The Cause Of Violence In The Documentary: Tough Guise

The documentary Tough Guise reveals that the cause of violence traces back to cultural codes on masculinity and societal expectations rooted from such codes. Prior to watching the documentary, it was difficult to understand how culture played a part in men’s violence—it was thought to be more of a natural phenomenon linked to men’s biological traits. The documentary, however, disproves this: men’s violence in America is “made” by the society, not “given”, and thus cultural implications should be explored to understand where the violence really comes from.

The documentary demonstrates the connection between violence and social standards of masculinity by showing how masculinity is portrayed in the media. The media, as stated in the documentary,

This change is particularly notable in the representations of men’s bodies. For example, the documentary mentions how the male protagonists in popular movies like “Superman” and “Batman”, as well as pro-wrestlers, were flabbier in 1960’s. By 1980s-1990s, however, the same characters were portrayed to be more muscular and bigger in sizes. The change was even evident in toys: male “Star Wars” figurines grew bigger plastic biceps over the

The media fail to acknowledge and educate the public about the relationship between the two, which in turn fails to stop the men from engaging in violent activities. For example, after a series of school shooting at Jonesboro, Pearl, and Columbine in late 1990’s (whom the perpetrators were all young schoolboys), media de-gendered the gendered nature of the events; the documentary shows newspaper headlines speaking of “youth violence,” and of “kids killing kids,” not “boys killing girls and boys”. By refusing to see violence as a gender-related issue, the media reinforce the existing norm of “boys=violence”. It is also important to note how the perpetrators of the shootings saw themselves bullied by the popular Jock Culture that celebrated toughness and muscularity, and shot the guns as the means of heightening their social status. (The perpetrator of Pearl Shooting stated that “I killed people because they were mean to me… murder is gutsy and daring.”) Not only the media reinforces the violent masculinity image, it creates a dominant peer culture that pressures the boys to use violence to assert their manliness. Media, hence, both creates a subset of and reinforces the existing violent masculinity