Tough Guise Masculinity

As a wise man once said, “To love yourself is to understand you don't need to be perfect to be good.” However young girls have so much pressure put on them to look in a way that is not only unrealistic but also unhealthy. As a result of this, young girls have a very negative body image and self-confidence.The problem is the unrealistic body standards that media and society have set for girls. According to SSCC, the average American woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds. There is a clear problem when the media is only advertising women that are 5’11 and 117 pounds, which is the average American model. Even though the body of a model is very rare and uncommon,girls are expected to look like they do. However, by promoting a positive body campaign, stopping the portrayal of fake and photoshopped models in the media, and expanding the diversity of models, we could lift unrealistic body standards and start accepting everybody as beautiful.

A few years ago, when I played field hockey, most of my family members complimented on my weight and said I have changed a lot in years. After, one day when my family from Pakistan skyped us and said they wanted to meet me and my siblings, one of them commented on my weight and said I have gone “fat” than I was a few years ago. I felt really insecure about my body and quit field hockey as a result. I started to skip lunch in school and go down in the art room and not surround myself with people. I started to eat less and start to be more depressive. Victims of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia are ignored and disgusted by society because they do not fit the “perfect model image” of what society has grown among women especially. In my culture, I have seen many older women talk about how they must dress to “impress” their husband or how they compete against other women and compare each other. As a young woman, I have been constantly being told to lose weight so I can get married at an early age or go to the gym when you have free time. Media has imposed thinness through the female and male models advertising, though fast food restaurants who have included “healthier” choices, etc. Although our background and culture play a strong role in our eating habits, other factors like family, environment, low self-esteem, and difficult experiences can cause someone to become anorexic or bulimic. In today's society, many people are affected by eating disorders, are impacted by the images of slim women and muscular men appearing on front covers of fashion magazines. These eating disorders are most common among young teen as they starve or binge themselves trying to attain what the fashion industry considers being the “ideal” figure of a perfect woman or man. For example, in the Meghan Trainor’s song “All About That Bass”, where she sends a message which can be harmful to females

When a man fails to live up to other’s expectations of being a “real man,” he is diminished and criticized for being a “woman.” Thus, starting at young ages, boys are fall into the misleading idea that respect is acquired by force. In fact, younger boys look up to men who display uncontrollable rage because these men evoke fear to those around them. Boys are taught that fear is equivalent to respect, and society’s perception of belligerent men only fuels their drive for violence. The phenomenon of posing - creating a false depiction of what men are truly feeling - showcases that this widespread performance of masculinity does not just stem from the media. The explanation of this projection of masculinity is oversimplified, and identified as cause and effect relationships between imitative violent acts from video games and movies. However, the actual truth is that the problem does not only lie in these few few places. It is everywhere, embedded deeply in

This research looks at the association of masculinity with violence, racism, power and the objectification of women, which has been around since early civilization. This study also shows how these concepts are still evident today in the media. Masculinity in the media is portrayed as muscular, violent, angry, aggressive, dominant, and warrior like. The rhetoric in media, as it relates to masculinity, has influenced the amount of violence in the world.

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

It seems like every young girl dreams of becoming a model these days. Every young girl has the desire to get thinner than other girls in order to look like models on T.V, magazines and so on. The New York Times publishes articles for the majority of the audience to read, which is mostly adults. Mim Udovitch’s article, “A Secret Society of the Starving” talks about two major eating disorders that are anorexia and bulimia within many girls. Udovitch reports stories about three girls that are going through these disorders or have gone through them. The three girls Udovitch includes are Claire, Chaos, and Futurebird. Ken Jackson’s interpretation of

Jackson Katz’s essay, “Advertising and the Construction of White Masculinity”, focuses on violence in mass media and how it shapes white masculinity. Katz believes masculinity as emphasized in our society explains why crimes are mostly committed by males. Mass media depicts that “real men” should be strong, dominant, powerful, and able to “use violence successfully”. Advertisements use men with bulky muscles carrying weapons to portray masculinity. While ads and films usually have the stereotypical macho men as the leads. Katz’s argues these representations in mass media negatively affect male

Each day, violence is pushed on children, teenagers, and adults. Yet we as a society continue to overlook the issue. We fail to ask ourselves the important questions. Why are there so many mass shootings, why are there so many unjustified murders, or why are men using masculinity as an excuse to become more aggressive towards woman sexually, and also towards men who don’t display what our modern cultures and movies tell us is manly? I believe that we don’t ask these questions not because we don’t want to hear the answers, instead because glorified ferocity has become a normal part of our everyday lives. So much so, that we think it’s just the way life is. After watching Tough Guise 2 it becomes clear that although violent action is the end result, our true problem lies within the horrible messages our movies present to us.

Tough Guise provides a stunning look at the violent, sexist, and homophobic messages boys and young men usually receive from virtually every corner of the culture, from television, movies, video games, etc. What does it takes to become a “Real Man?” Boys and men show the world parts of themselves that others define as manly. My initial reaction to Jackson Katz’s, “Tough Guise: Violence, Manhood and American Culture,” movie is I truly believe that video games and movies are a big part of violence.

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

Tough Guise 2 is a documentary that focuses on the ways in which American culture uses videos games, movies, advertisements, and other sources of media, to force ideas about masculinity and manhood. Not only in America, but cultures across the world how high rates of “violent masculinity,” which means that men are resorting to violence in order to maintain respect and demand power. If they do not conform with societies expectations of what it is to be a man, they put themselves at risk of being shamed and no longer fitting this societal idea of “manhood”. Using gender stereotypes and schemas, as well as the gender role strain theory, I will focus on how these ideas connect with the ideas in the film, and how culture is one of the leading cause

Along with dominance over women he aims to prove superiority to other male peers specifically other black males that he degrades by referring to them as “ni**as” or “pussy’s”. Further accentuating his masculinity via threats of violence and gun violence. In relation to Tough Guise, the image of racialized men in the media is a topic is discussed. Katz states that racialized men, specifically black and Latino males, are continuously displayed as thugs and gangsters.

As you’re walking down a street you may notice a young group of girls or women walking and they see a huge billboard of a beautiful model. They might stop and stare at her and then discuss about her perfect her body is. Not knowing in the next five minutes they’ll be comparing their bodies to the model and feeling bad about themselves wishing that they had her body. Not to mention, that the photo may be photoshopped to make it seem as her body is perfect, or she had plastic surgery to fit the idea of having the perfect body. The fact that the media thinks they’re encouraging young girls and women to embrace their beauty, they’re influencing them that they have to have a perfect body in order to get attention. The media has put a lot of pressure on young girls and women to look perfect and second guess their bodies, when plastic surgery is never the answer to build their self-esteem up.

A large contributing factor to this problem is that many people in the fashion world encourage the use of overly thin models in editorials and fashion shows. For example, as Kathryn Shattuck, What's On Today: [The Arts/Cultural Desk], mentions that Kelly Cutrone, world renowned fashion publicist, encourages, “Clothes look better on thin people. The fabric hangs better” (1). The fashion industry’s emphasis on being thin and its use of extremely underweight models in unacceptable. Many people would agree that the fashion industry plays the majority role in eating disorders, but Lisa Hilton, British Vogue writer, disagrees. Hilton argues, “Its objective is selling clothes, and the consensus remains that in order to achieve this, models need to be thin . . . Fashion is about fantasy, about impossibility, about, dare we say it, art. Most women can’t tell the difference” (1). Hilton condescendingly continues to refute the criticisms that models are too thin and the fashion industry encourages eating disorders.

We see girls in the media who have perfect lives, go to the gym religiously, are always weirdly flawless with a full face of makeup, and we can't help but think to ourselves: “Why can't I be like that?” or, “I wish I was her.” Because we see these women who are beautiful, get all the guys, seem to have their lives figured out, we feel this pressure to look and be like them, and when we don't look like them we tear ourselves down and point out all of our flaws. I have fallen victim to this many times, it’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to stop. I have noticed that Instagram models all have been working for a certain body type and face image that make them all blend in. They all have beautiful full lips, small chiseled faces, small waists, wide hips, and enormous posteriors. Most of the time, for celebrities, these things are achieved by plastic surgeons, which is why it's such a dangerous body type to idolize as a young girl. No matter where I go or what I watch, women with these body types are everywhere. They are sung about, rapped about, and praised everywhere for their body, and it makes me think: Maybe if I looked