Gender Roles in Langston Hughes’s Blessed Assurance and Hank Willis Thomas’s Branded Collection

Homophobia continues to run rampant in our world today and it is a notable concern in the black community. It is a fear that comes partially from a group’s definition of masculinity. Many people when identifying a homosexual male immediately pounce on the man’s effeminate traits and assign him the role of a homosexual, regardless of whether this is true. Langston Hughes’s story “Blessed Assurance” shows how a father analyzes his son’s life by noting the less masculine things his son does and turning that into a fear of his son becoming homosexual. Hank Willis Thomas uses the medium of photography in his “Branded” collection to examine the male body image particularly within the black community and shows the masculine traits associated within these advertisements. In examining both of these works one can find common definitions of masculinity in the black community across time and with this knowledge begin to understand how John determines certain traits and actions of his son to be effeminate.

In Langston’s Hughes “Blessed Assurance” a boys father goes of details of his son Delly’s life that lead him to believe that he is “turning out to be a queer”(58). One key aspect of Delly’s life that John is nonplussed about is the fact that Dell is “such a sweet boy – no juvenile delinquency, no stealing cars, no smoking reefers”(58). In John’s eyes Delly is to good of a person and that makes him less masculine. A real man would get into some kind of trouble. He would surely have a few friends who were delinquents and would get up to some mischief with them. He would most certainly not be nice to his younger sister and play dolls with her. Doing chores and cleaning without a struggle would also be out of the question if Delly were a much...

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... is not perfect. A man is purposely flawed. A man does not need his appearance to look flawless, but rather that there is something wrong and that is fine, because as a dominant male he can pull it off. A man will have trouble with the law because he his standing up for himself and exerting his primal right as a male to clash with others. John’s father analyzes every trait he can to determine how masculine his son. He takes each trait and compares it to himself, modern and past society. Thomas also explores masculinity through male body image. He examined popular advertisements and the view of the male body image in the black community. The views that Langston has John examine are also portrayed in today’s modern world. Granted times have change and masculinity has changed as well as the view of homosexuality in all cultures, but the past conceptions still remain.