Tough Guise 2 & Articles

"Start acting like a real man."
  "That's so gay."
"You play like a girl."

These three pieces of literature all connect in their own ways to prove the changing of what masculinity is and how typical masculinity has proven itself to be toxic as male standards shift over time.

The film Tough Guise 2 by Jackson Katz is a  creative and well-organized depiction of the way in which the harmful messages young boys often hear can truly leave an impact on how they feel and act throughout their lives. Fragile masculinity, homophobia, and sexism. Three mindsets that have been shown to be passed down from parent to son. And as the years go on, what people believe masculinity is is changing rapidly. The film shows that superheroes in movies are growing more muscular every single movie, and men's fear of appearing nonmasculine grow with it. The Boy Scouts were originally created to reinforce and educate younger men on how to act "manly". This can even go back to the women's suffrage movement, where men's magazines were encouraging the idea of "bouncing back" from women empowering and standing up for themselves.

Within the article, Not Your Father's Masculinity by Matt Labash, the male magazine Gentlemen's Quarterly (aka GQ) is brought up rather often, as the writer observes the generic views of masculinity as they appear to be shifting over time. Labash writes, "GQ’s survey of attitudes on masculinity, 97 percent said they felt masculinity was changing, and “30 percent of men said that they were confused by the changes.”". Throughout this article, the author comments on the new masculinity standards that are presented in media and how it is overpowering and attempting to redefine the typical definition of "manly."

All The Boys Are Not All Right by Michael Ian Black focuses on how men are told they need strength to be masculine, and how this mindset can increase violent tendencies in men. Black wrote, "Too many boys are trapped in the same suffocating, outdated model of masculinity, where manhood is measured in strength, where there is no way to be vulnerable without being emasculated, where manliness is about having power over others," and I feel he perfectly summed up his article. Men are taught that having emotions is too feminine, and that acting out with their rage or anger instead is a more valid option, which obviously is the more violent of the two.

All of these pieces of literature combine together to reach one point: masculinity is very slowly beginning it's needed change towards a more positive view, and that the typical "manly man" is only labeled as such due to his immediate response of violence, strength and anger.

All these pieces seem to focus on how men can become violent or harmful due to the environment they are raised in, but they are also about how these men can feel trapped and stuck in a cycle of wanting to feel masculine, but not really knowing what that means.