Masculinity and 20-somethings: An Interview With Stu

Scene from Julien Donkey-Boy, directed by Harmony Korine.
**This is the last segment of my 3-part interview series on masculinity. This will also be my last masculinity themed post for a little bit so I can focus on other areas.

For this last interview, I wanted to see how masculine representation affected my friend Stu. Theories aside, I wanted to delve into my friend's mind and see his impressions on masculine representation and who came to mind in pop culture.

Unlike the interviews with Gauge and Paul, who both had differing ideas on masculinity, it is apparent with Stu's answers that he is still questioning norms. But what is most interesting is that he is not overly concerned with typical representations and seemingly identifies more with alternative portrayals.

Now without further ado... meet Stu.

Growing up, do you remember seeing on television or in films, any male figures who do not fit the normative depiction? How did you feel about them then? Now?

"A film I can clearly remember is Julien-Donkey Boy. The main character, Julien, played by Ewen Bremner, is depicted in such a disgusting and realistic fashion that most leads in Hollywood would run from and consider career suicide. You would NOT see Brad Pitt playing this role.

The film opens up with Ewen staring into the camera with drool dripping down his face and snot dripping out his nose. He is not a handsome man on any scale, somewhat losing his hair. At the time, I thought to myself that it had to have been one of the most disgusting and irrational things an actor could do on screen.

Today, my view of the world is definitely more mature and Ewen wanted to make a point that you don’t have to be the typical male that fits in the norm to be accepted."

As a teenager, what sort of male representations did you see in pop culture? How did they affect you?

"Having figured out I was gay at a younger age, I realized that gay issues were still quite new to television. Shows like Queer as Folk and Will and Grace opened up my eyes to seeing distinct representations of homosexual life in different, mainly positive, scenarios.

On the other hand, there were many shows out there that were all about the macho man. You know, the jock, popular straight guy dealing with girlfriends, cheating, friends, and then dealing with the one gay character on the show. Dawson’s Creek or Degrassi: The Next Generation come to mind.

It is tough to pinpoint how exactly each character and how they represented themselves affect me. On the one hand, if a gay character became popular or there was no change in how everyone around them acted once they came out, it made me think that it was possible that it will happen to me down the line as I had not publicly come out.

On the other hand, for example, many shows would show gay bashing, or that straight guys who are successful in one area and have issues would usually find a way out of [their issues]. This would downplay the gay guy's issues.

In Dawson’s Creek, the gay guy was always depressed, which would send a mixed signal of how life is. There was no middle ground. Male representation was on either ends of the extreme."

How do you feel male stereotypes brought in from pop culture affect you in your day-to-day life?

"I don’t really base my life around the stereotypes I see on T.V. As unoriginal as this may sound, but I like to consider myself original. There is no way that, to a certain degree, I am influenced by images and ideas that I am exposed to from the shows/films I watch and the music I listen to.

I guess that the male stereotypes would affect me in the way that I tend to try and avoid them. I think they are generalized and can be an illusion as to the way society would like to view the typical male."

Looking at Stu's answers, it becomes apparent that a part of his masculinity is about rebellion and of independence. For Stu, the alternative media (such as Harmony Korine) provides a sort of respite from typical depictions.


Boys Don't Cry- The Cure, hailed as the dance song for guys.

Masculinity and Vulnerability: An Interview with Paul Baines of Media Mindful

Shoulder to Shoulder: Men and Vulnerability is a doc by Paul Baines. Check out parts 2-4

*Just a quick FYI, all the links in this interview were provided by me.

First up one the interview list is Paul Baines, media artist and activist, blogger, and one of thes co-founders in the development of Masc magazine, a space for youth to address issues facing masculine culture. Paul took a few moments to answer a few questions that I had...

A common theme in your blog, as Questioning Masculinity clearly states, is to question the accepted norms of masculinity. Would you care to expand on these norms, why they are problematic, and why you feel it is important to question the typical masculine gender role?

"Norms are easy to identify if we just stop for one second and ask the most basic questions:

• What’s a guy movie?
• What’s a real man?
• Why is it considered bad for a boy to “play like a girl” or show weakness?

There are hundreds of norms for masculinity and what makes them norms is the general consensus I get when I ask a group of 30 people the 3 questions above. Norms are problematic when they box-in what we should be like and limit our potential to live a full life. They are even more problematic when they support a system of violence.

I believe many masculine norms need to be questioned for at least 2 reasons:

• because it’s not being done as much as it should
• because it has some very dangerous consequences

There are many consequences, but one I’ve been looking at is vulnerability. When we accept the norm that masculinity (and by mistake, men) should hide, ignore, devalue their emotions, we are “creating” a dysfunctional person. This acceptance is dangerous because these “created” (or as we say in the media studies community “constructed”) men make their own lives a living hell and often everyone else too. Look at male suicide rates, male life expectancy, numbers of male war-makers and males abusing women and children."

Masculinity and maleness are often used interchangeably. To you, is there a difference between masculinity and of the male? Why or why not?

"Yes, big difference. One of the major barriers to talking about gender is detaching it from sex or biology. Masculinity and Femininity (2 of many categories of gender) are performances based on cultural, historical, political, etc. conditions, assumptions, and organized efforts to assign a gender category to a sex category.

For instance there is nothing biologically male about fixing cars, being athletic, or wearing blue (instead of pink). These stereotypes make assumptions of what masculinity is, yet there is nothing in the genetic male/man code to link it to the colour blue."

When speaking of pop culture (Visibility Alert is a pop culture blog after all), I feel that most people think of television and films. What sort of representations/stereotypes are out there in regards to masculinity? Any films/shows particularly negative in this respect? Positive?

"I wrote a blog article about Lars and the Real Girl and Into the Wild. I was looking at manhood, suffering and forgiveness.

I thought Lars was an excellent representation of the male experience. I also liked SuperBad. One of my old favourites is Rushmore. A while ago Jim Carey starred in The Mask, which was actually a very clever movie looking at the performance, promise, and pain of masculinity."

Do you feel there is any particular reason why many magazines have not devoted more space to issues in masculinity?

"Most magazines (like much of the mass media) are selling consumers to advertisers and are constrained by this advertising-based business model. There are likely many other reasons too, but ultimately I think this absence is a result of a larger void.

Thinking critically about masculinity, feminism, and patriarchy would raise too many questions about society. Who does most of the work and who gets less pay? Who feels entitled and who doesn’t? How is strength defined and who has it? Why is our culture obsessed with commodified sex and consequence-free violence?"

Sut Jhally’s documentary Tough Guise focuses on the link between violence and masculinity. Your documentary, , on the other hand, questions male experiences with vulnerability and how it shapes their relationships. How do you feel this shift away from the dominant discourse of violence by focusing on the theme of vulnerability affect males?

"I started my questioning by looking at Jhally’s work and being really engaged with it. There is a part of his educational video that deals with vulnerability and I think it’s the most interesting. Most men will not commit gross acts of violence on those around them.

However, all men can relate to the emotional confusion around being strong and weak. My work is to start a conversation about masculinity and if the first thing guys hear is that it’s violent or messed up, I’m afraid they would turn off. Plus, this doesn’t validate their experiences of vulnerability. If the mass media isn’t going to do look at the complexities of male pain and privilege, then I want to."

Part 4 of Shoulder to Shoulder, by Paul Baines

For more information on Paul Baines' projects, you can find him at Media Mindful. Stay posted for part 2 of my masculinity series...

Masculinity and Violence in the Media

Tough Guise is directed by Sut Jhally. Video courtesy of the Media Education Foundation
As the saying goes, girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice while boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog's tails. Even from a young age, male children are being contrasted as the opposite of femininity where girls are represented through a holistic cuteness while boys are dirty and gross.


Being socialized on the “boys will be boys” mantra, male children grow up with an automatic aptitude geared towards accepted violence. Being bombarded with stereotypical imagery, the basis of maleness is constructed even before the moment of delivery through biology, continues to the time of child birth when doctors decide whether an infant’s penis is of a correct size, and carries on upwards through a boy’s developmental stages as he incorporates rough and tumble play into his daily routine.


This idea of a socially and acceptably aggressive male wreaks havoc as a link between masculinity and violence is formed. Jackson Katz, in an interview for Tough Guise states that "[v]iolence isn’t so much a deviation as it is an accepted part of masculinity”. Instead of vilifying violence, we have embraced it as part of the masculine culture, alienating all who do not conform to the tough guy ideals.


Media representations help children sculpt what it means to be a man. In Tough Guise, Jackson Katz asks teen males what traits they would ascribe to masculinity. Words such as powerful, fierce, strong, and independent were used to describe the ideal masculine form. Throw race and culture into the mix and we bring the masculine form to whole new levels.


Clip by Sanjay Newton
Ads, children's programming, sitcoms, action movies, etc, are all prone to this media assault on the male body/masculinity. The harsh reality is that these representations are celebrated leaving those who do not conform to the side. Not to mention that all other alternative forms to these ideals are either not represented or typecast as the side characters who provide comedic support to the strong male lead.


As males have been socialized to keep their feelings to themselves, there are few support groups out there to help males deal with the rising dissatisfaction they have with themselves. To compensate for their apparent lack of masculinity, some guys participate in high-risk situations to prove their masculine worth.


Masculinity is not born but made through a barrage of social construction centered around themes of strength and violence. Maintaining the “boys will be boys” creed only harms society as it creates a link between masculinity and violence. By doing so, we are creating a land of alienated males who fear to fall outside of the accepted norm. Strength, fierceness, and independence are just projected notions of masculinity. The true descriptions of media-made men are along the lines of conformity, dominating, and capitalistic.

Wonderjock Wins the Battle of the Bulge

This is just a quick follow-up to my Wonderbra post. Aussiebum has released the Wonderjock, a sort of counter to the Wonderbra. But instead of pushing up cleavage, it is designed to bulge out the contours of your penis.



Unlike a bra, which has become a rite of passage, the Wonderjock is nothing more than a tool to make a man's dick bigger. Exploiting the cultural male fear of emasculation (and of a little appearance), the Wonderjock presents a troubling message of the (hyper)sexualization that is often associated with the masculine self.

More disturbing is the aspect of shame and deception that Aussiebum's marketing campaign is offering. While the Aussiebum models have no qualms about stripping down in public, they appear happier when their bulge is larger than life. Playing off the male fear of having a smaller-than-average penis, the ads shame the viewer and intensifies feelings of intimidation and inadequacy. Only through the deception that the Wonderjock offers can confidence be obtained.

The road to becoming deemed a legitimate male is an arduous one that begins even before birth. But one of the determining factors in having masculinity attributed to a child by a doctor is, once again, linked back to penis size.



In Sexing the Body, Anne Fausto-Sterling explains that, to be deemed a legitimate male, a child's penis must be at least 2.4 cm. If the penis is smaller than that, despite maybe have XY chromosomes and/or testicles, the child may have their penis removed, to be be reared as a girl. And this is besides the cases where the child has ambiguous genitalia, ranging in size between a large clitoris or a small penis.

The Wonderjock is just another product that is projecting negative connotations onto masculinity and the male body. Unlike the Wonderbra, which has branded itself onto femininity (albeit that being a problem as I pointed out), the Wonderjock is making no such attempts. It simply exists to shame men to buy their product. To do so makes men feel bigger and bolder, despite the large role deception plays in the process.

*Again, this post has been created from an oral that I presented in my Communication Technologies and Gender class on the gendered implications of the Wonderbra. I added the segment on the Wonderjock as a balance to the often ignored stigmas that men face. In no way am I trying to downplay the importance of Women's Studies or of Gender Studies, but offer these pieces on masculinity in order to add to the multifaceted sphere of the fields.