"Tough Guise" Film Review

            On February 28^th I watched part one of the film “Tough Guise.” The primary idea, or thesis of this film is that many men are forced to put up a front of extreme masculinity, or a “tough guise,” do to the societal construction of a hegemonic masculinity and its portrayal in the media. According to the film there is an obvious correlation between masculinity and violence. The concept of masculinity and violence is strongly supported my Kimmel and Mahler in their article “What Triggers School Shootings?” They clearly illustrate to relationship between masculinity, or perceived threats to a young boys masculinity, and school violence.¹ All men are expected to be strong, respected, independent and above all tough and there are sever repercussions for not fitting into this narrow hegemonic masculinity. Deviation from this narrow model is constantly policed by other men or boys, usually through insults such as “fag,” “wuss,” “wimp,” etc, all of which are intended to debase a mans masculinity. It would seem then that there is a constant societal pressure for men to adopt this “tough guise” and to defend their masculinity at any cost, especially through violence. In the context of strain theory, this constant pressure can provide an explanation for men’s overwhelming participation in violent crimes. This social structure of hegemonic masculinity “exerts a definite pressure” on men to engage in violent behavior through the conformity adaptation.²

As a result of this social construction of masculinity, violence is largely gendered towards men and is accepted as a part of masculinity. According to Jackson Katz, this concept is perpetuated by the media. Katz claims that there has been a consistent escalation of what it takes to be tough or manly in movies. To support this point the film points to various movie characters such as Sylvester Stallone as Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator vice the Batman character from the sixties. Although it is true that this film is slightly dated, and the “Terminator” may not be the current epitome masculinity portrayed in the media today, there is still a significant connection of violence to masculinity. For example, consider the character Jason Bourne played by Matt Damon.

The evidence used to support this concept was statistical data of violent crimes which were decidedly committed most often by men, most of the statistics claimed that 95% of violent crime was committed by men. This was used to support the concept that violence is gendered to men. Additionally, interviews of young males were conducted to illustrate how the current construction of masculinity is known and accepted across all cultures, race, and socioeconomic groups. This evidence for me was the most convincing. The personal interviews clearly showed how deeply this concept of masculinity has permeated all levels of society. Although initially staggering, the statistical data was least convincing of violence being gendered toward men. That’s not to say it was unconvincing, but from a devil’s advocate perspective one could perhaps provide alternate explanations for the statistical gap. For example, the data mostly relied on conviction data of violent crimes, which could be skewed by our construction of gendered violence. Specifically that due to our general construction of the female gender to be non-violent, many claims of women’s violence might not be taken seriously and thus a conviction could be more difficult to obtain for women.

The point from the film that grabbed my attention most was the concept that the current model of masculinity is in no way a natural construct. This correlation between violence and masculinity is produced by society and is not necessarily inherent in men, but rather a performance of this “tough guise” for society and is often learned from other men. An interesting to test this idea would be to examine the societal constructions of other cultures model of masculinity. Specifically, one could interview young males from other countries to gather their ideal of masculinity and then further examine their proportion of male/female violent crime rates. This film relates to Social Deviance as its clearly shows yet another social construction, a reoccurring theme in the field of sociology.

1 Kimmel, Michael and Mathew Mahler. “What Triggers School Shootings?” Readings in Deviant Behavior. Ed. Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, Addrain Conyers. Boston, MA: Hanson 2010. 76-81. Print.

2 Merton, Robert. “Strain Theory.” Readings in Deviant Behavior. Ed. Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, Addrain Conyers. Boston, MA: Hanson 2010. 21-26. Print.