WGSS Blackboard Film Analysis

This documentary is described on the WGSS BlackBoard page as a documentary that “follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity.” This struggle is shown in many different ways and there are many different reasons given for it. Throughout the course of the documentary, many different topics from this semester of this WGSS class are touched upon. For example, the effects of toxic masculinity and the way sexual/gendered language are shown in the everyday lives of these boys and men. Of all the topics that were discussed, the most important one and the one that was most interconnected to all the other topics was toxic masculinity. Men and boys are taught to repress

When talking about the expectations of what a man is, there were a few different variations. Men can be masculine by being wealthy and put together, macho and muscular, aloof and hardened drug dealers, or funny but womanizers. These tropes are all shown in different movies and media outlets, but who falls into these tropes is cut and dry. Masculinity for white men tends to be the conventionally attractive, able-bodied, wealthy, and put together kind. Men are supposed to have a life like Wolf of Wall Street or Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. They wear nice suits, have a lot of money, and sleep with more women than they can count. White men also tend to be the funny womanizers. The men that are still upper class but cannot be masculine in typical ways and make up for it through humor and sexual conquest. The characters that are played by Seth Rogen and Will Ferrell in movies usually follow along these lines. They are the childish one of the group but are still emotionally stunted. Both of these tropes are harmful in a way because of the toxic ideas of masculinity at play, but race does not play into it. For the tropes of hardened drug dealer or ex-con or the big muscular guy, a man of color is used. And, in general, it is a brown person rather than Asian or white-passing. These ideas of masculinity feed into ideas that are already present in society of latino or black men being drug dealers or imprisoned. For many of the men in the documentary they did have incarcerated fathers, though there are many things that play into this. Of the men interviewed, more than one white man had an incarcerated or abusive father even though this is usually seen as a problem for men of color. Masculinity is different for people based on their race, socioeconomic status, and ability. All men tend to have a standard for being emotionless and hypersexual, however all of these expectations shift within other