Society says that masculinity is defined by being a straight, tough, controlling, and violent man. If you don’t fall into this category, then as a male, you are made fun of and called soft or get called homophobic names like fag.
You see this idea of masculinity in Disney movies for young boys, where the guys portrayed solve their conflicts though violence or that they need to be tough and act tough in order to be a “real” man. For example, we see this in the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast where the character Gaston is a big muscular man who has a romantic rivalry with the Beast because he wants her to himself, but the Beast has “stolen her away from him”. He then gathers people in town to go and kill the Beast, and that is how the conflict would be resolved. This idea of masculinity is further spread into movies for adults as if society wants to keep men conforming to this idea of how a “real” man should act. We also see this in more mature action films where the guys always have the big guns and solve their issues with shooting people. Movies like Scarface, The God Father, and Rambo show this masculinity idea that society puts on men. It feels like in society if men don’t have a gun in their hand or are violent, or not controlling, they are not “real” men.
I think it is important to bring attention to how the media is portraying men and violence, and how that influences males. That is why I took this picture, hopefully showing how society and the media can push the idea of masculinity on men, and how these men are imitating what they see in the media, specifically movies, which can be dangerous. I photographed a TV in the background, which is paused on a violent movie clip of a muscular man shooting a gun at someone and a male that is standing in front of the TV, imitating what he sees. He imitates this violent man in the background by wearing a white tank top to show his muscles, and camo pants, like what the man on the TV is wearing, while also holding a (fake) gun. How the media is portraying men to be, can get dangerous, fast. If this was a real situation with someone imitating a violent movie scene with a real gun, that man can go off on a killing spree killing people based off this manly man he sees on TV or other forms of media. Gun violence is just one example of how a man can be violent, and sadly, it happens all the time. There are a lot of mass shootings that are mainly male which are probably heavily influenced by these violent movies or video games where they are just imitating what they see through the media, and what they see through the media originates from how society thinks “real” man should be like.
3 comments:
Ryan
What I see in this picture is a man standing in front of a television holding a gun and wearing camo pants and a tank top. Wearing the camo pants represents the apparel of the military and generally what goes on when you think of military is violence and killing. In the background is a man wearing the same type of clothing assuming that he is in the military of some sorts. The media depicts violence and killings such as in movies as manly and powerful. The actor in the movie is Arnold Schwarzenegger who is a world class bodybuilder. Meaning, his particular body type is almost impossible for a normal everyday human to achieve and these are the body types that the media is making men want to look like that in order to be considered masculine. These types of body stereotypes are depicted well in Disney cartoons such as you said and this shows children what the male body should look like when you are powerful and wealthy. All it does is make norms out of extreme body types.
The media plays a huge role in everyday life. Your picture shows how men often will imitate what they believe is to be manly and look up to these super people that just don’t seem to be human. If men continue to grow up like this throughout each generation, they will always see violence as being manly and something that should be thought about when trying to prove something and make changes.
From Kat,
I like this photo because as previously said it shows how men are also held to their own kinds of standards, that being the “Tough Guise”. How only people who follow the “traditional” standards are seen as real men while any men who steps outside the tradition is considered to be not a real man. But I also like how even the clothing the man is wearing shows off the Tough Guise ideology, a tank top and camo pants. The tank top he wears, as you said “to show his muscles”, forces men to show off their upper arms, meaning that if a man wears a tank top but doesn’t have strong arms or a buff upper body then they could be shamed for breaking/not following the Tough Guise. And the camo pants are also a great example of symbolism, the reason being is that camouflage and especially just camouflage pants are heavily associated with the army; and a lot of people see army men as what “real men” look and act like. This traditional normally masculine looking outfit is common in media when men want to look tough and “mainly” especially when facing an enemy all while trying to look cool. Which brings me back to the photo and why I like it, the man in the photo looks exactly like the character on the TV, which tells me that he has spent his entire life so far to achieve this look to look like a “real man” and it shows to me that he was successful, he followed the Tough Guise to the tee. And that’s why I like this photo because not only does it show someone who is acting like the character on the TV but also looking like the character as their ideas of what a “real man” looks like.
From: Kayla
This photo does a great job of representing how young boys and men are influenced by media or video games in this specific photo. The video games show a strong and powerful man with a gun. The person playing this game thinks this is how he has to act in order to get credit for being a man because all the men he plays as or all the people he sees on the television as tough. I think the way you dressed the person in the same kind of clothes as the video game character really symbols how the video game has influenced the person. The tank top was a great choice to show the muscles of the person as a symbol to say they are strong and trying to live up to this picture that the game and society has shown them they need to be a part of. The color of the tank top could be seen as you trying to say that he is an innocent body but because he was shown to be violent and to be tough he puts on a fake face in order to be a part of the “Tough Guise”. The camo pants that he has on could represent how he is trying to blend into society. The gun could be a symbol for the guard that the person has built between his real self and the world in order to show that he is as strong and powerful as everyone says he needs to be in order to be a “real man”.
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