Film: Tough Guise

[BertieBotts]

I was shown a short clip of this film in a lecture at university the other day and I found it very interesting. I haven't watched the rest yet but I plan to, does anybody else fancy watching and discussing? Perhaps we could set a time to start (not tonight preferably) and do it as a "live" discussion thread? Or just a general discussion would be good too :)

The film is about "Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity" - the clip I saw was talking about violence being a gendered issue, although one which the majority of people don't see as a gendered issue, so a sort of "hidden" one, in a way. And how the media reinforces a stereotype of masculinity which is problematic, esp in terms of violence being "desirable" as a masculine quality.

Thanks for the link. I watched the first clip (there are 7 parts) and hopefully will catch the others soon.

Jackson Katz is amazingly perceptive and straightforward in naming the problem - where violence or threats of violence are seen as a vital indicator of "true" masculinity. It's alot of the stuff John Stoltenberg was saying 20 years ago, but perhaps in a more accessible way (and actually, I think pressure towards hypermasculinity and demarcation of genders is worse now than then.)

It is 12 years old, so worth bearing that in mind. I found he came across very perceptive and, yes, accessible too. I haven't watched the first part yet, though!

Ah, that explains why he looks young and most of the clips didn't seem quite as "contemporary" as the caption suggested! :)

Not sure how I missed this when it came out - unless it didn't get circulated that much outside the US at the time.

Will be interesting to see the rest to work out if there is something more culturally specific about perceptions of masculinity in America (I grew up there and always thought European men hadn't bought into the hypermasculine bullshit stuff quite as much as American men had - wonder though if the gap is narrower now?)

In part 1, I thought it was really interesting that in the statistics table they had the statistic "1 in 4 men will abuse their partners" - of course I've seen this statistic many times the other way around, but have never thought about it this way.

This kind of reversal of the presentation of crimes is picked up on in part 2 as well, I don't know if they go into detail on it later on.

I liked the point about road rage, too.

Oops, didn't refresh the page, sorry. I wondered if the US thing made a difference, too. I do think it rings true more in the US - the stereotypical American man I would imagine is more sporty than his stereotyped British counterpart.

I thought it was an extremely interesting point that the messages are stronger for boys in ethnic minorities because the idea I get is that BMR boys, especially in urban areas, are more likely to conform to this type of behaviour pattern/thinking. Although thinking back to school most of the boys in the popular crowd probably subscribed to it - the biggest insult at school for a teenage boy was "gay", not sure if it still is. (Must be really hard for the kids who actually are gay :() - the boys who didn't conform in one way or another, the computer geeks, the goths, the studious ones, the weedy ones who were useless at sport but didn't have another niche, the ones who got on better with girls, they all tended to form smaller groups on the margins rather than being part of the larger crowd, which I think is hard when you're a teenager, unless you're very secure within yourself.

My gut feeling is that although the violence and dominance themes still exist there is a stronger undercurrent of sexual dominance now than there used to be. That's just with watching a small part of the programme, I must go to bed

Am watching now. Finding it fascinating!

I've just finished watching. Just as a warning, there are a few still shots from porn films or magazines displayed for a few seconds and one of them could be triggering. If you want to avoid it, it's in part 6 of 7 on youtube and the section on porn is from 4:00 to 4:30 (skip to 4:35 to be safe).

I just clicked away from those and listened to what he had to say.

I think his point about the invisibility of power was really interesting and that as a result, we don't look at male violence as a gendered issue which it is.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I grew up in the U.S. and at my high school (all girls paired with a brother school), the most popular and sought after boys were not the jocks but the ones who starred in the musicals.