Videos on Masculinity

A WMST-L request in July 2002 for a video illustrating the social
construction of gender produced a number of suggestions, mostly for
videos about masculinity.  Part 2 contains later messages on a
similar topic.  For additional WMST-L files available on the Web,
see the WMST-L File Collection.

PART 1 OF 2

In my 200 level gender class I have been using the video Men's Lives to
illustrate the social construction of gender, but it is pretty dated now
(1974).  I love The Eye of the Storm/A Class Divided but it more closely
applies to a discussion of race.  Do any of you have any videos that you
would recommend for the social construction of gender?

Thanks in advance.

Mirelle

Mirelle Cohen
Assistant Professor
Comparative Sociology
University of Puget Sound
1500 North Warner Street, #1092
Tacoma, WA, 98416-1092
USA
Email: mcohen    AT    ups.edu

"Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity" produced by the
Media Education Foundation www.mediaed.org is great!

Sandra Basgall

I heartily agree with Sandra Basgall about Jackson Katz's video, Tough
Guise.  There are two versions (one is over an hour; the other is about 57
minutes).  Either is good, although the longer version has a bit more
political commentary.  I use the shorter version in my course on gendered
violence, and men and women alike love it.  Most recently, one young woman
felt compelled to defend fraternity men and athletes (in response to some
of Katz's discussion of the culture of violence).  In response, one
fraternity man said, "Well, I can't speak for athletes, but that's how
fraternities are."  Then the football player in my class said, "And that's
how athletes are, too."  I couldn't have planned it better.

Claire Kaplan

Coordinator, UVA Sexual Assault Education Office
Doctoral Candidate, Curry School of Education
UVA Women's Center  *  P.O. Box 800588 *  Charlottesville VA  *  22908-0588
ckaplan    AT    virginia.edu
http://sexualassault.virginia.edu

[re: video Tough Guise]

> Most recently, one young woman
> felt compelled to defend fraternity men and athletes (in response to some
> of Katz's discussion of the culture of violence).  In response, one
> fraternity man said, "Well, I can't speak for athletes, but that's how
> fraternities are."  Then the football player in my class said, "And that's
> how athletes are, too."  I couldn't have planned it better.

I'm not sure if it's still available, but a video that I use to address
these issues is MEN'S WORK: FRATERNITY MEN STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST
WOMEN.  It is a videotaping (about 45 min) of a yearlong seminar
offered at West Chester University in Pennsylvania called the
Fraternity Violence Education Project.  This is a peer-led course
involving fraternity men, coordinated by Deborah Mahlstedt, professor
of psychology.  The video is compelling because it addresses issues of
power and the construction of masculinity, but you get to hear all
about it from college men who are taking or leading the class.  It's
also very heartening to see young men getting involved in social change
to prevent gender violence.

My university bought its copy through Debbie Mahlstedt.

Cheers, Maria

---
Maria Bevacqua, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Women's Studies
Minnesota State University
Mankato, Minn.  56001
maria.bevacqua    AT    mnsu.edu

There is a video from Films for the Humanities, I believe, called "The Gender
Tango".  It is narrated by Susan Sarandon and very accessible for students new
to the subject.

There is also a film called, "Gender, The Enduring Paradox".

Unfortunately, I am unable to provide you with the proper citations for these
movies but you should not have too much trouble finding them.

-Rosemary Dixon
rdixon    AT    unr.edu

>
>I heartily agree with Sandra Basgall about Jackson Katz's video, Tough
>Guise.

I agree that  "Tough Guise" has some interesting parts that do provoke
useful class discussion, but at the same time, Katz has a tin ear/eye when
it comes to analyzing popular culture -- especially hip hop and rap music --
and clips from complex movies, like the Godfather, are taken entirely out of
context and manipulated to fit Katz's one-dimensional arguments

I find this often happens quite often in analyses of pop culture -- not just
feminist ones -- by academics or social critics that don't seem to
understand, like, or even watch or listen to pop culture. I find students
pick up on this very quickly and tend to dismiss any valid points made by
people like Katz as a result


Jacqueline Ellis, Assistant Professor
Women's and Gender Studies
New Jersey City University
Jersey City, NJ 07305

> I find students
> pick up on this very quickly and tend to dismiss any valid points made by
> people like Katz as a result

I have not found this to be true with Tough Guise.  My students felt they
got a lot out of it.

Arnie

--
Arnie Kahn   
kahnas    AT    jmu.edu
Dept. of Psych.-MSC 7401, James Madison U., Harrisonburg, VA 22807

In a class I took, we used the film The Full Monty to discuss issues
of the body and masculinity. It prompted some very good discussion on
class issues as well.  

Kim Cordingly kcording    AT    wvu.edu

The Smell of Burning Ants is a very provocative take on men & violence.
Harriet

___________
Harriet Hartman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road
Glassboro, NJ 08028
hartman    AT    rowan.edu

I'm grateful to those who commented on these videos.  There aren't that
many that are really great, but I've used several of those mentioned and
found them successful at raising important issues.

I do like the two videos that I am in: "Gender: The Enduring Paradox"
despite its awful atmospheric mood music in the transitions, and "The
Assault on Gay America" that was the Frontline show on PBS, still being
broadcast, that discusses homophobia and its connection to men's violence.


I also think that the short version of Tough Guise is the best of the lot.
My students have been very eager to engage with the film, including all of
the reactions that others have made (women comeing to the rescue of men,
for example), which makes it a terrific pedagogical item, since it raises
issues, takes a strong stand against and with which students can wrestle.
I'm a big fan.

There are a few other films that people might want to check out.

Byron Hurt's I AM A MAN: BLACK MASCULINITY IN AMERICA (1hour)
Byron is a colleague and collaborator of Jackson Katz's who spun off to do
his own video.  It's quite good.  Order from: God Bless the Child
Productions, 58 Acorn Ave, Central Islip, NY 11722.  You can contact Byron
at hurtgbc    AT    aol.com

Tom Weidlinger's BOYS WILL BE MEN (1 hour)
very psychological video about boy's development, features mostly Bill
Pollack and Michael Thompson talking about their ideas about boys.  Then
the film takes, in my view, a very wrong turn by spending close to 15-20
minutes following a group of white boyts on a wilderness experience for a
few weeks, and then a multiracial group doing a workshop with mythopoet
Michael Meade for a weekend.  Still quite good on bullying, with a great
focus group that invites teenage boys to talk about the meaning of "that's
so gay."  Order from Bullfrog Films, or at www.boyswillbemen.com

The best film about collegiate masculinity that I have ever seen is very
hard to find.  It's called FRAT HOUSE and it is by Todd Phillips and Andrew
Gurland, for HBO original films in 1996.  The two producers got a few
fraternities at various schools to allow them to film initiation rituals,
etc., as long as the film makers themselves went through it.  It is very
difficult to watch the brutality of the initiations, and it will make you
instantly want to begin a  campaign to ban fraternities.  So, incendiary as
it is, HBO refused to air it.

Copies seem to be floating around though, and Phillips and Gurland actually
give talks on campuses and show the video.  If you can, see it.

Michael

***********************
Michael Kimmel
Brooklyn, NY
michaelskimmel    AT    compuserve.com
www.michaelkimmel.com

>
>The best film about collegiate masculinity that I have ever seen is very
>hard to find.  It's called FRAT HOUSE and it is by Todd Phillips and Andrew
>Gurland, for HBO original films in 1996.  The two producers got a few
>fraternities at various schools to allow them to film initiation rituals,
>etc., as long as the film makers themselves went through it.  It is very
>difficult to watch the brutality of the initiations, and it will make you
>instantly want to begin a  campaign to ban fraternities.  So, incendiary as
>it is, HBO refused to air it.

I had understood that FRAT HOUSE didn't air because Phillips and Gurland had
staged some of the most controversial scenes, rather than because of its
brutality (HBO doesn't seem to have a problem with violence generally). Is
this not true?

J


Jacqueline Ellis, Assistant Professor
Women's and Gender Studies
New Jersey City University
Jersey City, NJ 07305
(201) 200 3170

I discovered the following article online on the film
http://www.impossiblefunky.com/archives/issue_9/9_frat.htm which raises
interesting questions about the limits of documentary. I plan to use this
article with my class in the fall to raise precisely those questions about
documentary's claims to reproduce "reality."

Laurie Finke
Kenyon College
finkel    AT    kenyon.edu

One of my favorites is Gender: The Enduring Paradox.

This review was taken from the ABC-CLIO Video Rating Guide for Libraries on
CD-ROM, a 5-year compilation of over 8900
video titles and reviews, 1990-1994.


Smithsonian World

     Gender: The Enduring Paradox
     Rating: *****
     Audience: High School to Adult
     Price: Public performance: $49.95
     Date: Copyright 1991. Released 1991.
     Descriptors: Sociology. Anthropology. Sex roles.
     Production Information: Live action. Color. 60 min.
     Production Company: WETA, Washington
     Available from: PBS Video 1320 Braddock Pl. Alexandria, VA 22314-1698
(703)739-5380
     Cataloging: 305.3 Sex differences - Psychological aspects||Sex roles
     Print Entry #: 2:1389
     Reviewer: David Hoppe

Gender: The Enduring Paradox offers a circuitous, complex journey through the
questions and issues relating to the biological fact that
female and male human beings are not the same. But how different from one
another are they? While stopping short of drawing any
definitive conclusions, this program charts a course as gracefully sinuous as
the bodies of the dancers who provide its leitmotif, raising
resonant questions and delivering provocative information along the way.

Less than 13 percent of American families fit the stereotype of a female
homemaker/male breadwinner configuration. Nevertheless, this
image persists in society, even haunting those who reject it. Produced for
the Smithsonian World series, this video assembles a
tremendous array of anthropologists, sociologists, writers, psychologists,
and assorted other researchers and observers, who all point out
not only the paradoxes inherent in humankind's sexual identity, but also the
poignancy.

After probing the roots of cultural imagery and stereotyping, the program
goes on to explore the ramifications of these constructs as they
apply to violence against women and the dilemma of the black experience, in
which women are compelled to adopt male attitudes
without the concomitant acquisition of power. The respect for androgyny as
being "blessed by two spirits," found among some Native
American tribes, is addressed, raising the question that lies at the heart of
this program: can our society learn to simultaneously embrace
human differences and equality?

This elegant production presents the variegated tapestry of human gender
without resorting to oversimplification. Production values are
topnotch throughout, a live-action blend of evocative imagery and handsomely
presented talking-heads sequences - talking heads, it
should be added, that have consistently striking things to say.

This video is recommended for use in high school and college classes as well
as for adult audiences. Anyone pondering questions of
gender will find it an enlightening viewing experience.


Hope this info helps.

Monica

**********************************
Monica D. Lange, Ph.D.
Women's Studies Program
California State University Long Beach
1250 Bellflower Bl.
Long Beach, CA 90840
paradoxmdl    AT    aol.com