Men perpetrate 90% of the violence in our society. In Tough Guise, the documentary looks at where this violence could be stemming from. Many don’t realize that as a society we push or expect guys to be “manly” meaning that have to be a certain way in order to be a man. Movies, are portraying violence with glory and drives the roots deeper that masculine violence is acceptable. Society can’t get past the old ideals and it’s shown throughout our culture.
Tough guise, is an eye opening experience, the documentary shows a different perspective, an awareness about the pervasiveness of the media in our lives. The images of manhood in media play a big role in making and shaping cultural attitudes about manhood. Men’s and boys’ violence against women and girls is not genetically programmed, but rather is learned behavior. Nowadays our information comes from the media and is our source of learning for what going on. School shootings that have happened in the past are some examples that show the increasing violence of boys and men. In the covering of the shooting at Columbine most of the media missed the fact that the school shootings are not about just violence but about the violent masculinity. The focus seems to be more assertive on “youth violence,” or “kids killing kids”. But it isn’t just kids
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Biological masculinity should be distinguished from the learned standards from cultural standards. As culture evolves, so does our notion of what constitutes “manliness.” Manhood doesn’t mean that as men they have to be masculine and tough showing no emotion. And about the fact that men are just naturally more physical is true to certain degree, but it also a learned behavior from how our culture mostly media raises and influences them to be as well. Men shouldn’t have to be subjected to have to meet a level of masculine standard in order to be
In the essay, “The High Cost of Manliness,” writer Robert Jensen discusses the harmful effects of having male specific characteristics, such as masculinity. Jensen realizes that men’s actions and ways of living are judged based upon the characteristic of being manly. He argues that there is no valid reason to have characteristics associated with being male. Society has created the notion that masculinity is the characteristic that defines males as males.
When someone is thinking of a man, what do they think? Strong? Brave? That’s what most people think; in reality that is a very false image. In “Bros Before Hos: The Guy Code,” Michael Kimmel, talks about what it means to be a man and what it takes to be a man in today’s world. Men are pressured into what they “should” be. If they don’t follow certain unwritten rules, which include: not asking for directions, not giving up, not showing fear, or any signs of emotional weakness, such as tears; they are considered less than a man, a wimp. A real man must be aggressive and brave, he must defend his territory: status, family, possessions. Men blindly follow the Guy Code, they believe in order to fit in, they must comply and be part of the pack.
As described in the film “Tough Guise 2”, the U.S. is both obsessed with and is a victim of its own culture. On one hand, movies and video games that glamorize violence and books that argue that violence. Additionally, many other films and books highlight that violence is a core aspect of male masculinity and argues that men are losing it through the empowerment of women and the loss of employment. At the same time, the United States has suffered through countless gun-related deaths and the mainstreaming of media such as Bum Fights, where actual homeless people are assaulted on camera. But due to the politicization of the issue of violence and the news media to properly explain the issue to the U.S., many people are taught that violence stems from the youth, which is only part of the broader picture. Instead of identifying and preventing the largest source of violence in the country, young white males, the focus is instead shifted toward the potential of violence of young men of color in poor urban
In Kimmel’s essay “’Bros Before Hos’: The Guy Code” he argues that the influence of society on masculinity is equal to or greater than biological influences on masculinity. In the essay, Kimmel uses various surveys and interviews to validate his argument. He points to peers, coaches, and family members as the people most likely to influence the development of a man’s masculinity. When a man has his manliness questioned, he immediately makes the decision never to say or do whatever caused him to be called a wimp, or unmanly. Kimmel’s argument is somewhat effective because the readers get firsthand accounts from the interviewees but the author does not provide any statistics to support his argument.
All over the world Masculinity has many different cultural definitions. Depending where someone is from, and what they were brought up to believe, defines what the term “masculinity” entails. Different Social institutions all over the United States, such as the military, sports, clubs, and fraternities, have been constructing their interpretation of masculinity. One major social institution that is active in thousands of Universities across the United States is campus fraternities. Campus fraternities create their own sense of masculinity by generating certain requirements and characteristics a man must hold in order to represent them as a part of their fraternity.
Men do not have the benefits of equality either, they are also limited by societal expectations and having to fulfill the requirements of what it means to “be a man”. Gender roles shape the fabric of our society. In the documentary Tough Guise, Katz chronicles the socialization of boys from the moment they are born and as they grow up. Tough guise explains how the entertainment industry feeds messages about masculinity which exclude basic human qualities such as compassion, and vulnerability. These are portrayed as feminine with a negative connotation implied (Earp, Katz, Young and Rabinovitz 2013). In American modern culture children of both sexes are consuming large amounts of media on a daily basis. The documentary MissRepresentation explores the media’s role in the shaping of our society; specifically the media’s treatment of women. When it comes to girls and women, marketers have made substantial profits from objectifying women and setting an unattainable standard of what it means to be beautiful. Hyper-feminized women are all over the covers of magazines, hypersexualized in advertisements, and in movies. Women have to walk a very thin tightrope and the expectations for a good woman are contradicting (Newsom, Scully, Dreyfous, Redlich, Congdon, and Holland
In the Macho Paradox Katz explores the issue of violence against women, but emphasizes the importance of men taking this issue personally and understanding its relevance for themselves and the women in their lives. Katz creates a personal connection to violence against women for the male audience of his book by emphasizing the statistical likelihood of them each knowing a survivor of violence. Katz uses the idea of knowing a survivor to make the issue of violence both personally relatable and relevant for men, with the intention of using this relatability as a catalyst for action and as a means of creating pathways for men to understand their importance as allies in the fight against gendered violence.
The social world of these youths is characterized by violence, internalized street codes, limited opportunities, and the availability of firearms. Violent events are public social performances. These performances often have serious consequences for social identity and personal safety. Wilkinson shows how violence is a resource for gaining/maintaining social identity (masculinity) and status on the street. The dynamic of moving from victim to victimizer is clearly understood in the socio-cultural context of the street.
Jackson Katz is the founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention which is an education program that has been focused on military and sporting organizations in attempts to put a halt on gender violence. Other than being an educator, Katz is also an author and filmmaker. In 2013, he produced the film Tough Guise 2. In this film, Katz reviews the normalization of male jurisdiction in America. The film looks at the messages of gun violence, sexism, and bullying that are sent to men throughout their entire life. Tough Guise 2 argues the statement that male brutality is a rooted back to our cultural standards of manhood. A pivotal point of the film is that a male’s masculinity is not just handed to them, it must be earned. During the course of the film, this point is supported by examples such as gun violence, homophobic messages and mass shootings.
Tough Guise 2 began by illustrating the issues of de-gendering in news stories, articles and headlines regarding violent crimes. This would include stating “The shooter” or using some other generic phrase to describe the person who was the main cause of these crimes when, in fact, men are the leading cause of most of these crimes. De-gendering brings the issue away from just one gender and instead places it as a crime of a specific group, usually of age or race. The fact that we are constantly glossing over that most violent crimes are played out by men is probably one of the most important things touched on in this video.
In the text, The High Cost of Manliness, writer Robert Jensen discusses the harmful effects of having male specific characteristics such as masculinity. It has come to his attention that men’s actions and ways of living are judged based upon the characteristic of being manly. Jenson argues that there is no valid reasoning to have characteristics associated with males. Society has created the notion that masculinity is the characteristic that defines males as males.
The topics that Joe Ehrmann uses as framework for his Building Men for Others program are quite intriguing and make you really question masculinity. The first topic, rejecting false masculinity, can be interpreted a few different ways. In the book, it states: “As young boys, we’re told to be men, or to act like men” soon followed with “we’ve got all these parents say ‘be a man’ to boys that have no concept of what that means. I completely agree with the statement of Joe Ehrmann and often question the definition of ‘being a man’. Many boys and men will reject the idea of a man being anything other than being big and strong or having power.
Three key points that stood to me in “Tough Guise” are: Men are putting on a tough guise charade to survive, men are conditioned to be tough by the media and culture norms, and that violence is the great equalizer for men. We notice that in the streets men are tough and project the aura of “don’t mess with me.” But in the comfort of home men are very different. I personally have seen my tough boyfriend do a complete 180 on multiple occasions. In the streets he is getting into fights and breaking his hand. He then refuses the idea of needing medical attention to the point of me having to drag him by the ear to the car and make him see a doctor. He barely took any pain medication and continued going out with the boys. When my boyfriend got the simple common cold he was the biggest baby I had ever seen. He literally whined about his clogged up nose, pounding headache, and could not seem to get out of bed because he thought he was dying of the small 99 degree “fever” and called me to do everything. In the street he was perfectly fine and barely sniffled, but once we were alone he shed the tough guy act and wanted me to wait on him hand and foot. He was even to “weak” to lift a five ounce cup of hot tea to his lips (which I had to blow on first because it was too hot) and drink it. The other recurring theme in the video was that men are conditioned to be tough. If a man is not considered tough by the world around him he will be ridiculed and will not be respected. Even in
The problem, as I see it, is that we have not re-defined masculinity for the modern age. In the old days, masculinity was measured by (1) physical abilities, particularly strength, but also skill, (2) power/success/wealth, and (3) sexual prowess. The first can be developed through education and hard work, the second could be acquired through the application of the first, and the third, well, either you got it or you don't, but locker-room bragging can always make up for any lacks, especially if you got the first two. Boys growing up in such a society work to develop their physical abilities and learn how to apply them most efficaciously, thus becoming a "man". This makes sense when a man might be faced with the challenge of building shelter on the prairie or raising crops, but us modern urban men are unlikely to face such challenges. Of course, we are not unprepared for the challenges of a modern urban lifestyle. Our education generally provides such life-sustaining skills as linear algebra, the performing arts, and information systems management. The educational system is successful enough to allow most of us to get jobs that pay us enough to afford all the requirements of a modern urban lifestyle: housing, food, clothing, entertainment, transportation, etc. The trouble is that while education has more or less kept pace with the advance of civilization, our notions of masculinity have not.
The stereotypical depiction of man in media in the 1980s as violent, brutal and emotionless, consequently evoked the blame of the society for exposing men to such pressure to present themselves in that fashion. The man of the new decade is presenting a breakthrough away from brutality to sensitivity and in need of affection and kindness. (Dugar, 2008, 52-52)