Masculinity

So the last couple of days we have watched videos in class about masculinity, or a least what men in America think masculinity is. These videos say that men think violence, not talking about feelings, treating women like objects and many other negative actions and thoughts represent masculinity. They blame these misconceptions of masculinity on the evil media. Movies, TV shows, ads, and music, especially those rappers, are making men terrible people. I cannot see where some of these ideas come from.

In the film, Tough Guise, the man talking throughout the film as obvious problems with how the media portray men. He brings up an example about action heroes through out recent history. From James Bond to Rambo. He talks about the size of their guns and how they increase. He also criticizes the violence in movies such as Rambo, the movie about a man on revenge in Vietnam. I would just want to ask the critic, What should Rambo do? This ACTION movie about WAR should not be violent and Sylvester Stallone is too ripped. His body gives false messages to men that they need to be strong and violent. I agree, being strong and violent in war is no good. Instead i think we need to remake Rambo. We keep the same setting, but instead of uberjacked Stallone, we get David Spade and instead of a gun, we will just have Rambo talk it out. Jokes aside. It is a movie! It's for entertainment, how can not only a person but a whole culture take a movie an say it is what makes them a man?

Even if these films and shows make men think they need violence to be a man, these men in the movies rarely harm women, children or the innocent. Tough Guise showed clips from the film Raging Bull, a classic about boxer Joe LaMotta. In the film Joe beats his wife, it's a horrifying and powerful scene where you see the how screwed up LaMotta was. But this is based on real life... What should the director do? Make Joe a nice loving husband when in reality he was a cheating, wife beater? No. and he is not glorified in this film. He dies a criminal, low life, with no family or friends. No one walked away from that movie saying, "I wanna be like Joe!" Tough Guise, in my opinion, took many scenes of films out of context.

We also watched a short piece on Disney. This was a very biased film that did not hide from its disdain from the company. Now while I agree with all things the film had to say about Disney's portrayal of women in their movies, I noticed their weaker argument for their portrayal of men. The claim was that Disney pushed the male character as a dominant, strong, fearless individual who is the superior o women. I do think that Disney makes the female character weaker and dependent, which is wrong and terrible for young girls to look up to. But the film's main character to prove all these qualities? Gaston. The vilain of Beauty and the Beast. Unlike the female characters who are the heroes toward young girls, the male characters that influence masculinity are the villains? That doesn't make sense. When I watched The Beauty and the Beast, Gaston has all these qualities of big and strong and arrogant, but he is the bad guy. I don't look up to him. I look up to the beast. He gets the princess, he is kind and caring. He is the hero the idol for young boys. Another criticism of Disney was how the hero needed to be physically strong. The film's example, Hercules. The half god half man who, in Greek mythology, is the strongest man to ever walk the Earth. So Hercules should have been a scrawny weakling to better suit reality. Once again these films are fantasies and in the end parents should dictate what "normal" is.

A father should teach his son what a real man is. Real men can still be tough but the definition of tough needs to be more clear. Tough doesn't mean using violence whenever possible. Women, children, the innocent, should never have violence used against them. So when I hear about two boys in high school shooting up a school full of innocent boys and girls, and then the "experts" like Jackson Katz saying it is because of the culture in our media. I don't understand where that logic comes from. Sure there is violence in media and the heroes of our movies par take in violence, but where is the movie glorifying the psycho who kills his classmates, or rapes a woman, or beats his girlfriend? There aren't any, if anything it is the opposite. The bad guys of our movies commit those acts. I think it's time to stop blaming the media for every bad thing in our world and culture and start looking at the parents who raise these "men" and what we need to change about how we nurture and raise our children.

Beauty in America

In class today we looked at how women and girls are marketed at to look "beautiful". The media and marketing firms of companies have convinced our young girls what beauty is. "Beauty" means you are unrealistically thin, covered in make up, perfect white teeth, etc. Girls think they need to me perfect. They are given a goal that is impossible to obtain. It's wrong. Completely wrong. Beauty is subjective and should be based off physical appearance but more importantly, inner-beauty. No one person can decide what beauty is, especially a marketing firm. These unobtainable goals lead to psychological problems for these young girls. Parents need to start teaching their children at a young age that all the magazines and commercials are fake and are not active representations of what they should stride for. And on a side note, the media and marketing companies deserve blame but the models who participate in these shoots and allow themselves to be edited and photoshopped.

Gay Rights

In America, we are going through another civil rights movement, but this movement is different. This movement is an almost silent protest for gay rights. There may not be giant parades and marches, but they are protesting. The gay community of America is gaining support and it needs too. Sexual orientation should not limit any citizen in our country. Our gay and lesbian citizens can gain even more support by teaching our children to be more tolerate. It is ingrained in our minds at a young age that "gay" is an insult and kids to this day still use as so, maybe not even realizing how offensive that term is in that context. We need to stop teaching our kids that "gay" is wrong and we need to teach to be accepting of others.

Nature vs Nurture

As humans, we are born with certain instincts. Even though we have natural ways of doing things, nature alone does not make us human. Nurture is key to being human. We need human contact to grow up. In class we looked at cases of feral children, kids abandoned or neglected and raised without human contact. They do not develop they way normal children do. They become severely disabled and have an extremely hard time living a normal life. It is essential that all people are raised in a nurturing environment.

Americans on Death

I would say that most Americans are afraid of death, not all though. I wouldn't say death is a taboo subject though. People can talk about death, in some cases. Discussions about loved ones passing away can be difficult but also healthy and people even make light of historic people's death. But when talking about our own death, now that can get tricky. I think it has to do with our materialism. Us dying means us losing.We don't like to lose what is ours, in this case our life. But you can see that the wiser and older people get, that materialism fades and people realize that death is inevitable and not something to fear.