Film Review: Tough Guise

Film Review #3

            Tough Guise is a documentary film that focuses on how the media portrays masculinity over time. The film compares society and how the public is feed this version that a true man has to be strong, have huge muscles, and smell good with old spice.  The stigma that men are given is well known in today’s society.

By showing how men have been given this slow drip about how manly they should be it has created this impossible version of a man. Society has also reassure men that women are beneath them. In movies like horror films they are shown a highly attractive female in a sexual way. Then the next scene is the female being murdered, beaten, or raped. These films arouse men right before a violent act is going to accrue. The media constantly is showing men that they are suppose to treat women in a negative manor.

Tough Guise explains and points out how the United States media views men. This fits into this course because this film shows how men are deviant. This film covers the emotional damage that is inflicted on men’s masculinity. The film also covers the fear that many men have if they choose to go against the social norms.

The film covered how masculinity starts being enforced when children are young. Starting with everything blue if it’s a boy and pink for girls to what their toys look like. An example of this was G.I. Joe toys and how the toy has changed over time. This stood out to me the most because it gives us a better understanding on how at a young age children are given these toys. They are not an example of the normal man but our society wants everyone to think that more muscle is better. And its not just the toys made for boys that help give them the idea of a true masculinity but the female toys do this as well. Barbie’s are now the image of perfection. Barbie can do everything from being a nurse to a childbearing mother. She is a skinny and usually a blonde haired blue eye doll.

One thing I would like to see in society with children toys is the Average Joe doll.  This doll would be the correct size of an average female and male in America. Why is it bad to have curves are a female? It’s natural to have hips and fat on the body. Why should our society strive to be these images of perfection? I feel that many are forgetting that they are stuck in there bodies until the bitter end. The drugs and alternations that they perform on their bodies will have affects that are unknown at this time.