It’s easy to turn a blind eye to the ills of mass media. You may even be wondering why it is a big deal. This quote from Silverstein should ring sirens in your head. She clarifies:
“Men aren’t surviving very well! We send them to war to kill and be killed… They’re dying of heart attacks in early middle age, killing themselves with liver and lung disease via many pursuits of drinking and smoking, committing suicide at roughly four times the rate of women, becoming victims of homicide (generally at the hands of other men) three times as often as women, and therefore living about eight years less than women. And I would add that many men striving to prove patriarchal masculinity through acts of brutal and unnecessary violence are imprisoned for life.”
If that did not get your attention, just the previous day with friends, I learned of two brutal murders. One was of a stabbing, while the other, which happened in my neighborhood, was a shot to the head by robbers. Grapevine reveals that the guy was asleep, and some of you still take it for granted that they were able to wake up this morning.
It is an undisputable fact that mainstream mass media, movies and television above all, keep the ball rolling to buttress patriarchal thinking and action. I summon into mind what I saw in a South African movie ages ago. In the scene, black guys from the township were watching a heist in a movie then went to employ the very same heist strategy afterwards. In short, the movie encouraged criminality.
Hooks goes to great lengths enunciating a TV show and movie examples connecting them to patriarchal Achilles heels that even extend to racism. She observes:
“The hero of The Incredible Hulk, like the many television and movie heroes that have come in his wake, is the perfect candidate for inclusion in Barbara Ehnreich’s book The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment. He is a man always on the run, unable to develop lasting ties or intimacy. A scientist by training (the ultimate personification of rational man), when he experiences anger, he turns into a creature of colour and commits violent acts. After committing violence, he changes back to his normal white male rational self. He has no memory of his actions and therefore cannot assume responsibility for them. Since he is unable to form sustained emotional bonds with friends or family, he cannot love. He thrives on disconnection and disassociation… he is the symbol of the ultimate patriarchal man – alone, on the road, forever drifting, driven by the beast within.”
Hooks continues and declares that The Incredible Hulk can be circuited with sexism and racism. I was taken aback. She justifies:
“…in White Hero, Black Beast, Paul Hoch contends that there is indeed a close connection between the predominant Western conception of manhood and that of racial (and species) domination. The notion, originally from myth and fable, is that the summit of masculinity – the white hero – achieves his manhood, first and foremost, by winning victory over the dark beast…- in some sense, ‘darker’ – races, nations and social castes.”
Hooks warns that by making it appear that the threatening masculinity – the rapist, the terrorist, the murderer – is really a dark other, white male patriarchs are able to deflect attention away from their own misogyny, from their violence against women and children. Similar narrative patterns can be witnessed even in novels.
The summary tunnel is not all dark, the light at the end is from contemporary movies such as Monster Ball. Briefly, the movie shows intergenerational racism and patriarchy until a grandson breaks the pattern with suicide. The fruit is the transformation of his dad who seeks redemption among black people he previously loathed. There is another movie she talks about called Goodwill Hunting that illustrates a story of choice to love, to live, breach the patriarchal model and free the spirit.
In conclusion, with the mass media having power to demonstrate possibilities, open minded men should use it to teach men of all ages how to love. Additionally, we should be careful of the underlying messages of what we watch and hear on mass media and be vigilant enough to forewarn those close to us of harmful messages.
The succeeding chapter is about healing the male spirit. The book is The Will to Change by Bell Hooks.