Swaggering

A Man Swaggering — one of twelve London Cries by Paul Sandby which were drawn from life and published in 1760.

Swaggering is an ostentatious style of walking affected by men wishing to assert their dominance. It is a form of machismo or sexual display which takes up more space than needed for simple motion. The exact gait will vary with personality and fashion but it is generally more of a loose, rolling style than a stiff strut. Among London cockneys, this was stylised as the coster walk which became the dance craze of the Lambeth walk.[1] Among African-Americans, this is known as a jive-ass walk or pimp walk.[2] The actor John Wayne was known for his swaggering walk which became a distinctive element of his screen image.[3]

A cane may be used as a walking stick as part of the performance. In the military, this became stylised as the swagger stick — useless as a support and just used for gesturing and prodding.

Portraits which are ostentatiously posed in the grand manner are known as swagger portraits. The Tate Gallery held an exhibition of these in 1992, featuring the work of William Dobson, Anthony van Dyck and Peter Lely.[4]


References

  1. ↑ Ross McKibbin (1998), Classes and cultures: England 1918-1951, Oxford University Press, p. 408, ISBN 978-0-19-820672-9
  2. ↑ Daniel Wojcik (2010), "Pimp walk", Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture 1, pp. 1089–1091, ISBN 978-0-313-35796-1
  3. ↑ Tanya Krzywinska (2006), Sex and the cinema, p. 35, ISBN 978-1-904764-73-1
  4. ↑ Richard Shone (1992), "The Swagger Portrait", The Burlington Magazine 134 (1077): 816–818
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