Tough Guise 2 Summary

In today’s American society there seems to be an ever-growing pressure for young males to adopt the “tough guy” persona. The want to adopt such an identity can be rooted to the way media portrays male masculinity to young boys and pre-adolescent males. With an ever-increasing message of violence, hegemonic masculinity, and inferential sexism, being rooted in Television and films it seems young males are being wired to be view these characteristics as normal because of the cultivation theory. As Jackson Katz from “Tough Guise 2” argues, our epidemic of male violence is rooted in our inability as a society to break from an outmoded ideology of manhood. “Tough Guise 2” is narrated by cultural theorist Jackson Katz who argues that the influx of violence, particularly male violence, is embedded within our society’s view of masculinity. Katz analyzes various points of interests that range from mass shooting, of which the majority are perpetrated by males, violence against women, and gay-bashing. What Katz empathizes in these key points is the fact these acts of what is known as masculinity can be linked back to all the violent, sexist, and homophobic messages adolescent males receive on a routinely basis from all aspects of virtual culture. From television, movies, video games,

Katz views this form as the reason why men perpetrate 90% of the violence in society. Katz believes the way manhood is shown on television invokes the idea that a man must be some cold, strong, and violent individual to asset their dominance as a man. One key point Katz mentioned in his documentary is that whenever a male is the perpetrator in a crime, the media tends to use gender neutral words to identify the perpetrator while in the case of a female, the media will identify her using feminine nouns. This further reiterates the point of how sexism is tied to hegemonic