Violence, Aggression, and the Competition of Manhood

This week's discussion of male masculinity really sparked my interest in understanding more about the damaging stereotypes men can face in the media. The most common link to masculinity is violence. Violence, sports, and things that make loud noises are stereotypical male obsessions. Why is this the case? And why does it seem to get more violent, more gory, or more "masculine" as time goes on? These are questions that came to mind this week that have unsimplified answers. But as we look into this, we also begin to answer the question of what it means to be a man in America today.

In a study done by Children Now, they found that in a national poll from the study, almost three fourths of children aged 10-17 describe males on television as violent. More than two thirds describe them as angry. This is more than male dominance being portrayed if kids think that the media portrayal is angry or violent. The study also found that speed, aggression, deception, and danger are typical male characteristics that boys can identify. This causes problematic teachings of what men are supposed to be. More information regarding the Children Now study may be found here Children Now
Today, movies about war or destruction are just the most current box office hit. Movies like Furious 7, where the men chose again and again (7 times in fact) to go towards a known violent path in order to receive glory of some sort. In said movie, the main character deserts his family in order to get revenge, or have a overly violent racing contest, or something along those lines. But in every case, violence is portrayed as a necessary thing to be carried out, like fighting with giant iron poles for 10 minutes instead of using the gun in your car. It's not even pertinent to the plot usually, but it is included in every other scene. Fighting to save your family, or fighting to save your girlfriend, or whatever the patriarchal ideal reason is. Usually the fighting ensues because the producer wanted a lot of fighting to prove it is a mans movie for real men. 

In this clip, the Fast and Furious team is hijacking a motorcade and bus in order to get a captured hacker. In this fight, the bus is basically derailed and on its way off of a cliff, but these two guys still have it in them to fight each other. Amazing that they can ignore the impending death for them both in order to carry on this fight scene with each other. 

With most violent type of movies such as this one, the plot is omitted for the fighting. What we end up with is a lot of movies that are mostly about being a bad ass masculine guy who can fight and take a beating with dignity, who also maybe saves his family at the end or something (but who cares about that?). 

This idea that fighting and violence and things that blow up are all male characteristics of being a man is damaging. Obviously not all men are built like Vin Diesel or Dwayne Johnson, and they don't find themselves fighting for their honor a whole lot either. But yet, the majority of testosterone-filled films are all about a big manly man fighting and blowing shit up until he has earned his honor back. This is damaging to young boys who fantasize about one day being just like these superhero-like characters. 

Violence in movies is just one example in a multitude of issues regarding masculinity in the media today. Problematic ideals such as aggression, sexualizing women, violence or anger, excessive drinking, etc. are all pushed onto men in this era. That is the current definition of what a man should be, and its absolutely wrong. There is no model man that accurately represents all of mankind, nor is there a test of manhood that determines how manly you are. Contrary to popular belief that fighting or aggression or sexual activity made you into a man. This ideology has gotten out of control within our society when you see the hyped up masculine characteristics used as the norm and men are punished for being outside of that norm. 

The idea that there is a tell-all sign of manliness is absurd and proves that the construct of manliness is fragile. For starters, men are not all the same and don't have to be. Significant differences in anger management to sexual preference all make up different types of manliness. By making one archetype of man that is the correct form of manliness is damaging to young boys and men who aren't violent or overtly sexual because anything outside of the archetype is ridiculed. We saw this take place in the movie the 40 Year Old Virgin. Where the man wasn't considered a 'Man' until he had sex. Not only that, but he was ridiculed and something was considered wrong with him, because he wasn't following the masculinity archetype. In my experience, men or boys who haven't had sex by a certain age are considered not men. In some cases, they were ridiculed or regarded as 'Gay'. Which is entirely problematic to use homosexuality as an insult to express or explain why someone hasn't had sex with a women yet. In other circumstances, guys of a certain age (usually high school aged) haven't had sex yet, they were regarded as ugly or "had no game", basically that something is wrong with them. 

I think that men are constantly trying to "out-man" one another. This probably stems from another common stereotype of masculinity that is rooted in competitiveness. Just like how women don't wear makeup for men, men don't put on the mask of masculinity for women, but to compete with other men. In the past, going off to war was considered the tell all sign of a man and his worth as a man. After that trend died out with the shiftiness in morality of the Vietnam war, sports were the new way to show your aggression and manliness. In today's world of virtual worlds and technology running everything, our idea of masculine aggression is harder to define with a single act, like we had before. Now, the closest thing we have is masculine initiation of drinking and getting women to have sex with you. But with competitiveness engrained in society as being a necessary trait of men, there has to be a way to weed out the non conforming men out there. Today, we ridicule men who don't like action movies, who wear skirts instead of pants, who like men instead of women, and who decide to have sex at a more mature age. Reclaiming what it means to be manly is the only way to solve this issue. And in this generation, we sure are trying. 

The usual visual representation of manliness that currently exists. Sports loving, smoking, muscle toting, tattooed man. 

Nothing short of man in this video. Although it may be for laughs, these guys show that men can wear heels and dance in them better than I can. All while still being a man and amazingly, none of their masculinity was drained or anything.

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