Our film “The Graduate” featured Dustin Hoffman in a role that many common American men dream of living. He is young, handsome, a Division I standout athlete, part of an enviable wealthy family, knows women, and on and on. These characteristics have been the standard goal of masculinity since before 1967, when the film was made. Bo Derek in “10” played just that, a perfect ten. It is what every man wants and what every woman wants to be, and every emotion emitted by people around her is elicited solely from her looks, her sexiness. These roles are traditionally reserved for heterosexuals and neglecting almost altogether the use of minority ethnicities in those roles. It complicates what’s to be expected from these groups, further separating them from a normal society. The rough ten percent of the population who are not defined as heterosexual are forgotten altogether. These goals of masculine and feminine roles in American culture didn’t come from nature. They are stereotyped expressions delivered by the media to constantly affirm the hegemony of the position of power of owners and producers over consumers through social and cultural construction of masculinity and femininity. Men are expected to know everything and become successful, women are worth their weight in sexuality and only seek a partner to be defined by him. Although the examples are modeled by heterosexual, European-descendant Americans, they are expected to be a lifestyle goal for everyone.
The previous examples of masculine and feminine ideals that bring to light the expectations of male and female role models are from the 1960’s and 1980’s, respectively, so it may seem like this wasn’t always the case. But take this excerpt from Katherina’s monologue is Shakespeare’s 1594 comedy The Taming Of The Shrew :
The husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for the maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe
The play is a comedy; it is a satire that exaggerates meaning. Nevertheless, there is truth in every joke and the source of this joke is the expectations of women in the home. Katherina lies at home, warm and comfy, waiting for her man to return from conquering the world for her life to have meaning again. Fast forward 360 years to Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Maggie would put on her best face in any situation for her drunken, has-been husband, Brick. Many of her lines indicated she did it out of love, which may well have been the case in some respect but common sense indicates that she married up and was hell-bent on keeping her status in a higher class because, once again, she needed to be defined by her husband. As Barker notes, “this structural subordination of women has been described by feminists as patriarchy, a concept that has connotations of male-headed family, mastery, and superiority (Barker 281).” Recent progressions of this standard have been made and it is typically credited to the feminist movement of the 1960’s. “As a movement, feminism has been concerned with two key issues. First, to win citizen rights such as voting and equality before the law. Second, to influence cultural representations and norms in ways that are beneficial to women.” The first step to earning one’s place is saying ‘no’ to previous ideologies. Judd Apatow does this in ‘Knocked Up’ by giving his lead female role the power in the relationship. Katherine Heigl’s character, Alison Scot, doesn’t seek security by depending on her male counterpart. She is a successful, career-driven woman who puts a solid relationship and her health as her priorities before her ideal class status. She is so secure in herself that she unforgivingly falls in love with Ben, the lazy unemployed father of her oncoming child.
Alison Scot isn’t a character so powerful that she can shed all feminine expectations, however. She works for E!, commonly known as a medium for pop culture entertainment. She is a model and a representative because of her ability to articulate during interviews and, most importantly, because of her ideal looks. She is a tall, slender, natural blonde, with angles in all the right spots and physical features that rival a Greek goddess. Foucault claims we have learned to sell sex and how we sell sex through women is physical appearance. A bright smile, long healthy hair, a trim body, and flawless skin are among requirements for women to obtain their ideal man. Media sells affirmation of appearance requirements by consistently displaying women of ideal beauty in positions of envy. In other words, “If you look like her, you can have all this.” If hegemony has to be won and re-won (Barker, 68), it is constantly being won by the producers of cosmetic products. Susan Bordo’s article “‘Material Girl’: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture” exposes the manipulation of such companies like DuraSoft who prey on the insecurities of women who feel they constantly need a physical change to maintain happiness, also known as piquancy. Plastic surgery is another way women have been altering their appearances. According to the article, 681,000 patients went under the knife in 1989, almost double from 1981. These numbers were shocking until research informed me that over 3 million people paid to have their body physically altered by way of plastic surgery in 2009.
Beauty can also be an asset of men, as well. Patrick Bateman, Christian Bale’s character in American Psycho was a beneficiary of skin-smoothing masks and workout items designed to create a perfect abdomen. There has been a sharp increase in the rise of cosmetic alterations for men who now make up 35% of plastic surgery patients. But this new-age phenomenon is only meant to enhance the ever-increasing standard of men’s expectations. Youth is seen as energy, energy seen as productive, productivity is seen as profitable. Career and status is what drives men, and if they can be seen as youthful and full of potential, they can be seen as profitable to an employer that can grant them a career, giving them status. The beautification of men has only come out of necessity to fulfill the demands of markets like entertainers, physical fitness trainers, models, and bodybuilders, all markets that did not exist less than a century ago. The point is men are always willing to undergo drastic measures to take the next step up in enhancing their image as the breadwinner.
Opposite the female gender, Warren Farrell states is best when he says “men are the ‘disposable gender’; they die in war and from suicide more often than women and are also the most common victims of violence, over-work, and mental illness (Barker, 304).” The unrealistic expectations pressure men so much that it can break their psyche. Men almost expect to be disfigured or suffer bodily harm on their way to achieve happiness. On the same page Steve Biddulph argues that the central problems of men’s lives – loneliness, compulsive competition, and lifelong emotional timidity (failing to realize your own emotions) – are rooted in the adoption of impossible images of masculinity that men try, but fail, to live up to.
Men of the 1970’s and 80’s saw a rise in popularity of TV shows starring the superhero. Comics and programs featuring the likes of Adam West playing Batman were a hit due to his bravery, wit, and cunning schemes to defeat the bad guys. Spiderman was a nerdy bookworm. Today’s heroes have evolved into hulking masses of muscle and anger like The Hulk, and the weapon-happy, whiskey drinking ways of Iron Man. Sure it’s good to defeat the “bad guys,” but shouldn’t it matter how it’s being done? We villainize athletes who use illegal drugs to perform better to the demands of their fans, yet push a chemically fueled green monster-man bent on destroying everything in his way as the “good guy” to the point of $263 million revenue.
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| Be this big, mean and strong. But don't forget to take care of your family! |
The popularization and mass production of television to the point of every household owning one began sometime in the 1940’s or early 50’s. Sitcoms like I Love Lucy ran the show and gave families a reason to come together. It also suggested proper roles for men and women in the household. Ricky Ricardo left for work during the day and came back to smoke cigars and hang out with Frank. Lucy stayed home and did housework, frequently gossiping with the company of Ethel. The lack of attention to a career became the norm for women, and men’s incompetence around the house progressed to common knowledge. Everyone was comfortable in their roles of fulfilling the American Dream. At least media made it seem so. The women’s rights movement of the 1960’s was demonized by the news; more specifically the editors and producers, aka the gatekeepers in charge of enforcing ideology. They are the ones who selectively choose what is being put out there for us to consume. They feared this movement would disturb the comfortable roles that Americans worked so hard to forge they made up the now-infamous bra-burning story to portray women of this movement as outrageous, irrational, and out of control.
Degrees of masculinity and femininity are said to exist in biological men and women. Femininity is a condition or subject position of marginality that some men, for example, avant-garde artists, can also occupy. Indeed, it is the patriarchal symbolic order that tries to fix all women as feminine and all men as masculine, rendering women as the ‘second sex' (Barker, 297). It’s as if one day someone in charge decided men were to be the desired sex and anything less would be uncivilized. This mentality is carried through almost every culture throughout history and is reaffirmed by the texts of Sigmund Freud as he claimed the phallus is understood by nature as the symbol of power and is to be envied by those who don’t possess it by privilege of birth. Once birth gives you a symbol with which to define yourself, you begin learning your role as a male or female through a process called Social Learning Theory which one interprets their pre-constructed roles as a male or female by observing and imitating others and by reacting to the rewards and punishments others give in response to imitative behaviors (Wood, 50). The irony is that once anyone oversteps their boundaries by displaying too strong of a degree of masculinity for a woman, or femininity for a man, no matter the biological sex they are labeled a “bitch.”
What are the roles for one who cannot identify with living with the perceived acceptable degree of femininity or masculinity?
Identities are wholly socially constructed and cannot ‘exist’ outside of cultural representations. There is no known culture that does not use the pronoun ‘I’ and which does not therefore have conception of self and personhood (Barker, 216). Media does not take that stance in recognizing the community of non-heterosexuals, especially men who choose to display an otherwise unacceptable degree of femininity. They are labeled as transsexuals, fags, bitches, among other hateful things and have become things to be studied, not accepted. You see them on television on late night HBO programs like “Taxi Cab Confessions” and “Real Sex,” shows that cater to already mature, comfortable audience who see the lesbian, gay, bi, and transsexual community (LGBT) as a spectacle of entertainment and not to be taken seriously. Even when exposed to a mainstream audience on prime time networks, shows like “Will and Grace,” whose two lead male characters are homosexual men, they are in a comedy, again, not to be taken seriously. Judith Butler takes a stand in her article “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” by claiming homosexuality is the original, the real, the creative, and heterosexuality is the imitated version only destined for failure. Heterosexuality is always in the process of imitating and approximating its own phantasmic idealization of itself – and failing(Butler). Enforcing her point by going back to Social Learning Theory, she may even suggest heterosexuality only exists today because of the rewards it reaps.
Genuine efforts to challenge the ideals of heterosexual masculinity are challenged by performances such as drag. Judith Butler argues that drag can destabilize and recast gender norms through a re-signification of the ideals of gender. A man dressing as women dress somehow does this. Media constantly portrays these performances as acts of outrageous, unstable people to be feared. But if hegemonic heterosexuality is itself an imitative performance which is forced to repeat its own idealizations, [then drag] is at best only a reiteration and affirmation of the Law of the Father and heterosexuality (Barker, 299-300), and does not even need to be attacked by the media as a phenomenon.
Television media can be a consistent source of entertainment and education for learning a social role, when you have a role model to identify with. But the lack of a visible role model to learn from for non-heterosexual, masculine or feminine idealist-seeking types can leave a void that they must fill by creating their own identity with which to fill the void. When you create something it is original, not imitative. Maybe Judith Butler was on to something when she states homosexuality is the original and heterosexuality is in a constant state of miming itself to its own failure.
The minority population has their own battle to face. Their minimized and devalued sense of worth in stereotyped roles may be the most criminal performance of American media littering the screens of televisions and movie theaters from the conception of television until today. In an attempt to reduce them to savage behavior, each recognizable minority, Asian, Mexican, and black are closely associated to a violent art whether it is the martial artist to Asian culture, boxing and knife fighting to Mexicans, and gang banging to blacks. Through glorification and criminalization of conforming to these aggressive roles, it leaves members of each ethnicity searching for the meaning of what’s outside the violence. Through hip-hop music videos, the black culture has become iconic for senseless greed and gross dehumanization of females. A typical example of an expected role of a black person according to movies is Craig Robinson’s role as the bouncer in our film Knocked Up. He’s featured as the “doorman,” and is responsible for being the muscle, letting in or out whom he pleases at the new, popular club in town. By his character’s own admission, although he’d love to ‘tap that ass’ of Debbie (Leslie Mann), and Alison Scott, he is not allowed to grant them entrance because he is the authority on who is fit to be associated with the club and who is not. A stereotypical, feminine response follows by Debbie lashing out at him for insulting her sexiness and questioning her youth.
Middle Easterners, more specifically Iraqis, Iranis, and Saudis are frequent features of more serious telecasts in the news. Often portrayed as evil madmen, we are rarely told why these people think as they do, for example that Bin Laden understood the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia to be a violation of sacred Islamic groud (Barker, 267). Our film Team America does so in similar fashion, obliterating their language to roughly three words, ‘derka,’ ‘mohammed,’ and ‘allah.’
In reality, these ethnicities have more to offer to our culture as a whole than fulfilling the roles media sets forth for them. Comparing the role of minorities to non-heterosexuals, it is the most difficult challenge to break a mold pre-cast by others based on examples of a forgettable past than leaving one to create their own to a certainty of failure. Anne Waldman took the thoughts right out of my head when writing this argument when she proposes a “utopian creative field where we are identified by our energy, not our gender.” While she speaks specifically of literature, I propose the advancement of this idea to all creative fields, especially media. We as humans learn first with our eyes, then our ears and when we constantly see and hear the subtleties of an evil cultural hegemony processing stereotype after stereotype in an effort to drive femininity and masculinity to the point of unrealistic expectations, suppressing the potential of blacks and other minorities to few and frowned-upon roles, and leaving out non-heterosexual men and women in the cold to fend for their own representation, it only confirms the historical bloc of ruling-class factions exercising their social authority and leadership over subordinate class by winning over their consent by selling us to ourselves (Gramsci, Barker, 442). If Gramsci is correct in stating cultural studies has adopted the view that ideology is rooted in the day-to-day conditions of popular life, then the first step to re-defining the social roles of pop culture that entertainment media sets forth is by first turning off the television and learning your fellow man and woman before being taught by others.
Sources Texts
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies - Theory & Practice 3rd Ed.(2008). Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA (2008).
Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives
Bordo, Susan. “’Material Girl’: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture.” Michigan Quarterly Review (Fall/Winter 1990).
Butler, Judith. “Imitation & Gender Insubordination.” (1991)
Waldman, Anne. “Feminafesto.” (1945)
Movies
Knocked Up. Apatow, Judd. Universal Pictures Productions, (2007)
10. Edwards, Blake, Geoffrey. Productions, Orion Pictures Corporation (1979)
The Graduate. Nichols, Mike. Embassy Pictures Corporation (1967)
Team America: World Police. Parker, Trey. Paramount Pictures (2004)
Plays
“The Taming of the Shrew.” Shakespeare, William (1590-1594)
“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Williams, Tennessee (1958)
