I wanted to capture the pressure and pain the men feel to conform to masculinity through violence, anger and a certain physique. The self-doubt gets engrained in young men through unrealistic and over the top Hollywood depictions of men has negative consequences on their ability to be open and confident with their abilities to express their full range of emotions. The closed door and reflection of the mirror represents the internal struggles young men face alone because of the fear to be open about pain and sadness that they man feel. I wanted the scars to be more centered and facing the viewer to be a visual representation of the damage that the expectations we put on young men. Aggression doesn't only get inflicted on the people around a young man struggling with the inability to express himself in any way he feels comfortable. These societal constraints can inflict deep wounds on the confidence to connect with others. I asked him to flex his arm muscles as well to represent the expectation for men to be big, buff and physically very strong. The shaving cream can be seen as a mask and the act of shaving is the changing of appearance in order to fit in.
3 comments:
The shaving cream may be a mask because he's covering up. He may not like his appearance so he turns to violent behavior for answers. He may have been taught in a certain way where he might not think he is "masculine enough" for society resulting in violence and out rage. He looks upset and disturbed. The walls and the back ground are dark representing hate in his life. Hate for himself and society.
The narrow space indicates that there's only a certain of space in the society that he should fit in, he might need to push or squeeze him. The scars show how a man should roll to be considered to be a tough guy as our society expects. But on the other hand, usually men keeping their beard or mustache to show their masculinity and how manly they are. In this picture,shaving his beard reduces the masculinity of that man.
It's interesting to see where the shaving cream out lines the shaving cream is only around his beard not his mustache as if he's not intending to shave there. Also the scars would be consider very "manly" to an outsider not even knowing how he got them many people would still be impressed oh he's a rebel some would say, or he's tough a real man, but in the other hand if these scars were on a girl she would be considered ugly and unattractive with no sympathy of how these scars came about. Society would most likely shame a girl for these scars while praise a man for them.
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