Hey, Tough Guy!

One of the first movies that I remember seeing as a kid was Top Gun. I know that I saw movies before that but that is the one that sticks out the most. Maverick and Goose, Ice man and Slider; those guys were so cool. The reason they were so cool to a young boy is pretty obvious. They got to fly in bad ass planes, they didn't take shit from anyone and they got the girls and the glory. I didn't realize it at the time but movies like Top Gun  portray what our culture believes masculinity should be. Boys have been brought up in our society to think that being tough, and often disrespectful, is the way that a "real man" is supposed to behave. This is what is being portrayed in our cultures movies, music and television and while this depiction of a "man" has certainly been around for a long time it has started to lose some of the moral lessons that the old westerns and war films depicted. The distinction between "good" and "bad" is getting harder to distinguish and social etiquette is almost non existent in movies today. While those old westerns might have been violent there was at least a clear distinction between right and wrong.

I believe that it is no coincidence that school violence and bullying are on the rise and our entertainment choices are getting darker and darker. I think that part of this has to do with the way that the role of family has changed over the decades. There is more and more independence for kids and they are seeing and listening to things at ages that were unheard of when I was growing up. These depictions of super macho men has made it very difficult for boys today to act in any other way without being dubbed a "pussy" or "faggot". Although the movies and television do perpetuate these stereotypes, the blame can not be put on them. It has to be put on us as a society. Hollywood is simply giving us what we want, which is often stylized violence where the star has a "perfect" body and he gets the girl. I don't know what the answer to help turn these views around is but hopefully it can be changed sooner rather than later.