Men and Violence Video

The movie we watched in class was very interesting and brought to light many ideas about masculinity that I have not thought about.  The movie pointed out this new idea of masculinity and how men feel as though they need to wear this mask or “front” for people.  I agree that there is a correlation between begin tough/violent and to being masculine.  However, I do not agree that this should be this way because men should be allowed to be vulnerable just like women should be allowed to be tough and strong.  This violence begins at a young age with violence among boys or boys conflicting violence on girls.  People view violence as gendered issue, however the statistics show that men are the ones that committing the most violence in our society.  This gendered issue is rendered masculine makes it difficult for women to violent.  If women are violent it is viewed as a big deal but when men do it, it is invisible.  The most interesting thing from the movie was the idea that throughout the years men got bigger in the media and women became thinner and smaller.  This was created so that women take up less space and are pushed aside.  The rise in anti-gay violence proves men are insecure about their own sexuality which causes them to assert the fact that they are “tough guys” when in reality it just makes them hated among people.  The rap and hip/hop lifestyle in my opinion is the way men of color feel as though they need to hyper-masculate themselves.  This is because they have lost respect due to their race so they make up for it by intimidation and violence.  This behavior is caused by the constant message that manhood is connected to violence and control.  Video games and sports also have this idea of gaining respect by disrespecting other people.  This is not what organized sports should be about; however, among young boys their fathers instill this sort of competition among one another.  This was a very informative film and I agreed with most of the points that the narrator made in regards to violence and films among men.