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.          

           

   

Mad Men vs. Lipstick Jungle and Funny Ladies

Reading Marcotte's article, "How to Make a Critically Acclaimed TV Show About Masculinity", made me realize something that I haven't really noticed before--I couldn't think of any TV shows that revolve solely around a woman or a group of women and their struggles.  I am sure there must be some show out there, but when I think of TV shows I mainly think of either a show revolving around a group of both men and women or shows that have men as their main characters.  This made me think of the show Lipstick Jungle, which ended after its second season in 2009 and was about a group of three powerful women in the workforce in New York City.  The show was about their struggles involving work life, their families, romance and other daily dilemmas.  Lipstick Jungle feels like a modern day version of Mad Men, in which women have full representation in the work place and they hold very high positions, along with the men.  Mad Men to me is a very interesting example of masculinity in the media and the male's struggle to deal with "the fantasy of patriarchal power" versus newly evolving male and female societal roles.

The article also made me think about the fact that many times, popular media that revolves around women is comedic.  Marcotte's point that "Perhaps the absurdities of being female in this modern era don't lend themselves well to drama, but have to be approached sideways, through comedy" was really interesting to me, because it seems like comedy is a way in which women have broken through and been able to be represented in the media, but that is just one way.  Thinking back on the "Funny Ladies" presentation, I was reminded of Bridesmaids and how it is completely about women and their lives, but it is presented to us through comedy and makes us laugh at some of the gender ideas in the movie, such as the scene we watched in class when they are all in the bridal shop.

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.

Downfall of Masculinity on TV leads to Dominance of Males

           When I first started reading this article and I read “[Paternity] as the source of power” (Marcotte), I thought this article was going to be about the dominance of men in television shows.  When I read this sentence it really struck me and I had to sit back and think about it.  Paternity as the source of power.  I kept repeating it in my head.  Why does paternity have to be the source of power?  What makes it so that males have all or at least most of the power in many different cases of life and they can never be broken down or fall apart?

            But as I kept reading this article, it became clear that majority of the shows Marcotte discussed are about tearing apart masculinity and making the oppressed, or in other words women, more powerful. “Americans can’t get enough of watching powerful men run into walls created by the limits of narrow, traditional masculinity” (Marcotte).  I found it really interesting when Marcotte discussed how shows such as Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad all start with a dominant male character who ends up falling apart and a woman comes into major importance in his life to get him back on track.  However, the show could not just start off with the dominance of the woman.  In order to be successful, the show has to being with a male who portrays the dominant masculine societal values and then it can go in any direction it choses, whether that is to have a dominant female show up in the picture or just stick with the dominant male. 

            So to go back to the beginning of my post, I guess paternity is the source of power in television right now even though there may be some shows that go against it.  But overall, majority of the television shows that are viewed daily display dominant male characteristics. 

The Masculinity Template in Television

     I thought that there were a few interesting points made within the article. I find it interesting that a plot so simple can be used over and over while still obtaining vast amounts of viewers from all different backgrounds. I’ve always felt that audiences consistently ask for new shoes with unique ideas and plots to keep them interested, instead we’re indicating that you can use the same general concepts to catch our attention.

     I also thought about this article in relation to what a feminine theory would have to say about the number of popular television shows geared towards masculine ideals. I feel that one could argue that these shows are pro-feminist because they give examples of masculine men that would not be able to exist in their world without important female roles in their lives. On the other hand, one could make the assumption that these shows are popular because of the leading man, that the show would have nothing without the overtly masculine man at the center. The argument could be that we wouldn’t even have dominant female characters in these series’ if it weren’t for the central male character.

     The paragraph about female leads in other quality dramas was also interesting. It seems that television producers are creating lead roles for women in similar types of shows, yet they don’t seem to get the recognition that the masculinity-based shows achieve. I found it funny that the article discusses the lack of popularity for women in dramas then flips to the “at least we’re good at something” comeback and talks about women’s success headlining comedies. I feel that it is a problem if women are accepting of their type cast roles in television. It should be an even bigger emphasis that women are successful in some genres yet are not gaining respect in other genres of television. 

Redefining Masculinity and Femininity

               Within the article, “How to Make a Critically Acclaimed TV Show About Masculinity,” Amanda Marcotte argues that the media has begun to create texts that feature powerful men existing within manly worlds, yet they are now questioning what it truly means to be “masculine.” She further explains that shows such as “Mad Men” take the quintessential masculine man and have him question his socially constructed ideals that “men should be in control, able to act decisively without help, and able to lead without anyone questioning their authority.” Men face personal limits stemming from their own views of what manhood should look like and face the dilemma of whether to break out from gender norms or remain within their gender role. For the character of Don Draper, he begins to turns his life around by abandoning his attachment to old-fashioned notions of male power. Marcotte states, “He stops dating women because they fit the mold of the compliant trophies, and instead finds some measure of peace dating an independent, challenging woman his own age.” Though Draper works to break out from the socially-constructed norms of what makes a man masculine, he is eventually policed back into his womanizing ways by the beginning of the 5th season. This example demonstrates how difficult it is for person to move against cultural norms and reinvent themselves.          

Watch Out for Naked People

This week has been transformative to say the least. Naked week always reminds me about how close-minded and toxic our society is in regards to body image and expression. Not only do we value skinny over “fat,” but we also dissect the body into manageable commodities; so that you can literally pick and choose the pieces that make up your outward appearance. Jean Kilbourne talked about this as the ability to create illusion in our lives. Sometimes this creation comes from the advertisers and filmmakers who create the illusion of “ideal” beauty, but sometimes it comes from within our own self-conscious psyches. Think about it, if only 8% of an ad is processed by our conscious mind and the rest is penetrated into the recesses of our mind, then it makes perfect sense that our perceptions of the beauty around us and our self image would be processed mostly in our subconscious. That is the scary and invigorating aspect of the media: it has the ability to enact so much change, and yet, are we using it for the best?

In the Robyn Ochs workshop, we visually transcended the binary of sexuality (and sort of gender) by creating our own moving spectrum of sexuality. Juxtaposed to the very disheartening conclusion to Jean’s discussion that left us with the message that sex and sexuality is amplified in order make a larger profit; Robyn reminded us that passion is integral in our lives and that it comes in all shapes and sizes. No one, including the writers of ABC or HBO can tell you what attraction is for you. We put such a great emphasis on sex that it is beginning to lose its true meaning emotionally and psychologically, Robyn deemphasized physical sex so that we were better able to deconstruct the many facets that play into our sexuality and desires. Robyn did not directly discuss the media, but I think any discussion of sexuality and gender almost inherently discusses the media and its portrayal of sex, desire and our bodies.