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Hegemonic masculinity and femininity
Male representation in media
Hegemonic masculinity and femininity
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Narratives of the hero action has sustained the interests of audiences across the ‘changing space and time’ of popular culture and has become a ‘stalwart genre’ (Shimpach, 2010:30). This study will explore the construction of hegemonic masculinity by comparing the representation of heroic masculinity between John McClane (Die Hard, 1988) and John Wayne (Rio Bravo, 1959). It will examine: the framing of the physical body, the development of intelligence, the role of emotion and the depiction of heroes in relation to those around them. Die Hard and Rio Bravo depict heroic law enforcers, an American image of masculinity. Examining Rio Bravo and Die Hard diachronically will conceptualise the historical negotiation of hegemonic masculinity in response to gender issues such as first and second wave feminism. The overpowering assertion of masculinity in cop action films suggests that there are lingering cultural anxieties about the establishment roles of gender. To sustain hegemony requires the ‘poling of men’ and the ‘discrediting of women’ (Connel and Messerschmidt, 2005:837), hegemonic masculinity is a social construction and is a performance by an individual (Galdas, 2009).Social expectations collapse gender into individual sex differences, contrasting identities, fixed social role and physical appearance. This construction is aided by the representation of heroic masculinity in popular culture.
The representation of John Wayne in Rio Bravo (1959) is distinctly masculine and presents a stereotypical image of a ‘manly’ man. John Wayne’s most noticeable attribute is his unusual height at 6 feet 4 inches. In the opening scene, John Wayne is framed in a medium long shot that is positioned on the floor, emphasising his unusual heigh...
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Malin, B (2005). American Masculinity Under Clinton: Popular Media and the Nineties ‘Crisis of Masculinity’. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Mitchell, L (1996). Westerns, Making the Man in Fiction and Film. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Shimpach, Shawn (2010). Television in Transition. Sessex: Blackwell Publishing.
Tasker, Y (1993). Dumb movies for dumb people: Masculinity, the body and the voice in contemporary action cinema. In Cohan, S and Hark, I, Eds (1993). Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge.
Wexman, V (1993). Creating the Couple: Love, Marriage and Hollywood Performance. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Since the revival of Australian cinema in early 1970s, Australian films have focused on certain themes of social perceptions and representations of masculinity. We see dominant, recognisable male images in our cinema – the bushman, the larrikin, the ‘mate’, and the ‘battler’. Masculinity stereotypes are projected in both Two Hands (1999) and Strictly Ballroom (1992) to varying degrees. Australia has a reputation for aggressive masculinity. This has its roots when the first settlers, mostly male convicts landed in Botany Bay who raised ‘hell’ when drunk.
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
In the article “The Thematic Paradigm” exerted from his book, A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, Robert Ray provides a description of the two types of heroes depicted in American film: the outlaw hero and the official hero. Although the outlaw hero is more risky and lonely, he cherishes liberty and sovereignty. The official hero on the other hand, generally poses the role of an average ordinary person, claiming an image of a “civilized person.” While the outlaw hero creates an image of a rough-cut person likely to commit a crime, the official hero has a legend perception. In this essay, I will reflect on Ray’s work, along with demonstrating where I observe ideologies and themes.
Bernstein, Matthew. “The Classical Hollywood Western Par Excellence.” Film Analysis: A Norton Reader. Eds. Jeffrey Geiger and R.L. Rutsky. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2nd edition, 2013. 298-318.
The Trouble with Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema - Phil Powrie, Ann Davies and Bruce Babington.
In traditional Hollywood cinema, narrative film structures its gaze as masculine; films use women in order to provide a pleasurable visual experience for men, as well as symbolizing women as the desire for male. (483-94). The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) however, substitutes women with gold for male desire to fill in the narrative void.
We’re all familiar with the stereotypes and myths about what it means to “be a man.” The victorious leader gets what he wants using aggression and does not accept failure; he is smooth with the ladies, and he is often good with a gun. He is usually rich and in control, especially in control of women, like a father who loves his daughter dearly but will be damned if she’s going to go out dressed like that. The list could go on and on with the stereotypes. But the Coen Brothers’ cult-classic film, The Big Lebowsk (1998), with its hero “The Dude,” contradicts these notions of masculinity. The Coen brothers offer several familiar stereotypes of masculinity (the Vietnam vet, the successful capitalist, an oversexed bowler, some aggressive German nihilists), yet it is these characters that throughout the film are shown to be absurd, insecure, and even impotent. It is these stereotype men that the Coen brothers criticize. “Sometimes there’s a man,” says the narrator over and over again, pointing out the Dude’s non-stereotypical masculinity as the true representation of what it means to be a man. The brothers then illustrate that the men who give no thought to their identity, who ignore the pressure to conform to cultural expectations, are to be regarded as “real men.”
Mainstream movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still also revolve around men (Newsom, 2011). These female leads often have male love interests, looking to get married or get pregnant. Strong independent female leads are still exist for the male view, as they are hypersexualized, or the “fighting fuck toy,” (Newsom, 2011). This depiction has created a culture where women are insecure and waiting for a knight on a horse to come rescue and provide for her as well as the acceptance of women
Gender and the portrayal of gender roles in a film is an intriguing topic. It is interesting to uncover the way women have been idealized in our films, which mirrors the sentiments of the society of that period in time. Consequently, the thesis of this essay is a feminist approach that seeks to compare and contrast the gender roles of two films. The selected films are A few Good Men and Some Like it Hot.
"How Fight Club Relates to Men's Struggles with Masculinity and Violence in Contemporary Culture." HubPages. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. .
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.
While watching movies, have you ever noticed that the villains in almost every single Hollywood film are of Middle Eastern or European descent? In a reoccurring theme of Hollywood, the villains in these films are almost always foreigners or people of color. This is a stereotype. On the other side of the spectrum, we often see that the heroes of these films are most often than not white males. This is another stereotype. Within the last few years, we’ve seen actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Zoe Saldana take the lead roles, so it can’t be said that there are no non-white heroes, but there certainly isn’t many. Hollywood action movies, moreover than other genres, are typically loaded with an abundance of stereotypes. The way these movies are composed and structured can tell us a great deal about the views held within the American psyche and who holds the social power. The harsh reality is that the media ultimately sets the tone for societal standards, moralities, and images of our culture. Many consumers of media have never encountered some of the minorities or people of color shown on screen, so they subsequently depend on the media and wholeheartedly believe that the degrading stereotypes represented on the big screen are based on fact and not fiction. Mary Beltran said it best when she stated in her “Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness” article, “ultimately, Fast & Furious mobilizes notions of race in contradictory ways. It reinforces Hollywood traditions of white centrism, reinforcing notions of white male master while also dramatizing the figurative borders crossed daily by culturally competent global youth – both Latino and non-Latino” (77). This paper will specifically look...
The Reasons Behind the Popularity of Action Films In this essay I am going to explore the conventions of action films and their popularity. People love action films, and when they go to see one there are conventions you would expect to see in the film All plots of action films are based on the same outline, Hero and villain meet, there's a disruption of order, and mission, then everything is sorted out when the villain dies and everything returns to normal. There are Stock characters that you expect to see in this genre of film, the hero, the villain and two attractive ladies. The main action is around a male hero, however, modern films have featured female heroines for example Angelina Jolie in 'Tomb Raider'. If the hero is male he is always good looking, intelligent, brave, chauvinistic, and manages to escape from life threatening situations, however the hero will always have a weakness, and if the hero is male the weakness is normally women.
Journal of Popular Culture, 32(2), pp. 79-89. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&sid=64cd7df8-8ea3-4d9a-ad60-1deef7e616e6%40sessionmgr114&hid=103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=1585569 Starlet C. (2007). Women in action movie empowered role models or chicks with guns.