Masculinity In Conan The Barbarian

In an examination of the narrative titled The Knight’s Tale by Shakespeare and Fletcher, and the film A Knight’s tale, directed by Helgeland, it is clear that the novel has been changed to better suit modern purposes. Although, having been altered both the narrative and the film offers a clear description of gender plays a role in society and the extent that anachronism is used to relay meaning throughout the film. A clear demonstration of anachronism has been made in order to help suit the modern needs of the film.

Representation refers to the construction of media languages which are used to portray a particular type of filmic world to an audience (slide). This essay shall outline different treatments of filmmaking used to establish certain societal groups from the critically acclaim superhero film The Dark Knight (2008) directed by Christopher Nolan. This sequel film follows Batman, with help from Lieutenant James Gordon, and new district attorney Harvey Dent eradicating crime from Gotham city until a crazy mastermind criminal, the Joker appears in Gotham, creating chaos. The first paragraph introduces the stereotypical representation of masculinity in superhero film through the aspects of mise-en-scene and acting of the male protagonist. Storyline and mise-en-scene help establish the representation of pretty, leading- female characters that semi-disrupts the damsel in distress stereotype. Before lastly describing the representation of menacing villains through cinematography decisions, sound and an actor’s performance.

In the late 1940’s a man named Joseph Campbell shared his Mythic principal with the world. He explains that there is a three-stage formula that he calls a Hero Journey which is the structure of every story. Though most stories are completely different on the outside, the stories are almost structured around these three stages. Stage 1 is the hero leaves the everyday world and enters another world. While Stage 2 the hero is challenged by opposing forces and must pass a series a test throughout the movie. That will then determine who will be victorious, either the hero or the opposing forces. Stage 3 is tied into Stage 2 because if the hero is victorious, they will return to the ordinary world with a gift for the world.

In today’s society, masculinity has changed throughout time. Fast forward one hundred years ago, masculinity is defined as being strong and having a good paying job. But as the world is changing so is the representation of manliness. You don’t have to show your dominance over men or women today, but you should support your family nowadays and we have all been brainwashed by the thought of masculinity from our ancestors. As men our reputation is always being valued but now it isn’t so much about our reputation but about caring for one another and especially for our families. Perspective of manhood is also a significant factor in portraying what masculinity is in the eyes of other people. Masculinity has been shown through money, appearance, and providing protection for your family members but as we shift into the modern world, masculinity is not seen as displaying the most discipline but caring for one another by taking out some of your time to help one another. Throughout the paper, I will be writing about my interviews from a broad spectrum of ages from one of my younger sisters to my dad with not friends not at Seb’s in between so I can get what it really means to be a man from all ages.

Stories, movies, comic books, and legends alike generally follow a similar storyline: The Hero’s Journey. The patterns of The Hero’s Journey, an underlying structure revealed by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, have been used for centuries to depict extraordinary characters through stories and myths. Throughout his or her journey, the hero goes through three main stages: The Departure, The Initiation, and The Return. Both the epic Beowulf and the comic book-based movie Spider-Man follow this archetypal journey.

Our goal is to display the positive and respectable images of men, not allowing society to categorize our urban brothers (young & old) as threatening hoodlums. To send a message to our urban brothers: if you dress like a hoodlum, you will be treated like a hoodlum (in nearly all cases). The way a man dress is a positive presentation he delivers to women, his family and the world.

Many socio-historical studies on masculinity have often revealed how Machismo is embedded in the Latino culture within the United States. Machismo is defined as a strong sense of masculine pride, often exhibited by Latino men. In Latino culture in the United States, machismo is not only accepted, but always expected. In any study that investigates the Latino group, machismo is a subject that cannot be left behind.

Vogler and Campbell discuss the hero’s journey conjuncture with Jung’s “archetypes. Archetypes are reoccurring personality/character types that populate stories, from the hero to the herald they all appear in one form or another (23). In Jung’s writings he refers to archetypes as character types that spring from our dreams and collective unconscious. Jung wrote about how archetypes are characters that form in our own mind to dramatize aspects of our own life. With that in mind what better way to dramatize a hero’s journey than by weaving these characters into the story.

To read Babio without recognizing the gender politics at work in the play would disregard much of how the play itself creates meaning. So much of the play’s plot and character dynamics are related to the way gender functions in this play. One major theme of Babio is the idea of masculinity and how masculinity is defined. Through the portrayal of Babio as an effeminate character, Babio is able to define masculinity through absences in Babio’s Character. Consequently, Babio makes the additional point that lovesickness is not an intrinsic aspect of medieval masculinity, despite the fact that love sickness is often attributed to men.

The theme of man and the natural world is common throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight is entirely green and, “embroidered upon his clothing and saddle-gear, the butterflies and birds” (165-167), suggests that we are meant to connect him to the natural world. He might represent nature and animal instincts, in contrasts to the more civilized world of King Arthur’s court. Another representation of this theme is shown in medieval romances, a man’s ability to control his horse is a symbol of his masculinity and his own self-control. The greater the horse he controls, the greater the man.

This chapter first establishes the discursive approach to gender as the foundation for conceptualizing masculinities. Next, it introduces some recent conceptualizations of masculinities and the types of masculinities propagated within the Singapore context. Following that, it explores how advertisements produce and transfer meaning before looking at some of the masculinities present in the advertisements within men’s lifestyle magazines.

Where there are hyper-masculine men, there are beards. Where there are beards, there are characters carrying masculine traits willing to demascluinize and as a result feminize men of whom they perceive to be superior to. In the realm of King Arthur and his court, King Arthur has to set the standard of masculinity. He must be the man that other men, under his rule, aspire to be. With that, there seems to exist a checks and balancing system where the demasculinization of other men results in keeping the realm at ease. I’d like to divert your attention to the beard cloak and, as an extension, also the first initial moment that the Green Knight rode into court. These moments seem to be the most important because of their connection to beards--seemingly a symbol of hyper-masculinity.

Tough Guise is a documentary about how the media constructs how the male masculinity is formed and how it is to be a man in our society today. The man speaking throughout this film is discussing how there is a crisis in today's masculinity. Arguing there exist a crisis in today's masculinity and how everything that bad usually happens is because a man did it. The media advertises and portrays how men should act, but often how men are portrayed in the media are of violence acts and the degrading of women. Some of the examples in the film included WWE wrestling, going to a school and asking students what they would be called if not acting tough such as soft, fag etc. Music from such artists boys from the hood shows African males acting

My study looks at how all my texts are connected by portrayals of masculinity and conformity. All of these texts have main characters who struggle with the demands of masculinity and the pressures to conform to society’s view of masculinity. The texts that I am using are Foreskins Lament by Greg McGee, The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola, Kite Runner by and The Tomcat by James K Baxter. This interests me because I am a young man beginning my adult life and I feel a lot of pressure to conform to what society thinks is a good man.

Joseph Campbell had a theory that “every hero myth is really written about every human being” and that “all hero stories follow the same role” (Wilson, 2015). This pattern is also known as a monomyth. With Campbell’s theory of a hero’s journey can be applied to many movies of modern society, such as Star Wars, Batman and the Lord of the Rings. The heroes follow a pattern described by Campbell. There is separation or departure, trials and victories and a return to the real world. In simplicity, any story with a hero in it could have underlying Campbell ideas, which can be seen in Christopher Nolan science fiction movie Interstellar.