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Mark Anthony Neal
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Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (Postmillennial Pop, 4) Paperback – April 22, 2013

by Mark Anthony Neal (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 18 ratings
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Mark Anthony Neal’s Looking for Leroy is an engaging and provocative analysis of the complex ways in which black masculinity has been read and misread through contemporary American popular culture. Neal argues that black men and boys are bound, in profound ways, to and by their legibility. The most “legible” black male bodies are often rendered as criminal, bodies in need of policing and containment. Ironically, Neal argues, this sort of legibility brings welcome relief to white America, providing easily identifiable images of black men in an era defined by shifts in racial, sexual, and gendered identities.


Neal highlights the radical potential of rendering legible black male bodies—those bodies that are all too real for us—as illegible, while simultaneously rendering illegible black male bodies—those versions of black masculinity that we can’t believe are real—as legible. In examining figures such as hip-hop entrepreneur and artist Jay-Z, R&B Svengali R. Kelly, the late vocalist Luther Vandross, and characters from the hit HBO series The Wire, among others, Neal demonstrates how distinct representations of black masculinity can break the links in the public imagination that create antagonism toward black men. Looking for Leroy features close readings of contemporary black masculinity and popular culture, highlighting both the complexity and accessibility of black men and boys through visual and sonic cues within American culture, media, and public policy. By rendering legible the illegible, Neal maps the range of identifications and anxieties that have marked the performance and reception of post-Civil Rights era African American masculinity.

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  1. Part of series
    Postmillennial Pop
  2. Print length
    224 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    April 22, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.56 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0814758363
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0814758366
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Leroymines the contradiction between epistemologies and realness of self-making in relation to black men in popular culture. Neal has crafted an accessible text that creatively renders our understanding of black men as alien, offering complex connections between spatiality, cosmopolitanism, sound, and desire.-,r" -- Jared Richardson ― The Black Scholar

"Looking for Leroyis a fascinating study of Black masculinity." -- Abdul Ali ― The Crisis Magazine

"Mark Anthony Neal is one of our most consistently interesting and inspiring critics of contemporary black popular culture and music, to whichLooking for Leroyis brilliant testament. It showcases Neals masterful ability to take iconic figures of black masculinity, from Avery Brookss neo-cool Hawk to Shawn Carters neo-queer Jay-Z, and show them to us in an entirely new light. This is an incredibly powerful little book, and readers will never look at R. Kelly or Luther Vandrossthe same way again.-" -- John L. Jackson, Jr.,author of Racial Paranoia: The Unintended Consequences of Political Correctness

"Mark Anthony Neal takes us on a fantastic journey searching for the meaning of black masculinity in the USA. As we join him inLooking for Leroy, we find queer and feminist answers to questions about legibility and illegibility, visibility and invisibility, violation and vulnerability. No one writes with more passion, power and speculative brilliance about black masculinity than Neal and no one but Neal would manage to produce a theory of black masculinity capable of explaining the smoothness of Luther Vandross, the cosmopolitan genius of Jay-Z, the enigma of Leroy fromFame, and the sheer brute force of Snoop fromThe Wire. Genius.-" -- Jack Halberstam,author of Female Masculinity (1998) and Gaga Feminism (2012)

"Whiteness and White privilege, Jay Z's entrance into the Pace Gallery recalls a scene nearly 30 years earlier, when three young Black men, clad in black leather jackets and black brims walked into another art space and were told, 'You guys don't belong here.' Just as Run DMC was breaking down commercial barriersMTV then as resistant to Black bodies as any high-end art galleryJean-Michael Basquiat was breaking down barriers in the art world. Although Picasso is the signifier that brings every one togetherand to our worst fears about Picasso and appropriating, dare I say colonizing, spaceit is Basquiat who clearly haunts this space." -- Mark Anthony Neal ― Art Papers

"This is an important new book for gay and straight alike." ― Windy City Times

"Looking for Leroychallenges readers to view black masculinity outside the scope in which it is imagined...Neal achieves his goal of radically rescripting accepted notions of a heteronormative black masculinity." ― American Studies

"Looking for Leroyis very much an act of self-exploration; the men examined offer different variations of the type of black man Neal sees himself to be.This introspection adds to rather than detracts from an intriguing and thought-provoking addition to the growing research on black masculinity in the post-segregationist eraone that blurs the line and closes the gap between heteronormative scholarship and queer studies." ― Cinema Journal

"Looking for Leroycontinues Mark Anthony Neals work of offering a nuanced, critical understanding of African American culture, in particular the ways African American culture constructs masculinity" ― Journal of American Studies of Turkey

"Neal's critique of black masculinity in the U.S. confronts the enormous pressure placed on black males by society's assumptions. Through a pop-culture lens, he shows how the perpetuation of racial stereotypes continues to neutralize the potential of black men and boys." ― Ms. Magazine

About the Author

Mark Anthony Neal is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor at Duke University. He is the founding director of the Center for Arts, Digital Culture and Entrepreneurship (CADC) at Duke, and co-directs the Duke Council on Race and Ethnicity. He is the author of Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities, New Black Man, 2nd edition, Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic, and What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture. He is co-editor of That’s the Joint: The Hip Hop Studies Reader, Second edition. He is the host of the video webcast Left of Black.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYU Press (April 22, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0814758363
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0814758366
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.56 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

About the author

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Mark Anthony Neal

Mark Anthony Neal

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Mark Anthony Neal is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African & African-American Studies and Professor of English. Neal is the author of six books including What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Public Culture, Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture, the Post-Soul Aesthetic and Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities, and Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive (March, 2022) and co-editor, with Murray Forman, of That’s The Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (now in its 2nd edition).

At Duke, Neal offers courses in Black Cultural Studies, including signature courses on “Michael Jackson, Prince and the Black Performance Tradition” and “The History of Hip-Hop,” co-taught with Grammy Award Winning Producer 9th Wonder. Neal also directs the Center for Arts, Digital Culture and Entrepreneurship (CADCE) which produces original digital content, including the weekly video podcast Left of Black, (now in its 12th season), produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Humnaities Instuitute at Duke. Follow Neal on Twitter at @NewBlackMan and Instagram at @BookerBBBrown; His Digital Home is NewBlackMan (in Exile) (http://www.newblackmaninexile.net/).

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Valerie E. Patterson
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is a Must Read!
    Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Two pages in I was experiencing a wide rage of emotions - and was hooked. It arrived while I was deeply engaged in an intense grading marathon but I found myself willing to steal whatever free moments that I had to read this book! Mark Anthony Neal's writing amazes me and leaves me in awe. His interrogation of "legible" and "illegible" black masculinities has profoundly impacted my view of reality. His ability to critically engage popular culture across multiple genres and then seamlessly connect important theoretical arguments demonstrates his mastery as a scholar and a wordsmith.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Psychedelic Literature (Consignment)
    5.0 out of 5 stars Another Good Read by Neal
    Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2013
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    As usual Neal's work is well researched, clearly articulated, and insightful. His ability to show how popular culture is a major societal index for understanding a particular society allows more people to engage in intellectual discourse to address the problems of the day, such as the manner in which black masculinity is often perverted by white media and by blacks who accept and internalize the perversion of themselves.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Dan Tres OMi
    5.0 out of 5 stars A trip down memory lane
    Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Dr. Neal bought back so many memories for me. He bought characters from TV land that I always adored and bought back into my life. While I am not a huge fan of Jay Z (I only own Reasonable Doubt and American Gangsta), I found his essay on him to be enlightening.

    Anything by Dr. Neal is awesome.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Ezell Dunford
    1.0 out of 5 stars Too esoteric/clinical for the average reader.
    Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Found thesis more critique than expository. Too academic, verbose, and difficult to follow. Not for the average reader.
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  • Donald Earl Collins
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good in concept, somewhere between decent and mediocre in its execution
    Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2013
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    Overall, Mark Anthony Neal has a decent book that could've been much better, if he had written it for an audience beyond his academic peers and graduate students pursuing PhD's in African American Studies. Looking for Leroy could've been a great critique of the ways in which individuals like Jay Z, Avery Brooks and Luther Vandross have navigated the rocky terrain of public stereotypes toward Black males and how they turned those stereotypes on its head with the way lived their lives and conducted their careers.

    Instead, Neal virtually drowned that theme in the turgid language of academia, making parts of his book about the legible and illegible almost unreadable, even for this academic historian of American and African American history. Looping in academic literature in between key elements of his main theme and the individual stories he worked so hard to highlight made Neal's Looking for Leroy a disjointed read throughout. Neal could've relegated his interwoven literature review to its own short chapter or as part of a conclusion that tied up loose ends, instead of giving this reader a sense that he was reading a doctoral thesis.

    Don't get me wrong. For African American studies majors and graduate students in the field of African American cultural history, especially for those with a focus on the late-twentieth century, this is a solid study of Black masculinity on a multidimensional level. But it's one that requires a close, almost exhausting read in order to decode the stiff, unyielding language from Preface to Index.
    7 people found this helpful
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