Stereotypes Of Masculinity In The Media

The media plays a huge role in people’s opinions and thoughts without people realizing. If you were to ask a child what the role of a man was, chances are you would get an answer like “A man is to provide for his family” or “A man is to protect his family and be strong and focused”. We first start to form thoughts and opinions at a young age. Here is a video on Disney movies that most kids would have seen a number of times that would have influenced their minds:

From this video kids learn that women belong to men, they have to be strong and then fighting another man is to prove your masculinity. With media so big it has a huge influence in these thoughts. And it is not until we are older that we realize that what we see on TV is not actually how men are. The media portrays men to have a number of stereotypes, power/control, being strong, and an alpha and as we all know a lack of emotion. Not only are these stereotypes but this is what people are defining a “real” man as. If a man does not meet these then are they a man. Really once you are male then you are a man no matter what. But thanks to the media the title of being a man has requirements and expectations. This then leaves males to try put a front on and it’s not until they find trust in someone that they can feel they can show the true them. As a society we should not have to hide. Here is a link to a page that has a video that men have talked about masculinity and their views on it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/what-masculinity-means-to-men_n_6527710.html

These stereotypes are still dominant but in the last few years I have seen a change in this. We see that the roles of stereotypes have not only been broke but near flipped around. If we take Melissa and Joey for example. Melissa is a politician, she provides for her niece and nephew. She is the one that is strong and in power. But Joey has fallen from power and has become a “manny”. He is the one that cooks, keeps the place clean and who the teens go to if they need advice. This is a prime example of what life is really like now a days. We see that men do have feelings and that women can be on a higher level than men and that men are ok with this.

We now see that media is slowly changing their stereotypes, but manly in sitcoms. In order for these stereotypes to change us we need reality TV to show the real side of men but personally I don’t think this will be happening anytime soon.