“I don’t know what the world is coming to. Bloody perverts…”: Masculinity and Displacement in Pre-Ceasefire Derry Girls (2018–19)

Abstract

Although widely applauded for its female centrality, Derry Girls (2018-19) also problematises the displacement of masculine subjectivities in a period when the peace process and the effects of globalisation permeated the renegotiation of the discursive notions of masculinity in Northern Ireland. Intergenerational relations are key to understanding this displacement of male characters like Granda Joe (the hard man), Da Gerry (the new man), or James. With an emphasis on the carnivalesque, liminality, space, and emasculation, this article will investigate the extent to which male characters, who are caught amidst the rapid cultural changes caused by the spatial and cultural negotiations of the ceasefire, represent the collapsing structural dimensions of the social constitution of gender in pre-ceasefire Northern Ireland.