Molly Bienstock's Post on Tough Guise

It was so interesting to watch 'Tough Guise' for the second time, after watching it last year in Intro to Sociology.  I picked up on several points that I had missed the first time around and got a new perspective on the film with knowledge I have gained on the subject over the past year.  'Tough Guise' is one of the best documentary films I have seen on the topic of masculinity.  The narrator broaches every topic under the clandestine umbrella of masculinity and its implications in our ever-changing global society.

Jackson Katz systematically examines the relationship between pop-culture imagery and the social construction of masculine identities in the United States from the early 21st century to now.  Jackson Katz makes the connection of violence, power, and social norms with masculinity and media in such an illustrative manner.  He speaks about how the dominant culture, the hegemony of white supremacy, heterosexuality, and masculinity, are unexamined and become pervasive in a dangerously invisible way.  We have become so accustomed to the status quo that we don't even question how and why we live the way we do.  It is normal to be racist and think that white people hold a worthy position on this planet.  It is normal to think that heterosexuality is the norm and that all other methods of love and attraction are examples of deviancy.  And, it is normal to read in the papers that a women was raped by a man, not that a man raped a women because 'boys will be boys.'

The point of this documentary is to expose the harsh realities of what the media portrays as normal and how we as a species, known to have higher levels of intelligence that other animals, react to this truth.  How do we even begin to breakdown the walls we have worked tirelessly to build up?  And why are these walls here in the first place?  Do they make anyone's life easier or better in terms of reaching full happiness?  If gender is a performance that takes a toll on every emotion, every fiber, and moment of everyday of someone's life, why aren't we working to change it?  We don't have to do what the media tells us, nor is it creating a better quality of life.  Let's change the way we think about gender identities, putting other humans down for the sake of meeting a false gender agenda, and ultimately what it means to be happy.