Summary Of Masculine Interests By Robert Lang

In the book, Masculine Interests by Robert Lang, the topics heavily address the long journey of identifying as “man” and becoming masculine through representation in cinema. The author, Robert Lang, points out that many men—such as Chuck Norris—would grow up watching their own onscreen heroes and wish to be like them, forming traits and personalities around the men they like best. This is representative of the “masculine interest” in which man takes interest in masculinity and other men through media, but this is not necessarily in a traditionally homosexual manner. The text makes claims that men are meant to learn from movies as to “how to perform gendered identities that are at least not misogynist or homophobic—but as means of achieving

Within the first 10 minutes of the film, we see Dally making Sherry and her friend uncomfortable, Johnny getting up and leaving to get a drink, and the girls admitting they’re not scared of Pony or Johnny like they are Dally because they’re too “sweet-looking.” Robert Lang would likely argue that this sequence of events is exactly what the two boys do not want. Johnny got up and left the situation, likely because he was uncomfortable with Dally’s heavy approach to the women, but didn’t want to say anything because deep down he wishes to be like Dally. For example, Lang sates on page 3 of his book, “One desires what he or she does not have, and the loss that initiates desire involves not gender (or the imaginary other) but something more fundamental, namely, the way language (what Lacan calls the symbolic Other) violates bodily integrity, thereby thwarting the sense of bodily wholeness conferred by the ego, one's sense of self.” When the girls say Johnny and Ponyboy are too sweet looking, they feel upset because they desire to be more like Dally because they love his masculinity. This is in contrast to their bodily integrity that tells them they also do not want to be vulgar like him, but are instead lead by the ego that Dally represents. Once again, Ponyboy reflects internally for his love of Dally around 17 minutes into the film where Sherry tells pony to not be upset if she doesn’t say hi to him in the halls and that she hopes to never see Dallas Winston ever again—otherwise she may fall in love. We see Pony’s face slightly sink and flash to him and Johnny in the lot where Johnny says it would probably just hurt her reputation to speak to Pony at school. However, Pony and the viewer may reflect on what her words actually meant. It could be true that it could hurt her