal-bacterial-makeup-body.

  • Oppermann, S. (2016). Material Ecocriticism. In I. van der Tuin (Ed.), Gender: Nature (pp. 89–102). Farmington Hills, MI: MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oppermann, S., & Iovino, S. (2017). Introduction. In S. Oppermann & S. Iovino (Eds.), Environmental Humanities: Voices from the Anthropocene (pp. 1–21). London, England: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ourahmoune, N., Binninger, A. S., & Robert, I. (2014). Brand narratives, sustainability, and gender: A socio-semiotic approach. Journal of Macromarketing,34(3), 313–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pease, B. (2016). Masculinism, climate change and “man-made” disasters: Towards an environmental profeminist response. In E. Enarson & Bob Pease (Eds.), Men, Masculinities and Disaster (pp. 3–15). Abingdon, England: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pulé, P. M. (2013). A Declaration of Caring: Towards an Ecological Masculinism (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/13138/.

  • Ray, S. J. (2017). Risking bodies in the wild: The “corporeal unconscious” of American adventure culture. In S. J. Ray & J. Sibara (Eds.), Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Toward an Eco-Crip Theory (pp. 29–72). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salomon TV [Salomon TV]. (2016, December 20). Kilian [YouTube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eVBrMcflDE.

  • Salomon TV [SalomonFreeSkiTV]. (2016, December 20). Guilt Trip [YouTube video]. 2016. Retrieved form https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbtgNVykEpg.

  • Salomon TV [SalomonTrailRunning]. (2015, October 20). Fast and Light [YouTube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMq4wE6KxmQ.

  • Salomon TV [SalomonTrailRunning]. (2016, May 17). Outliers [YouTube video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWD3sA3SCZ8.

  • Salovaara, H. (2015). “A fine line”: Crossing and erecting borders in representing male athletes’ relationships to nature. VAKKI Publications,4, 77–85.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salovaara, H., & Rodi-Risberg, M. (2019). El Capitan as a site for male healing from trauma in Jeff Long’s The Wall and Tommy Caldwell’s The Push. Ecozon@, 10(2), 162–178.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, G. (1978). Myths & Texts. New York, NY: New Directions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, E., & Sprinkle, A. (2014). Ecosex Manifesto. Retrieved from Sex Ecology: Where theory meets practice meets activism: http://sexecology.org/research-writing/ecosex-manifesto/.

  • Tallmadge, J. (2004). Deerslayer with a degree. In M. Allister (Ed.), Eco-Man: New Perspectives on Masculinity and Nature (pp. 17–27). Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thoreau, H. D. (2008). Ktaadn. In J. M. McCarthy (Ed.), Contact: Mountain Climbing and Environmental Thinking (pp. 173–181). Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Twine, R. (2001). Masculinity, nature, ecofeminism. Ecofeminism Organization Journal, 1–6. Retrieved from http://richardtwine.com/ecofem/masc.pdf.

  • Whannel, G. (2003). Media Sport Stars: Masculinities and Morality. London, England: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler, E. A. (2013). Don’t climb every mountain. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 20(3), 553–573.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wörsching, M. (2007). Race to the top: Masculinity, sport, and nature in German magazine advertising. Men and Masculinities,10(2), 197–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland

    Harri Salovaara

Authors
  1. Harri Salovaara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Harri Salovaara .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Division for Science, Technology, and Society/Department of Technology, Management, and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden

    Paul M. Pulé

  2. The Division for Science, Technology, and Society/Department of Technology, Management, and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden

    Martin Hultman

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Salovaara, H. (2021). “Desire to Be Connected to Nature”: Materialism and Masculinity in YouTube Videos by Salomon. In: Pulé, P.M., Hultman, M. (eds) Men, Masculinities, and Earth. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54486-7_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54486-7_16

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54485-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54486-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation