1 Manliness and Mountaineering: Sir Edmund Hillary as New Zealand Adventurer and Male Icon Toni Bruce and Richard Pringle Chapter submitted for J. Knijnik & D. Adair (Eds.), Embodied Masculinities Introduction The death of a national ‘icon’ invariably provokes a period of national reflection on the individual’s contribution to the nation if not to the world. In this chapter we analyse public discourses around the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander renowned as the first man to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain. Hillary died in 2008, more than half a century after he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay first stood on top of Mt Everest. Hillary’s place as a national icon, hero, legend, role model and inspiration 1 is undeniable. For most of the second half of the twentieth century, he cast a large shadow, literally 2 and figuratively, over New Zealand imaginings of itself. Such was his impact that even 18 months after his death, he received by far the most votes in a national poll asking people to identify the greatest living New Zealander (Who takes, 2009). His passing was accompanied by national mourning, his body lay in state (an honour usually reserved for Prime Ministers and Governors General), and his funeral was nationally broadcast on two national television stations, the national radio station and live via webcast. In this chapter, we interrogate media representations for what they reveal about masculinities and the place of mountaineering within New Zealand. We will argue that Hillary’s appeal emerged out of his international adventures, apparently modest refusal to buy into the fame and idolatry thrust upon him, and commitment to improving the lives of the Sherpa people in the Himalayas. Our overall analysis revealed three key themes – the Adventurer, the Kiwi Bloke and the Humanitarian – and their articulation to masculinities and national identity. An editorial reflecting on Hillary’s number 1 ranking in the inaugural Readers Digest ‘Most Trusted’ survey several years before his death incorporates the themes quite explicitly: “He is the complete package: the conqueror of Everest, and a man renowned for his openness and honesty, immense humility and utter selflessness, as illustrated by his work building medical clinics and schools in Nepal” (Sport, trust, 2005, para 7, italics added). We will argue that these themes (as refracted through the words of journalists and the public) reflect key imaginings of a desired New Zealand identity while functioning to reinscribe men (and particular forms of masculinity) as central to how the nation sees itself. Thus, while our focus is on discourses of masculinity, the significant intertwining of all three themes means that elements of each will be used to inform our overall argument. Throughout, we weave together Hillary’s biography, theory, empirical research and our analysis as we attempt to make sense of the media and public responses to the man described by one newspaper as “the epitome of New Zealand manhood” (Antarctic adventures, 2008, p. 9). In order to contextualise the analysis, we first present a brief biography of Hillary's achievements, followed by a theoretical discussion of key concepts that inform our analysis. We note that the biography draws upon multiple sources of information, including media coverage, encyclopedia entries, Hillary's own writing, and biographies of him written by others. Like all representations, it is necessarily partial, and functions as a launching pad for the ensuing analysis rather than as a detailed investigation of his life (see, however, Booth, 1993; Hillary, 1999; Johnston, 2006).