"Tough Guise"

I really enjoyed the movie "Tough Guise," because I felt like it brought interesting ideas to the concept of violence in our society. Violence in America is committed 90% of the time by men. Our society naturally assumes that men are responsible for violence. When you look at newspapers, the headlines focus on the victims of male-committed crimes and the perpetrators of female-committed crimes. The newspapers do not state male-perpetrators in headlines to avoid being over-obvious. Yet, society may need the over-obvious to be stated to openly connect gender with current violence issues.

There is definitely an uprising to the feminist movements from men like Dice Clay and Howard Stern. Both of these white men attract an audience through degrading women both sexually and professionally. The audience that these shows attract is often men who are not comfortable with the rising power of women. It is sad that such men have to listen to degrading humor to make themselves feel important.

In politics, feminist power is seen as threatening to the right wing. Extreme right-winged people want to see America like it was in the 50s, where men worked and where women were in the household. Ronald Reagan took office immediately after many advancements in feminism, racial equality, and gay rights. These rights began to decline after Reagan was in office. Another right-winged politician who is anti-feminism is Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh creates negative images of what he considers the "typical feminist."

The last interesting bit from "Tough Guise" that I want to mention is male action figures. Since the woman's rights movement, the arms in male action figures have increased dramatically in size. In comparison, the ideal female figure has decreased in size, becoming more frail. In the 50s, Marylin Monroe was a fashion icon at a size 12. Today, Kate Moss is a size 2. Men in the media have become bigger while women have become smaller. Is this a way for high powered men to take control of increasing female power? "Tough Guise" suggests it is.

I really enjoyed the movie "Tough Guise." It addressed some feminist issues with the media that I was not previously aware of. It was interesting for me to see how politics and the media have worked together to portray messages to the American public, as in the increased body size of male action figures or in the character Rambo, who was created to redefine masculinity after loosing the Vietnam war. The concluding message of the movie was that men need to individually have the courage to stand up to the "Tough Guise" stereotype and to support girls and women in their search for equality. I feel this message is really positive, and it gives hope for woman's rights and decreased violence against women.