In an effort to tackle the concept of being “masculine” I
decided to take a look at the documentary film, Mansome directed by
Morgan Spurlock, the director of other “gems” such as supersize me, and wherein the world is Osama bin laden, What I was looking for was information on what we as a
society see and believe to be typical gender norms for “men,” I tried to identify a hegemonic masculinity. Antonio Gramsci talks about hegemony in his Prison Notebooks, and I think looking at spontaneous consent will help identify a shift in Hegemonic masculinity. Manliness being identified as the rough and rugged working man, who loves sports, cars and beer, but shifting to include more less typically "manly" options. I would argue in part due the ability to sell products to men that have not typically been purchased, like a variety of skin care products as an example.
Mansome focused mostly on male grooming habits and the variety of options and how each fits into the definition of "masculine". In the film we saw Jack Passion a competitive “bearder” who believes that a beard is a sign of adult masculinity, at one point in the film he says that the hair on his head is his childhood hair and that the beard is his adult hair, meaning that by wearing a beard he is displaying to the world that he is a grown “man” worthy of the respect due to such a position. This position is dichotomized by Ricky Manchanda, who is a fashion buyer and self-proclaimed “metrosexual,” it is interesting that Ricky is employed as a fashion buying which may be considered a non-traditional profession for a male, and that “metrosexual” grooming practises are traditionally linked to femininity, but have become more common and excepted, and as the editor-in-chief of cosmopolitan magazine thinks, expected.
the whole time that the movie is taking place we see Jason Bateman and Will Arnett (Let's go to jail (2006) isn't as bad as RT says) as the spa discussing what it means to be a man and masculinity in general
Mansome focused mostly on male grooming habits and the variety of options and how each fits into the definition of "masculine". In the film we saw Jack Passion a competitive “bearder” who believes that a beard is a sign of adult masculinity, at one point in the film he says that the hair on his head is his childhood hair and that the beard is his adult hair, meaning that by wearing a beard he is displaying to the world that he is a grown “man” worthy of the respect due to such a position. This position is dichotomized by Ricky Manchanda, who is a fashion buyer and self-proclaimed “metrosexual,” it is interesting that Ricky is employed as a fashion buying which may be considered a non-traditional profession for a male, and that “metrosexual” grooming practises are traditionally linked to femininity, but have become more common and excepted, and as the editor-in-chief of cosmopolitan magazine thinks, expected.
the whole time that the movie is taking place we see Jason Bateman and Will Arnett (Let's go to jail (2006) isn't as bad as RT says) as the spa discussing what it means to be a man and masculinity in general
The film used an approach
that really in the end gave no definitive explanation about what is or is not
masculine which is in line with the belief in the social construction of what
is masculine versus what is feminine, and the shifting nature of hegemony. Maybe in the end it's all just a huge scam to get us to buy certain products and engage in certain activities.
So Ultimately I guess we get to make our own choices about what is a masculine grooming habit, maybe that's just a bit of unpacked male privilage.
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