Real men love Titanic

                 

To mark the upcoming centenary anniversary of the Titanic sinking, I thought I would look at gender roles in the movie (celebrating its 15^th anniversary this year, not as cool). The whole plot-line of the movie is about a woman who feels repressed by a patriarchal society, so it seemed appropriate. Titanic is arguably geared to a more feminine audience, but the roles of men comprise a large part of the storyline.Todd Kappelman, writing a critique of Titanic (the movie), argues that the movie actually romanticizes sexism, and downplays gender inequality.

                The early 20^th century culture was obsessed with masculinity and male dominance. Women were starting to show their ankles and men felt there was just no room for that kind of behavior. Back then, (as it is today in some cases), manliness was based on power, and money=power. Some rich men in the movie did exist in real life such as John Jacob Astor, Isadore Strauss, and Bruce Ismay (the bosses boss, if you will). Others in the movie such as Caledon “Cal” Hockley did not exist in real life. All of these wealthy characters in the movie were shown as being part of a select group, think of them as the 1% of 1912.

These men were considered the most manly at the time because of their money, and due to their wealth and genitals they could get away with almost anything. J.J. Astor is introduced by Rose with his mistress who she claims was in a delicate condition which was quite a scandal. This would not effect him negatively,It would just make his young mistress carrying his illegitimate child look bad. Today this woman would be given a publicist and a book deal, but that’s not how it was back then.

James Cameron deliberately chose to include this dinner re-enactment in his movie over hundreds of other factual anecdotes from the ship,perhaps to make a point about the subservient roles of women in 1912.

                Cal (Rose’s fiance’) is pretty much a huge dick the entire time…except when he gives her a 20 ct diamond necklace, that was very sweet of him. Rose wants to kill herself instead of marrying him, if that says anything about his character. Arguably this was before he gave her the diamond, but she still didn’t like him very much afterward either.

Cal is considered by high society to be her perfect “match” because he was considered to be the ideal man of the time. He came from a wealthy family, was successful, educated, handsome and financially stable. Rose even went to a specific “finishing” school to find and attract this type of guy, so that also tells you the emphasis people in 1912 placed on ideal masculinity. Again, James Cameron made sure to make his point about the male dominated culture of the time.

                By Contrast we have Jack, who isn’t rich, but is also young and handsome.  He is shown as a man’s man who drinks with the guys and gets a lot of girls to get naked for him. While Rose falls for his chivalrous nature, ultimately his lower class status and general lack of weight distribution knowledge catches up to him when he dies at the end, as Cal and other rich men were able to safely evacuate (even ahead of women and children).   

I guess the ultimate lesson from the movie was that a man with money can always save himself, cause money is power, and power is what makes someone a man. Yes, Cal kills himself during the stock market crash, but the point is he didn’t die alongside the poor people on the ship. He was the "strongest" man, so therefore he survived. Bruce Ismay also shows this money as power theory in the movie, and in real life. Being the 1%er that he was, he also took a seat on the lifeboats ahead of women and children, as others trying to do the exact same thing were pushed back and/or shot. Ironically Bruce Ismay in real life went down in history as a coward for this very stunt, taking away any hope of being remembered as an awesome manly guy with a lot of money who built a big boat.

                Finally I have to discuss the scene where Cal is being a dick (again) and ordering Rose’s food for her right down to the cooking temperature. Upon discussion of the naming of Titanic, Rose brings up the point about how Freuds theories on the male preoccupation with size to Bruce Ismay, the man who decided bigger was better (and thus meaning unsinkable).  This comment is met with laughs from fellow diners because an upper-class woman made a penis joke, and is also met with shock from her mother.  At this point it would take much more then this comment to shock my mother, perhaps this is another reflection of the times. I was 10 when this movie came out, so I didn’t understand the phallic references until at least a year or 2 later. I still felt that it was worth noting in here that men have been worried about size, and compensating for it, for centuries.

 Final scene from the movie showing the people lost at sea.

But on a more serious note, over 1200 people died, arguably due to money and class. Many families lost husbands and fathers because of social masculinity structures, as the death-toll for men was much higher then that for women.

Original Footage

Necessary Roughness

This guy is considered more manly then you...in no way is that depressing.

Buffalo wings and cheerleaders... two byproducts of the National Football League usually associated with manliness and male bonding. Every Sunday and Monday from August to early February is a time for the "guys" to get together, yell, swear, eat, drink and watch the "game."  Men are in a constant search for bragging rights, betting on the spread, trading fantasy players or just enjoy talking smack and get into the occasional bar brawl (cause what fun would wings and football be without some head wounds and spilled beer).While baseball is considered America's pastime, football has become the American mans pastime. It's the one time of year a straight man can wear a wig and makeup, and its acceptable.  Men will spend hundreds of dollars on an official NFL jersey, then wonder why woman spend so much on handbags. The NFL is considered so manly, that even if an NFL player enters into a dance competition involving  flamboyant routines and costumes, no one thinks twice about a Super Bowl winning pro-bowler wearing sequins and dancing a samba.

How Manly. Those boots really accentuate his calves.



Masculinity and the NFL are closely associated because the NFL is considered a rough, brutish manly sport. Football is hard-hitting, and the harder the hits, the rougher the games, the higher the ratings and the more the audience expands. Recent rule changes to make the game safer have been met with retorts of "watering down the game" and complaints of making football into sissy sport. The thought being that football will lose its masculine edge if players aren't continually hitting harder, because life threatening injuries are just "part of the game." The argument being since football was designed to be a rough and manly sport, if the player can't handle their injuries they aren't thought of as "man" enough to be on the field. James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers is notorious for his hard helmet to helmet hits, which now come with an automatic fine if called. He has openly complained of the NFL becoming "softer", and he has vowed to continue to play in the rough demeanor he always has, because he has issues with masculinity and not being able to deliver a hard hit. I don't know if he is compensating for something or just being a huge dick, but he is repeatedly fined for knowingly delivering concussion inducing hits, just to make a point of his manliness.



James Harrison helmet to helmet on Colt McCoy..only after a manly ad from Larry the Cable guy (sorry not my fault).

There has been a recent increase in female viewership of National Football League games, but football continues to be "a man's game." Advertising furthers this notion, by using former/current players to hawk products, or to promote certain products as "manly." Advertising is such a big deal in the NFL that the commercials for the Super Bowl have become almost as popular as the game itself. Football also promotes male physical ideals of athleticism and fitness, as ads are specifically targeted at male audiences trying to convince them to try new workout equipment, or the latest diet drink, or gym membership. Many products advertised are sold to the audience by former players, who are considered as living examples of the male ideal. Men are also reminded that not following strict masculine guidelines during  game time can result in the revocation of their "man-card" as Miller Lite so eloquently reminds us (although arguably drinking Miller Lite in itself should mean you lose your man-card).

The male preoccupation with winning and competition is also fueled by NFL viewership and round-table shows, as winners are made out to seem like Gods among men, while losers are vilified openly. These shows are usually scripted in a way that includes 5-6 men (usually former players or coaches), who sit in a round-table format discussing players and statistics, also making fact memorization another expectation of NFL manliness (only football facts, real academic facts aren't as manly). Men see this as their standard, and thus engage in lively debates of statistics, rulings, scores, trades...whatever knowledge will give them the edge in the debate. Back in the day it was considered manly to be able to debate politics, today it is manly to debate football.

Example of a realistic male standard.

Football has a huge impact on male ideals of masculinity because FOX NFL Sunday, Monday Night Football, and the Super Bowl are all the highest rated TV shows among their respective categories. NFL Sunday routinely beats out shows such as American Idol for ratings, and the Super Bowl is the holy grail of ratings, as other shows even run re-runs based on the assumption that no one else will be watching anything other than the Super Bowl.

Mike Donaldson, writing on hegemonic masculinity makes the point also about the dominant ideal of femininity within the masculine community as a woman who will embrace compliance and tolerance of violent behavior, not very different from the scantily clad cheerleaders who jump and scream (technically "cheer") whenever a player is tackled or hit. In the NFL these hits are coming from 300lb muscular men, so they are no joke. In a Comcast sports science episode, a hit from Ray Lewis was actually harder (measured in pressure per sq inch) then if a swat team broke down your door with a battering ram. Yet the audience is still demanding harder hits, longer throws, more intense tackles. Basically if you can be taken out by a SWAT team, you aren't man enough for the NFL.

Ray Lewis laying someone out...again.

Donaldson says it is these images that drive the image of masculinity, and even at the same time promoting sexism and the degradation of women around the NFL whose only job is to rile men up. More women are becoming NFL fans, and I do not believe that the National Football League itself is sexist, just the current culture of Football. The popularity of its shows and its promotion of roughness, violence and machismo, makes football into a man's sport to be watched only with the guys having wings and beer..."no girls allowed." Football is the ultimate Boys Club, yet most of the boys will never be able to physically or financially be able to come near the level of masculinity the NFL suggests is needed to attain respect as a man.

Either way football provides me with much entertainment personally in the form of bar brawls and the occasional free beer from drunk men. Men are shocked I can talk football with them, and I believe because football is so closely associated with men, that they are surprised that someone with a vagina can quote stats, players and play fantasy with the best of them. It also gives me great pleasure to emasculate the overly brawny, overly compensating men who want to argue stats; because I know that since NFL is a "mans" game, a woman beating them in anything is the ultimate hit to their ego.  Ultimately, without all the emphasis on machismo within the NFL, perhaps this wouldn't be such an issue or a threat to their manhood...or perhaps today's football fans are just not as manly as those in years past and need to step up their man-game...like the ads for Viagra and AXE suggest they should.

Alyssa Milano says...You don't own me...just buy me pretty football clothes.

Respect my Authorita: South Park and Gender roles.

  

Media culture plays a large part in the way we think of gender and class. What is thought of as “proper gender roles” within a nuclear family is largely due to the portrayal of families in the media. The ideal is considered to be the male as the head of the household, with the stay at home wife and homemaker. Father knows best, The Dick Van Dyke show and Leave it to Beaver are examples of the ideal patriarchy within the American family. In the 1960s and extending into today, gender and class became more intertwined. More affluent men were being shown as successful and happy, while working class men are shown as a caricature of cartoonish idiocy. There was an emergence of lower class men being portrayed as lazy and/or uneducated, and the rhetoric behind this character development suggests that the poor are poor because of their own shortcomings and decisions. In America there is the belief that there is social mobility and Americans can better themselves through hard work and persistence. Beyond the satire of the bumbling working class father figure, the reality of poverty and the increasing wealth gap are ignored as economic factors affecting real Americans status in life.

                In class we have been focusing on sitcoms and the changing male gender roles within them. I personally don’t like sitcoms, I find laugh tracks extremely cheesy and offensive to the intellect of the audience (I don’t need to be told when to laugh, thank you). In the spirit of sitcom hatred I have decided to look at male gender and class roles within cartoons, more specifically, South Park.

                “Poor” and working class Americans in shows tend to be employed in blue collar occupations. Peter Griffin, for example, embodies the clumsy stupid working class man who has a factory job at a toy manufacturing plant. He is constantly messing up, and after Opie (obviously mentally handicapped employee) is put in charge of training Peter, thus making the suggestion that Peter is so dumb a retard could do his job. Homer Simpson is another example of the buffoon like working class male character. Both are constantly getting hired, and fired, job stability really isn’t their thing.

                South Park manages to show representations of all classes, and the heads of all the families in the show are part of different social classes. Randy Marsh is the epitome of the middle class working father. He works in a semi-blue collar job as a geologist, while not being very smart in most situations. Kyle’s dad, Gerald Broflovski, is a very successful lawyer, which is also in contrast to Kenny’s dad, who is a raging alcoholic with way too many children. Alternately Cartman, who doesn’t have a dad at all (except for a hermaphrodite mom), may be viewed as the “product” of a single parent household: loud, fat, and always in trouble. While South Park is obviously mocking gender and class roles, the fear of children becoming incompliant due to a lack of father figure is embodied in Cartman, and is a general fear expressed in a society with an increasing number of single parent households. I don’t think mothers in the real world actually worry about their children becoming Cartman. Personally, I have never heard anyone say “Oh my God I need a man because my child might turn out like Cartman,” however his character may play on the fears of society as to the consequences of raising a child without a dominant male figure in their life.

Cartman getting a lesson in male dominance

                Both Peter and Randy also have to deal with the issue of raising a teenage daughter (that they may or may not hate). On several occasions Randy and Peter don’t know how to deal with their teenage daughter (who does?), and they don’t seem to be very loving towards them either way. Both characters appear clueless when dealing with females, whether they are their daughter or not. The mothers are expected to deal with their daughters, while the fathers deal with their sons. Also it is worth noting that all the women in South Park are stay at home mothers, with the exception of Cartman's mom, who has made a career being on the cover of “Crackwhore Magazine”, although arguably this might not be considered gainful employment.

                The father-son relationship is also emphasized in South Park. Traditionally boys are more “wanted” then girls and the relationships between the father figures and their children reflect that. Randy is constantly trying to be cool to his son. Back in the day, fathers and sons were shown fishing and hunting; in South Park, their father-son activities include World of Warcraft and boy bands, either way this shows the ideal bond between father and son. The male figures in South Park are also responsible for discussing sexuality with their sons (as shown in the Backdoor sluts 9 episode), while women’s sexuality isn’t directly addressed until the “Eat, Pray, Queef” episode, which didn’t air until season 13 episode 4.

World of Warcraft bonding 

                Finally, it is considered the role of the male to make decisions that make their family more “ideal”. One could argue that increasingly it is women who make these decisions, however within the media women are not portrayed as such. Since male gender roles in the media is what I’m writing about, the reality of the increasing power of women in the household is a moot point. This is also an example of how the media does not always reflect life in the real world. An example of Randy trying to build the ideal family is in the episode “All About the Mormons.” When the Marshes have dinner with Stan's new friends family, Randy wants to look good compared to the “perfect” Mormon family they are dining with. He makes sure his family looks nice and plays nice, and even finds himself embarrassed when Stan calls him out on this fact at dinner. Another character, Kenny’s mom, is also constantly nagging her husband over money, presumably because she also wants to live the “American dream.” Kenny’s dad, as a raging alcoholic, doesn’t ever seem to be able to provide for his family in a non-sketchy way.  In contrast Gerald Broflovski is able to better his family because he is considered an affluent character. He starts taking on sexual harassment lawsuits in public schools, and as a result is able to build an even bigger and bigger house, albeit at the expense of others (Gerald is pretty much the 1% of South Park). This goes back to Kenny’s dad being portrayed as poor because of his drinking and poor work ethic, whereas Gerald is educated and able to get ahead in life. Stan’s dad just never knows what’s going on and falls somewhere in the middle.

Kenny's dad vs. Kyle's dad 

                Despite the fact that Randy and Sharon Marsh are based on Trey Parkers parents Randy and Sharon, the plotlines in South Park are not fully representative of American life, but it is a good example of gender and class roles and their portrayal in the T.V. media.