“Violent behavior is typically gendered male (sic). This doesn’t mean that all men are violent, but that violent behavior is considered masculine…” (Katz, 350.)
The violent persona adds quite nicely to the image of the hegemonic male. An aspect of hegemonic masculinity, is a toned and muscular body type. Men can be very competitive as too who’s body is more “buff.” The competitiveness of an ideal body figure, sometimes gets out of hand. A lot of boys and men try and fight each other to prove who is more “masculine.” Like Katz says in the proceeding quote, not all men are violent. But violence gives men an extra edge to their masculinity.
Since i’ve been at OSU (for the past month) a weekend night has not passed without hearing one of my guy friends state that they would like to get into a fight, or actually antagonizing someone until they finally start a fight with them. The first friday night I went out here, I witnessed one of my friends get punched and fall to the ground. He had a black eye!
Violence is a serious matter, but sometimes I have to laugh. I hear my guy friends talking “big game,” that they are going to beat someone up. They try to sound like a hard ass by explaining a fist fight that they almost got into, or a kid they almost knocked out. I find it funny because I know half the people who claim they are down for a fight, would back out at the last minute. I do not understand men’s fascination with fighting. It boggles my mind that a guy finds a sense of pride and glory when he states: “I got into a fight last night.”
Part of me believes that fights or even threats to begin a flight is all done to impress women. If violence is associated with being masculine, maybe it is a tool men use to assert their masculinity. In actuality, I wish guys realized that a lot of the girls they are trying to impress by hurting other people, are completely against violence.
The proceeding clip is a trailer for “Fight Club.” When everything is going wrong in the main character’s life, he turns to Taylor Durden, and together they establish fight clubs all over the nation. It is important to note that all members of the fight clubs nation wide are male. This represents sexism, because it indicates that only men would want to join a fight club. The movie is also sexist against men, because it insinuates that all men would want to join a fight club.
I feel as if Kuntz hit the nail on the head in describing violence in today’s society. I feel as though the “Fight Club” clip is a prime example of Kuntz argument that violence is a masculine noun and according to the hegemonic, only men can be violent.
Although “Fight Club” supports Kuntz’s argument, I think the video clip takes it a step further as well. The main character in “Fight Club” is Brad Pitt who is the hegemonic of masculinity in American Society. His shirt is off several times throughout the movie, and his body reveals American Societies’ ideal of sexy. Not only is violence often associated with masculinity, but the concept of violence is often viewed as “sexy.”
In most fight movies the main character is a hegemonic male (ex; Brad Pitt, Paul Walker, Channing Tatum). The good-looking male who is fighting is almost always tan and built and a hegemonic girls’ “dream guy.”
This concept leads me to believe that maybe girls are not the only people who base their body image off the media. I now believe that a lot of men are violent because, they see the girls and glory the violent stars in movies are able to obtain.
Bibliography
Katz, Jackson . Little Big Men: Bodybuilding Subculture and Gender Construction. Albany : New York Press , 1993.
