Rambo First Blood Masculinity

In his novel, Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut describes the experiences of Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, during his time in World War II. Through illustrating Billy Pilgrim’s constant struggle to fit in with his peers during the war, Vonnegut proposes the question—Must males adopt masculine characteristics in order to receive respect from others? By juxtaposing the negative criticisms towards the young, effeminate Billy Pilgrim during his youth with the positive responses received by both the manly, adult Billy Pilgrim and the masculine soldiers, Vonnegut asserts that a man’s masculinity determines his societal ranking and acquisition of respect. Through relaying the experience of a youthful Billy Pilgrim who was often criticized by

In the video “Tough Guise” Jackson Katz argues that, “widespread violence in American society, including the tragic school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, Jonesboro, Arkansas, and elsewhere, needs to be understood as part of an ongoing crisis in masculinity.” He considers that while the social construction of femininity has been extensively examined, the role of masculinity has remained invisible until recent years. From the beginning of the episode male students are asked, “What is a real man?” Katz got replies like, strong, independent, intimidating, physical, powerful, and tough multiple times. Then after asking what is a real man, Katz asked, “what happens if you don’t live up to these standards?”

Rambo is a highly trained Vietnam war veteran in the movie, Rambo: First Blood, by Ted Kotcheff, who is trying to adjust to living in civilization. After failing to find his friend he was searching for, he wanders around town before he is stopped by a local sheriff who suggests to leave. After Rambo denies his suggestion, the sheriff takes him down to the office and abuses his power by humiliating Rambo in front of the guards. After the constant unjust treatment, Rambo unleashes his fury on the guards and eventually flees into the woods. Rambo then begins to rely on his survival skills as he defends himself from waves of law enforcement trying to search and eliminate him.

Terminator 2 is a horror film. It shows the two levels of horror with the top and visible level of blood and gore, which is to make you sick to your stomach. The film also has the second level with the tension and suspense. If nothing is done in the film the world will face Judgement Day with massive death and destruction from nuclear weapons. The film also includes monsters. They are the terminators, who are not human and have twisted death to life. These will cause trouble and lead to the possible destruction of the world. There are no real heroes or villains in the film just the typical American citizen. The film shows the need for the average

The camera lens lingers on his body as he smashes rocks with a sledgehammer. His muscles exert and budge, burnished with sweat from the hot sun. Not only has the myth of masculinity been inflated emotionally in post-Vietnam film, but also physically, through bigger bodies and bigger guns. “In First Blood his body was tough and sinewy, but now it has been contrived into a spectacle. His muscularity has greatly increased, his gait is more certain, his posture upright, his chest thrown outward in an act of defiance and self-assertion”[Rutherford, 1992, 188].

#2.) Some typical characteristics associated with depictions of masculinity in Hollywood are being virile, active, physically aggressive, emotions suppressed, sexually desired by woman, powerful, and hero’s. They are expected to, “…measure up to impossible cultural ideals of autonomy, mastery, and self-control, even though these ideals may be sugar coated with notions of love, creativity, wisdom and community” (Gender and Masculinity pg.368). In the trailer “Taken” (2008), a number of characteristics are demonstrated like; “notions of love” and wisdom, acts of heroism, physical aggression, measuring up to the seemingly impossible, being powerful, and strong. In the beginning, we can see the reasoning of why the protagonist becomes a hero. His masculine

    In society today, masculinity is seen as never crying or feeling pain. Emotionless zombies who show no sympathy and have no care in the world are the manliest of them all. Media portrays masculinity in his skewed way. Fight Club is known for its extreme display of the masculine identity. Conformed middle aged men break out of their shells by fighting their peers and proving themselves worthy of

James Cameron's 1991 sci-fi film Terminator 2: Judgment Day has many tropes and themes that film theorists love to talk about. There is Sarah Connor's presence as this tough, badass woman who is fighting for hope and humanity in a world that is a male-dominated dystopia. In class, we discussed our thoughts on Laura Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema and the existing norm of sexual difference, the extreme sexualization of women, the "male gaze", and other things such as ideology and seeing compared to being seen. Representation is a major theme within the film and has characteristics that are still heavily regarded to this day. In my opinion, I feel like James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day is an appropriate approach to feminism

To Change the image of body building Weider backed the documentary “Pumping Iron,” staring Schwarzenegger. This showed body building in a new light. The moronic muscle head image was replaced by the charismatic Schwarzenegger, who was witty intelligent, and had a magnetic personality. (Schwarzenegger is attempting to use his image as a manly man to change the image of the environmentalist from a girlie man to a macho man). Schwarzenegger symbolized force, discipline focus and self improvement. (Montana 2008).

Representations of masculinity in Fight Club and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and id, the double, fanaticism Introduction: The goal of this dissertation is to compare and contrast the two different representations of masculinity in both texts with social and historical context in mind, using secondary sources to supplement arguments when necessary. James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club both provide intriguing representations of masculinity. Fight Club tells the story of a narrator who is prone to insomnia and becomes discontent with his life in corporate America. Ultimately, the fight club which the narrator creates along with the help of his fictional friend Tyler Durden gives him a new found confidence to take into his everyday life.

How can you tell if a man is really a man? Society is all for gender roles, identity, masculinity, and feminism. These things have all been a part of social culture for a while, however masculinity overrule them all. Being a man is one thing but being a masculine one is another. There are many men that appear to be feminine, in light of the fact that they show emotions or traits similar to women.

Masculinity, a seemingly simple concept. Yet, when examined more closely, it is clear that masculinity is constantly changing in its definition as well as in its most basic essence. Throughout the years, one can see this evolution firsthand by looking back at the men who have been portrayed in popular media in the United States of America. From the suave Don Draper types of the 1950s to the more casual, educated, and easygoing men- with perfectly chiseled abs, of course- that are portrayed in media today, the difference is clear. This drastic, yet unsurprising, shift in ideals, as well as the exponential increase of media consumed every day, has led to a change in how “masculinity” is perceived, as well as how it is enforced by society in the modern day. Alarmingly, this trend has led to the birth of so-called “toxic masculinity”, a bastardization of the original ideas behind masculinity which has created an enormous, detrimental effect on society as a whole. As defined in the article The Difference Between Toxic Masculinity and Being a Man, toxic masculinity is “manhood as defined by violence, sex, status, and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything… where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured,” (O’Malley) This is a clearly displayed truth, and it’s astounding to see how even from a young age boys are taught not to show emotions other than anger, conditioned to believe that being “like a girl” is the worst possible

Masculinity can be defined as the behaviours, social roles, and relations of men within a given society in addition to the meanings that are attributed to them. The term masculinity stresses gender, unlike male, which stresses biological sex. Despite, this we often times see masculinity being represented as directly correlating to men with an inability to adhere to this is shown making you less of a "man". As put by Katz (1999) there is an expectation that men on screen must be void of emotion, not backing down from a fight, tough and an embodiment of the male gaze. Katz (1999) argues that essentially what

Without a doubt, there is nothing in the history of cinema more inspirational than Rocky’s classic training montage. Complete with the “Eye of the Tiger” blasting in the background, you will instantly want to get up and train alongside him. As much as the film motivates, Rocky also teaches us that giving up should never be an option. It empow-ers us to keep coming back even after all the setbacks we experience day after day. 2.

it is also a good point. to point out that it is a mechanic that delivers this speech, a profession that has a very dominant, male stereotype, and is classified as a manly job. the book never actually gives a definition for masculinity. What it shows, is a notion that masculinity is a unique underground society, similar to cult-like status. and that men should look for these underground societies, like fight club and the testicular cancer group, in order to find out what it is to be