Category: Masculinity

Abstract

The approach taken by the young people in North America today is drastically different from what it was barely a decade ago. A lot has changed; the most obvious being the whole concept of what it is to date someone, and the approach taken towards dating.

If a father and son, or a mother and her daughter were to sit down and share the campus experiences, both parties would probably draw the conclusions that they might have been talking of entirely different times of their lives and not the last years of their adolescence and their very first adult years.

So what has triggered these changes on not only the campus scene but also the high school years leading up to campus as well as the few years following up college? Dr. Michael Kimmel (2008), in his book ‘Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men‘, tries to figure out the changes that have occurred in the lives of young North American males, specifically those aged between sixteen and twenty-six, and why they are undergoing the ‘extended’ adolescence phenomenon.

Introduction

Dating: now and back in the ‘good old days

A couple of years ago, so says Tom Wolfe, when it came to the interaction between adolescents, getting to first base was embracing and kissing (quaintly termed as necking). Getting to the second base had to do with deep kissing and heavy petting. The third base was having oral sex and the home plate was ‘going all the way’ (Wolfe, 2001). This has all changed; in the present day and time, necking is a word that has to be looked up in a dictionary to be understood. What was considered second base is now first base, second base is oral sex while the third base is going all the way. If you make it to home plate, you get to know each other’s names (Wolfe, 2001). This is just a small depiction of how much things have changed.

Dating on campus had previously meant going steady with one girl for the man and with one guy for the girl for an extended period. It was in most cases a prelude to proper courtship which more often than not resulted in marriage. This is worlds apart from what campus dating is today; if you go out together for a drink or coffee or a movie, that is counted as a date, and not only that, but it is license enough to engage in sexual activity that will most likely go ‘all the way’. Previously, this was unheard of and was considered completely scandalous (Bogle, 2008).

Bogle (2008) says that the two major contributions to changing dating as it was known on campus are the growing trend of marrying later in life than was previously the case-though most young people are sexually active by the time they hit their late adolescence- and again the number of young people who spend the earlier part of their adulthoods in colleges has greatly increased. Since young people are not getting married and they still feel the need to have a sexual experience, college becomes a prime place to do this without obligation. It is from this that the term ‘hook up’ has been coined to define the kind of relationship between young people of different sexes on campuses today. A hook-up, according to Bogle, is when a girl and a boy come together for a sexual encounter that does not lead to further emotional ties or any other obligations. Bogle is however keen to point out that the extent of hook-ups as done by teens and young people is greatly exaggerated by the media (Bogle, 2008).

But ‘hooking up’ does not come as a problem all on its own; it is associated with other such misdemeanors as excessive consumption of alcohol, the abuse of drugs, and young people acquiring sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

Dr. Michael Kimmel, a sociologist, conducted research to try and determine the values and priorities of young North American men aged between sixteen and twenty-six. In his book ‘Guyland’, he interviewed more than four hundred young men over four years and tried to encompass young men from a wide array of social, economic and cultural backgrounds (Kimmel, 2008).

One of the conclusions that Dr. Kimmel comes to is that there is no truth in the theory that has been advanced that feministic advances in education, as well as other fields made in the past decades, have somehow directly contributed to the ‘boy crisis. He says purporting for better education for girls, which has resulted in more girls getting a sound education as well as more opportunities on the job market, should not be in any way prompted as a factor that has lead to the perceived emasculation of young American men. Looking at the matter in this light suggests a certain antagonism between the sexes where there can be no equal opportunity scenario; it is either one sex on top of the other (Kimmel, 2008).

He goes further to refute the argument forwarded in the ‘boy crisis’ that the manifestation of how boys are being sidelined in education is highlighted by the fact that girls and young women are performing much better than their male counterparts in not only the arts but are also beginning to pick up in the sciences as well. In truth, he says, it is just that girls have finally been given a platform on which they can shine and they are doing so unlike how it has been in the past (Kimmel, 2008).

Dr. Michael Kimmel’s book has been touted as being the male equivalent of Mary Pipher’s ‘Reviving Ophelia’. Pipher takes a closer look at what kind of environment the adolescent girl in 20^th century America lives in and what she has to contend with. Just as is the case with the boys, there are numerous external pressures exerted on this young girl to achieve the ‘ideal’ of the all American girl. She has to have the ‘right’ look, dress in the ‘right’ manner, hang out with the ‘right’ crowd, et cetera (Pipher, 2002).

This leads up to the opposite of what was the expectation of the fierce feminism movements of the seventies, eighties and nineties; instead of a confident and sure image of the adolescent American girl of the 20^th century, there is the adolescent befuddled with extremely low self esteem, peer pressure and eating disorders to mention but a few (Pipher, 2002).

He points out that there is now the stage in the lives of young American men which he terms as ‘the Wasteland Years’. What Dr. Kimmel’s observation is, is that while in earlier years young men settled down and took up their responsibilities promptly after college, the trend has shifted to there being some gap years between college and when they get to start families as well as take up serious employment (Pipher, 2002).

The ‘Wasteland Years’, as also outlined by Rose, Corcoran and Fleming (2007) which is a desperate attempt by young men to cling onto their boyhood and adolescent years rather than move on to the vast unknown of the adult world encumbered with responsibility and pitfalls, is marked by a few outstanding characteristics. One of them is drifting; drifting from one girlfriend to another, drifting from one job to the another, from one place of living to the next, drifting rootlessly without any true basis. There is a dread of settling down and ‘gathering moss’.

Another trait is the excessive partying, drinking and the abuse of drugs along with other illegal substances. This is done although it may be detrimental to the individual involved. Being able to imbue the greatest amount of alcohol is considered cool, as though how much one can drink is directly proportional to how much of a man one is (Rose, Corcoran & Fleming, 2007).

There is the obsession with sports and sports talk, with some sports being more associated with masculinity than others, because they require more brawn and involve more risks. An ardent viewing of pornography, along with other sexually explicit material is also a characteristic of this lot (Rose, Corcoran & Fleming, 2007).

There is the occurrence of what Kimmel terms the three ‘p’s: Port, Pornography and play station, which seem to be the only thing that young men are obsessed with nowadays. The fourth p, which is a fad that had gone out and is now making a comeback: poker. These four obsessions have a very negative impact on the young men who partake of them. One is that it makes them feel detached from a sense of reality. It is a way in which they escape from the real world in which they are meant to be living in and participating in. it shields them from taking up the true responsibilities they are meant to be handling. In short, it gives them an excuse to be lazy (Schwyzer, 2008).

However, the most detrimental of this can be said to be pornography, which greatly distorts what sexual intercourse between adults is. Most pornography is debasing of women and portrays violent non-consensual sexual acts. Many young men are lured into carrying out these acts in real life as the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred (Schwyzer, 2008).

In summary, it can be said that the ‘Wasteland Years’ are just an illustration of little boys trapped in adults’ bodies because no one ever told them what to do when they reached the crossroads between childhood and adulthood.

Dr. Kimmel, Hearn and Connell, (2005) further point out that maybe the boys are not entirely to blame since there is not much incentive for them to settle down and be more productive. This is because to some extent, they are intimidated by their female counterparts who are now beginning to reap the fruits of female liberation.

What happens is that these young do not have a strong sense of purpose or direction. After going through high school and then college, the question remains ‘what happens next? Where does it all ultimately lead?’ After college comes more evasiveness in the form of taking up a series of unfruitful jobs that in reality are dead end and non-progressive. The result is an underlying anxiety that further confounds these young American males. To make matters worse, it seems that their female age mates are going in the opposite direction and doing all the things that traditionally, they should have done. It is the women who are now more focused and more intent on getting into careers (Kimmel, Hearn & Connell, 2005).

Several factors are contributing towards the emerging ‘Wasteland Years’. One of these is the lesser role played by parents and stakeholders in the bringing up of children since the pace of life has become more hectic. The approach adopted by parents today is to cater first to the material needs of their children while emotional and psychological needs take a distant second. As long as the children are well fed, well dressed and well educated, then they should be happy and that should constitute a good upbringing. Parents take less and less time out of their own busy lives to have some down time with their children. The result is a generation of young people who learn a great deal more from their peers (who, like them do not know much) than they do from their parents (Kimmel, 2008).

Another facet of this approach to parenting is the attitude that young people can allowed to be wild because after all, they are young. Thus, actions such as binge drinking and obsession with video games are looked upon with a tolerable indifference because it is expected that young people behave this way. Eventually they will outgrow this particular stage and that there is no real harm done in the end (Schwyzer, 11^th, September 2008).

It seems that part of the problem on the ‘boy crisis’ is how serious is the problem itself. While there are those psychologists and sociologists in the camp who feel that the rise of feminism has indeed posed a serious threat to the essence of masculinity, there are the ones who on the other hand feel that the problem is not as serious as it is made out to be; that it is an issue being unnecessarily being exaggerated out of proportion. Why the latter group is of this opinion is because overdoing the crisis has been used as a vehicle in anti-feminism drive by playing on the harp of how female liberation has continually emasculated young male North Americans (Schwyzer, 17th, September 2008).

It cannot be ignored that young men in America do grow up under a stressful environment where the pressure to perform is high, and where the mixed messages drawn from their immediate environment can make it difficult to determine exactly what it is that is required of them (Hopkins, 2007).

Can ‘Guyland’ be transformed?

Tearing down conceptions and perceptions can be more difficult than bringing down a ten foot solid steel wall. Perceptions are always very deeply ingrained; they form the fabric of our very beings and are normally the basic building blocks upon which we base our logical thinking. It is a gigantic effort to try and make a person change their view of how they see things. The ‘boy code’ has been in place for such a long time that it is the norm. Some people may wonder even why it is being challenged or why there should be need to challenge it. After all, other boys lived under the same code and became functional adults. Another point of resistance may be that trying to break the ‘boy code’ may be an act of emasculation since this code is what makes men what they are (Kindlon & Thompson, 2000).

There is a discrepancy between the myths of what boys and young men need and the reality of what they do need. Boys just get as lonely as girls; they need sympathy and understanding the same way girls do. Boys get their emotions hurt too, and at times need to be comforted. There is a lot that remains hidden beneath the veneer of being ‘tough’ and being a ‘man’, which reads a bit like how to be insensitive (Kindlon & Thompson, 2000).

What needs to be done, stress Kindlon and Thompson (2000), is that what they term as ‘emotional mis-education’ of boys and young men, which adheres to the ‘boy code’ should completely be discouraged. This kind of upbringing leaves boys deformed and creates fertile ground for the kind of young adults in Michael Kimmel’s ‘Guyland’.

Conclusion

A myth may be in existence for centuries or even millennia, but if the myth was never true, its longevity does not add a grain of truth to it. For years upon years, there has been the persistent connotation of what it means to be a man. Some of the terms that were and still are strongly associated with masculinity are an emotional aloofness, insensitivity, courage, perseverance among others. This is not to say that everything used to define masculinity is wrong, nor that all how masculinity is expressed is bad. There are elements of what it means to be a man that have been proved to be detrimental to boys and young men. It has been taken for granted that boys and young men do not have the same emotional needs as their female counterparts and on the most part, they are to figure out how to deal with their emotional issues, to take it like a man. There are also outlines about what a man can and cannot do.

So, as Kimmel strongly suggests, it is about time that the myths of manhood were broken because their tenacity has not lent them any truth. A young man does not have to prove his masculinity by drinking all his friends under the table, or who has the most girlfriends. Teaching young men to be emotionally whole and conscious will also lead to emotionally healthy adults who will be more willing to table their share of responsibility when the time comes for it, and who will also be able to promptly let go of their boyhood when the time comes for that as well with the full knowledge that in life you cannot win all your fights, overcome all your demons, achieve all your dreams but despite this, you are not less of a man for admitting it.

Reference

Bolge, K (2008). Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus. New York: New York University Press

Hopkins, P (2007). Pollack and the Boy Code. Web.

Kimmel, M (2008). Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. New York: Harper Collins

Kimmel, M., Hearn, J., & Connell, R (2005). Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities. California: Sage Publishing

Kindlon, D, J & Thompson, M., (2000). Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. New York: Ballantine Books

Pipher, M (2002). Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine Books

Rose, P., Corcoran, K, J., Fleming, M, K., & Segrist, D (2007). Yeah, I Drink alcohol but Not as Much as Other Guys: The Majority Fallacy among Male Adolescents. North American Journal of Psychology.

Pascoe, C, J (2007). Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Carlifonia: University of California Press

Schwyzer, H (2008). Escape, Entitlement and Empowerment: Young Men and the ‘Four Ps’. Men and Masculinity, Men’s Movement, Mentoring. Web.

Schwyzer, H (2008). Looking for ‘the Inoculation Against Cruelty’: How to Help Boys Through the Trials of Guyland. Men and Masculinity, Men’s Movement, Mentoring. Web.

Wolfe, T (2001). Hooking Up. What Life was like at the Turn of the Second Millennium: An American World. London: Picador Publishers

Introduction

Mission: Impossible II (2000) is a film about violence and rivalry, the good and the evil, and the competition between two men. The director John Woo is known for a transactional context in his movies since his cinematic output began with Hong Kong works and was transmitted into Hollywood action films. The analyzed motion picture explains the purpose of violence in works of this genre through the perspectives of manhood and masculinity. Behind the chaotic representation of actions, the filmmaker reveals a complex theme of hegemonic masculinity through the subtopics of a man’s heroism and nobility, rivalry, and male relationship with the help of different elements of the mise-en-scene.

Two Cultures in One Setting

The themes of masculinity and male bonding are important for Woo because they help unite two different cultures. The traditional Chinese values emphasize loyalty, compassion, fidelity, and righteousness, while classic Hollywood films involve active and goal-oriented heroes (Wang 5). The movie is a combination of two genres: action and adventure. The protagonist Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has a mission: to find and destroy a biological weapon – a disease known as ‘Chimera.’ The adventure side of the film is a long quest to conquer in order to complete this mission. The action aspect is to defeat the villain Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott), who had stolen this weapon. John Woo’s films represent the combination of the East and West elements, complementing each other and distinguishing his works from other similar movies in the genre of action.

Since Woo began to create films for Hong Kong cinematography, he preserved some features of Chinese culture in his Hollywood works. According to Szeto, Woo reveals the themes and motifs of heroism “in a transactional context, targeting polities such as hegemonic masculinity, family, and nation” (72). In the analyzed movie, the author combined ultra-violence and aesthetic beauty, choreographed bullets and slow-motion fireballs, high angles, and extreme long shots to reveal the subjects of masculinity, rivalry, and male relationships. The action of the play rotates around the struggle between two men, one representing unmitigated evil and one of absolute good. The director tried to add ritual meaning to his work, separating human sin from grace associated with a hero and an antihero. Ethan is an embodiment of a noble, heroic, and beautiful man, while Sean is associated with greed, brutality, and horror. All actions in the film occur around these two male characters, thus emphasizing the role of men in society.

The Role of Mise-en-Scene

The opening scene establishes a noble and heroic image of the protagonist through the mise-en-scene. Thus, the setting is a hazardous place presented by a man climbing rocks on high cliffs and using no safety nets. Ethan is the only person visible in the shot, denoting that he will be the main hero who will need to complete the mission. Natural lighting creates a sense of reality and makes viewers worry about the protagonist’s life while watching his risky motions. Ethan’s nobility and bravery can be seen in the establishing shots. The long shot demonstrates how he interacts calmly with the cliff, enjoying this hazardous activity. A high-angle image signifies the character’s vulnerability and danger, depicting him as a small creature in a huge universe ready to swallow him. Medium shots and close-ups of the hero’s hands and eyes allow the viewers to see his strength and confidence, enhancing his hegemonic masculinity. Each element of the mise-en-scene indicates that Ethan is a strong and noble man, ready to complete even an impossible mission.

Male Relationships

The subtopic of rivalry revealed through the images of Ethan and Sean helps better comprehend male relationships in the film. Woo uses an opposition between two male characters to “redefine the good and evil sides of masculinity” and emphasize the competition between them (Ortega 197). They feud over the same woman, the secret virus, and the right to survive. For example, the scene where Sean and Ethan hold one another at gunpoint, trying to reach the top-secret virus lying on the floor between them, denotes the hidden characteristics of the men. Here, the viewers realize that Nyah has once betrayed Sean, but she is forced to return when Ethan asks her to help him.

In this scene, when Ethan and Sean fight against each other for the hypo, one can see the attitude of the villain toward his girlfriend. He treats her as a toy, a monkey who will not loosen a branch until she grips another limb. Thus, Sean sends Nyah (Thandie Newton) to pick up the hypo, risking her life to achieve his greedy goal. In contrast, Noah does not shoot because he loves Nyah and does not elevate his mission over nobility and love. In this scene, the playwright motivates the situation, making it well integrated into the film narrative (Higgins 80). This moment makes viewers feel drawn to Ethan more than ever and antagonizes Sean.

A male relationship is important in all of Woo’s films, and Mission: Impossible II is not an exception. The director portrays a “twisted friendship/brotherhood relationship” between the male characters in the motion picture (Wang 5). Despite the rivalry between the protagonist and antagonist, they have many similarities, thus immutably linking to each other. For instance, they interact in a homosocial world where rivals share women, who further betray the imprudent (Arjet 2). The competition unites the men through the violence they use against each other. Moreover, their violence makes it possible to replace a good guy with a bad guy, and no one will notice it. For example, in the scene where Dr. Nekhorvich is on board with his friend, supposed to be Ethan, the character peels off his smiling face, turning out to be the villain. This scene demonstrates that both characters can act similarly, and strangers will not notice the difference.

One more moment when characters change their faces is when Ethan is trying to steal the samples of Chimera and its antidote. However, in this episode, Ethan disguises his face, pretending to be Sean’s best friend and right-hand man, Hugh Stamp (Richard Roxburgh). Ethan observes Sean killing Hugh, thus demonstrating that he is not better than his enemy. At the same time, a close-up shot of Sean’s face helps viewers better comprehend the man’s feelings when he unmasks his dead pal. Despite his vicious nature, Sean has a strong sense of fidelity and friendship, and this feature makes him similar to Ethan. In such a way, the director tried to emphasize the significance of the traditional Chinese values for all men, either good or evil. The only thing that affects the characters’ behavior is their inner essence: a hero is motivated by a good mission, while a villain wants money and glory.

Violence as a Sign of Hegemonic Masculinity

Violence is another important element in the movie, and Woo depicts it in a highly aestheticized way. Slow-motion shots represent fights in a breathtaking manner, encouraging viewers to get across the themes of friendship, loyalty, and hegemonic masculinity through violence. For example, in the scene where Ethan and Sean ride motorcycles and then continue their battle on land, the director uses many slow-motion shots to emphasize violence. This visual effect helps create a sense of inherent morality in the protagonist’s actions and underlines his heroism in the end. Moreover, Woo’s visual representation of ferocity is what differentiates his films from other similar Hollywood movies. In Western cinematography, Woo’s works are labeled as “heroic bloodshed,” emphasizing the role of violence in male relationships (Ortega 202). In a sexist society, cruelty enlivens the type of relations between two men, making them either contest against each other or unite and fight against their enemies.

Conclusion

Having analyzed the film Mission: Impossible II, directed by John Woo, one can conclude that its main subject is hegemonic masculinity and male relationship. The director uses different elements of the mise-en-scene to reveal this theme and make the viewers comprehend it through rivalry and violence. Woo preserves his Hong-Kong all-male world in this Hollywood movie, adjusting it to American viewers with the help of fierce slow-motion actions and adventures on the screen. Different camera angles, natural lighting, close-ups, and other constituents of the mise-en-scene create a unified image of the good and the evil, friendship and rivalry, hero and antihero. An effective combination of different cultures in one setting makes the movie unique and special, reflecting the above-mentioned issues through diverse perspectives.

Works Cited

Arjet, Robert. “Mission: Impossible II.” Journal of Religion and Film, vol. 4, no. 2, 2000, pp. 1-3.

Higgins, Scott. “Suspenseful Situations: Melodramatic Narrative and the Contemporary Action Film.” Cinema Journal, vol. 47, no. 2, 2008, pp. 74-96.

Ortega, Vicente Rodriguez. “Homoeroticism Contained: Gender and Sexual Translation in John Woo’s Migration to Hollywood.” Gender Meets Genre in Postwar Cinemas, edited by Christine Gledhill, University of Illinois Press, 2012, pp. 191-202.

Szeto, Kin-Yan. “Facing Off East and West in the Cinema of John Woo.” The Marital Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora. Southern Illinois University Press, 2011, pp. 71-97.

Wang, Mengshu. “The Construction of Justice in John Woo’s Films: Culturally Specific or Ethically Universal?” The Asian Conference on Media & Mass Communication, 2016. Web.

Introduction

In every epoch there were different representations of men as symbols of masculinity. Various activities, professions and images replaced each other in different times and different places. One particular activity that almost did not change with time is sport. The word almost, here stands as an approximation, where sports of men accordingly had changed, along with the image of the sportsmen themselves. Various forms of arts such as sculpture, paintings and photography have always tried to correspond to the image of men and manhood.

With the entrance of media these images has shifted in certain way where sportsmen and men in general became a mere visual, although an attracting one, it distanced itself from the real sport and pure masculinity.

In the exhibition titled “Hard Targets—Masculinity and Sport” demonstrated in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the presented works attempted to revise the stereotype of the men athletes. This paper analyzes the ideas presented in the exhibition in general, and the live performance presentation titled “Bull in the Ring” by Shaun Leonardo presented at the exhibition in particular.

The essay reviews the underlying reason of such work in the context of the idea of male identity through history, stating that male identity becomes vague with time and with such demonstration at the exhibition a desire is expressed to revise its initial form.

Masculinity and Art

Athletics and powerful sports have always been men’s interests, where graphical arts, starting from ancient times, propagandized them no less than military deeds. Physical exercises and sport competitions allowed the artists to uncover the potential and the beauty of the male body.

The overwhelming majority of ancient Greeks’ male images were athletes. In the paintings of the nineteenth century, sport scene, were often used mainly to demonstrate beautiful half-naked body, where also the images of athletes, archers and wrestlers, were extremely popular with sculptors at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.

The athletic masculine body as with the sport, started to occupy a noticeable place in the mass culture. The transformation of the sport and the physical culture into a public spectacle, which expanded the possibilities in demonstrating masculine images, affected the image of men implementing the ideology of “muscular masculinity”.

The changes in body ideology resulted in subsequent changes in masculine behavior. Modern men started to take care of their appearance and clothes as much as the women, spending more money and time caring of their body, make up, and etc. A gradual form of blurring the gender stereotypes has occurred, where despite the emphasis of physical activities many of the male distinct characteristics started to disappear.

Sports

A shift occurred at the end of the nineteenth century, the attention of artists was drawn toward the popular and somewhat aesthetically not pleasing sport – boxing. Many artists devoted many of their works to the scenes of desperate boxing fights, where the interest was not as much on the bodies of the boxers, but rather on the tension of the brawls, which was reinforced with the presence of the public.

The presence of the public allowed focusing not only on the bodies of the boxers, but on the gaze on which by which he is directed and in some way creates him. These representations could be paralleled with ancient Rome, where the boxers are gladiators and Caesar is the public.

The interest in boxing as sports and as an inspiration for artistic representation, is mentioned in “George Bellow’s Stag at Sharkey’s: Boxing, Violence, and Male identity” by Robert Haywood, where these representations were far from being close to current image of men and masculinity.

When describing a painting Bellows created from memory of a bout in The Sharkey athletic club, it could be understood the intensity of testosterone from both the public and the boxers and the kind of emotions that are only inherent to men. “Wrapped around the ring’s corner pole are two shouting men who, enthralled by the match, emerge out of the background toward the spotlight ring as if to propel the fighters. The two fighters swell above the boxing ring and crush into each other with excruciating force. The strength of the boxers locking head to head is so insistent that the hefty referee’s efforts to break their clinch seem futile.”

When the author analyzes the motives of such sport, the motives behind it, and the huge interest of male public, he admits that this sport was viewed as combat of barbarians.

The same interest in physical body development that captured the public later in the twentieth century, back then in masculine sports was in “giving the well-developed body a function”. This sport was similar in the representation of brutal masculinity to the fights of gladiators, where similarly the both events represented a sense of eroticism and demonstration of male potency.

The sport allowed discharging of the violence the obsession with which engaged the symbol of the supreme, potent male. In Haywood article the representation of such manly sport was a pure demonstration of masculinity, “boxing provided many men with a forum for understanding and reinforcing a conception of masculinity that was constructed out of conflicting method sand desires”. If relating to the exhibition’s theme in this paper something is missed in modern men.

Shaun Leonardo

Following the same ideology presented in the aforementioned article, Shaun Leonardo does not make a secret of his motives in his artistic works. In his artistic statement on his website Shaun admits that the images of hyper masculine heroes from his childhood as quoted developed “the ongoing tensions between my desires to represent male virility and the vulnerabilities within my identity”.

Shaun works has always been a discussion of issues of masculinity. Having a BA in painting from Bowdon College and MFA in painting from San Francisco Art institute he is famous for his staged performances that implements demonstration of manhood such as the wrestling play called “The Vulnerable vs. The Invincible”.

“He has exhibited work at the RUSH Arts Gallery in New York City, the LAB in San Francisco, the Ice House Cultural Center in Dallas, and the Diego Rivera Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute.”

In his recent work presented in Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a part of “Hard Targets—Masculinity and Sport”, Shaun visual depiction is very simple at first glance. The show starts as a circle of professional football players surround Shaun in circle, going in rounds around him while he turns himself in visible tension. Each of the players in random order charged Shaun unexpectedly.

After each hit, Shaun rose from the ground, those maneuvers continued again, and again. It could be seen that while the actions were expected, the order in which they occurred was improvised and the hits were really hurting Shaun, a fact that did not stop him from repeating this procedure until all of the players made their “hit”.

As the presentation ended viewers applaud while staying in a state of trance, with a written question on their face, about the logic behind this show.

Ina review on The Washington Post “Art and Sports, Meeting on a Level Playing Field” by Jessica Dawson, the author described it as a setup that “mimics a training routine in which one player is attacked from all sides as if he were a matador surrounded by bulls. Meant to sharpen the player’s peripheral awareness, the scrimmage is aggressive, masculine and ritualistic.”

In another review of the exhibition posted on DailyServing.com, Leonardo’s motives were explained as highlighting the sport as “a kind of spectacle of hyper-masculinity” and an examination of “his own tenuous and complicated relationship to his own gender identity”.

Analysis

The works of Leonard, as witnessed by the audience reaction, is more related to the subject addressed to the occurrence of boxing. Although, the football is a popular and a familiar game, the show should be considered neither as a training routine, nor as a setup mimicking a training routine.

The show is more of a demonstration of a desire of a place where the men can demonstrate the masculinity, their built aggressiveness and the accumulated violence. The audience had definitely witnessed similar situations in football, where they might have been more brutal, but still they stayed in confusion.

The same confusion that surrounded boxing at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, as if asking why any person would suffer and engage in such a brutal activity. In the current world of sports where, all engagement is safety first, such demonstration is questioned. Therefore, the show should be taken deeper than it looks like.

There is a direct message that can be followed in the Shaun visual spectacle. Men have to have a function for their body, an “agent for maintaining and reinforcing an ideology of the dominant, virile male.”

It’s still a sport, as it might be understood from the spectacle. No bad blood, no personal feelings, all of the negative emotions inherent and accumulated were left there in the field. They could be left in the ring, in the gym, the main idea that they are not left on boards, on underwear ads, male strip clubs or any other activity that distance the man from his initial masculinity and leave his body without a “function”, and his emotions buried deep within.

Even the title of the show itself was somewhat indicatory ad provocative. Bulls as a remark of fury, and rage, and at the same time it is a reference to bull fights, where matadors are risking their lives fighting a raging bull.

It could be seen that Leonardo was making a parallel of both activities, being the matador that has no fear in front of large men. Similarly, to bull fights the matador is praised for his courage, he’s actions are not always approved or understood.

While “Ring” is a direct reference to sport and as Leonardo had already made shows that implement wrestling, he is familiar to that kind of sports.

The exhibition was demonstrative of its title, with such works as Leonard’s and Collier Schorr’s. However, some of the works were only distantly connected to the theme of the exhibition in a way that some abstract works were far from expressing their idea directly.

In general, stating the sports as one of the factors that hold the theme of the exhibition is a good implication that despite the expressive claims, the sport is the main context within which these works should be considered.

It can be seen that due to the diversity of the ways selected by the artists to express their ideas, technological, abstract, images or shows, all of them are more connected to each other in sport thematic than the issue of masculinity.

Many of the works were not so self-explanatory, in that sense many of the exhibitions supportive materials were a good aid to start. The exhibition was a good experience and the works were innovative and informative, and while the ideas are not new the originality of each work in delivering those ideas helped assessing the main theme from a new perspective.

Conclusion

In developed societies the tendency to establish the culture of behavior is a good sign to eliminate violence. Thus, the focus on sport is a good way to remain in the area of social life culture and at the same time give chances of body expression, which in the era of elimination of gender distinctions is rarely given. The depiction of masculinity in art throughout history is an indicator that this issue has always been a subject of interest and concern. The exhibition in that sense is no different, the works of the exhibition obviously point out that there was a shift made in the standard masculinity stereotype. Some works, showed the results of such shift, others such as Shaun Leonardo’s work, show signs of alertness and awareness. The main conclusion is a general call to revise these positions, and there is no better way to revise it than implementing sports in our lives.

References

Dawson, J.. (2008). In Art and Sports, Meeting on a Level Playing Field. (chap. Wshington Post). Web.

Derrick, A.. (2007). In The Battle Continues: The Vulnerable vs. The Invincible. Web.

Haywood, R. (1988). George Bellows’s “Stag at Sharkey’s”: Boxing, Violence, and Male Identity. Smithsonian Studies in American Art, 2 (2), pp. 3-15.

Lee, S.. (2008). In Hard Targets: Masculinity and Sports @ LACMA. (chap. Daily Serving). Web.

Leonardo, S. In Shaun El C. Leonardo. (chap. ARTIST STATEMENT). 2008. Web.