Tough Guise Film Review

Miriam Marvin

Tough Guise Film Review

Sociology 360

Professor Williams

1. The thesis of the film is that mainstream society has linked masculinity and overt aggression and/or violence.

2. The main arguments in support of this thesis were:

-This ideology is one which was learned from three main sources: family, media, and peers.

-Minorities are shown as/given primarily violent roles in the me.

-The statistics regarding perpetrators of violent crimes; 85% of murders were committed by men, 92% of physical assaults were men, 95% of domestic violence was men, 95% of dating violence was men, 85-95% of sexual abuse was men, 99.8% of rape was men.

-cases and examples in which men's violence was simply swept under the rug as "men being men"
Men have a set of expectations regarding their behavior, and they are policed by other men as well as society in general.

3. The thesis relates to the course quite well, because masculinity is yet another social construction which changes by context, time, location and from person to person. The media would have men as violent types who will fight to defend themselves or their loved ones. If the only basis men and young men have for their behavior is the men portrayed in movies very few men actually met the criteria.

4. The arguments I found the most convincing were the comparisons regarding toys years ago and today and how they have changed. GI Joe from the 70's had a much smaller musculature than the toys today. Even the toys show how societies comprehension of masculinity has changed over the years.

5. There were no arguments I found useless or unnecessary.

6. If I were to design a research study around masculinity it would be to determine where the ideals of what makes someone manly stem from and how they can change within various groups. For instance, is this concept the same in other countries? What constitutes the differences and what is the best explanation of them?