Toxic Masculinity in Mad Men and Friday Night Lights

         Marcotte’s article focused on television shows, such as Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, that appeared to celebrate masculinity and patriarchal power, but instead the plots encompassed toxic masculinity and the down fall of patriarchal power.  Although I have not seen much of Mad Men or Friday Night Lights, Marcotte’s article highlighted the story of men enjoying and celebrating their power and roles in life, until their realities shift and they find themselves in unfamiliar territory.  For Mad Men’s Don Draper, he finds himself without his family and job, while Eric Taylor of Friday Night Lights struggles with a new coaching job and his wife and daughter demanding more respect.  Why do these types of plots attract such a large audience and fan base?

            Personally, I would find myself drawn a show in which a character experiences a hard downfall, but then tries to undo his/her mistakes and grows to me an honorable and likeable character.  After reading Marcotte’s article, I believe I would find myself rooting for Don Draper and Eric Taylor because they are learning from the wrong doings and attempting to make changes no just for their benefits.  I think many viewers would have the same feelings towards the lead characters of these male dominant television shows.  There also appears to a large female fan base as well.  One commonality in these plots appears to be that a strong supporting female character comes to the rescue of the drowning lead male character.  Therefore, the presence of strong women in a male dominant television show may be the cause of a large female fan base.

            However, the most interesting part of the article was that dramas similar to that of Mad Men and Friday Night Light but instead with female leads have yet to achieve a large fan base and the popularity as dramas with male leads.  Instead, women are starting to dominate the comedic genre.  Marcotte suggests that society is not ready to deal with the questioning of gender roles and women being placed in dramatic and complex plots.  I hope that women find themselves in dramatic and complex roles in dramas sometime in the future, and are not limited to comedies.          

           

   

Post-Feminism for Men

            I don’t watch a lot of television, and I watch even fewer movies. It is safe to assume that many of the names or titles thrown around in this class go straight over my head. However, I am an avid fan of Friday Night Lights and got extremely excited when I could relate to this article! I love a television show with characters I can root for, and it wasn’t until reading this article that I realized just why I find the characters to be so honorable and likable. I must admit, before enrolling in this course, I was rather oblivious to the compulsory messages of heterosexuality and gender norms being funneled to the public every second. Sure, I could point out overt sexist images or commentary, but it was the more subliminal messages that went unnoticed. I love the characters on Friday Night Lights because they maintain respect no matter what issue presents itself. The article states that “Friday Night Lights had become, arguably, not just an examination of masculinity but a show with an overt feminist agenda”. While reading this I thought how this could be perceived as a sort of post-masculinism. While tough, strong, handsome, rugged, and jock are all stereotypical connotations of masculinity, they can be possessed without also representing the traditional ideals of “manhood.” Eric Taylor is a definite “man’s man” (I can attest, my older brothers are obsessed!) but in the same vein, he goes against many typical “manly” gender norms as he takes on a female assistant and ultimately lets his wife lead the family out of Texas.  

            In another article, Do Young Men Need a New Kind of Masculinity?, Courtney Martin argues for a positive, masculine gender identity. She presents an idea for masculinity that seems very post- structualist as she writes that men, “have built identities that they see as "masculine," and these identities are satisfying for them. But the idea of a top-down "masculinity" for men to aspire to, of "models," just seems restrictive. Yes, young men need to see thoughtful, feminist men, especially if they're not yet truly comfortable with women. But said thoughtful, feminist men don't necessarily have to offer a new masculinity — rather, they can simply teach that how men understand their gender is up to them, and that they shouldn't feel the need to fit themselves into any particular mold.”

            While on Facebook last week I saw a photograph of a Marine sergeant kissing his boyfriend after returning from a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. I think that this picture presents a new form of masculinity that needs to be embraced. No one can argue that a Marine does not invoke traditional ideas of masculinity. However, this picture shows that what is masculine does not have to mean heterosexual thus changing what it means to be a man in this world.