The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (12 page)

M
ass media do the work of continually indoctrinating boys and men, teaching them the rules of patriarchal thinking and practice. One of the primary reasons the feminist demand that we challenge and change patriarchy had so little impact on males was that the theory was primarily expressed in books. Most men were not buying or reading feminist books. During the peak moments of white female-led contemporary feminist movement, the late sixties and early seventies, male authors contributed books that took on the issues of destructive masculinity, critiquing patriarchy. Books such as
The Male Machine, Men’s Liberation, The Liberated Man, The Limits of Masculinity, For Men against Sexism, Being a Man,
and
White Hero, Black Beast
challenged male passive acceptance of stereotyped sex roles.

These books and the discussions they generated had nowhere near the impact on male consciousness that feminist books focusing on womanhood were having on female consciousness. For the most part these white male writers did not strive to reconceptualize masculinity; instead they encouraged men to learn behavior patterns previously associated with females. They all agreed that economic changes coupled with changes in the status of women had produced a crisis in masculinity.

Within modern advanced capitalist society, masculine power was traditionally seen as synonymous with the ability of males to provide financially. However, as more and more women have gained access to the work sphere, the sphere of provision, this centrally defining attribute of patriarchal masculinity has lost significance. Gender equality in the workforce freed lots of men to speak their truth that they were not necessarily interested in the role of provider. Many men were happy with the idea that feminism was teaching women that they should pay their own way. Concurrently, as feminist movement and the so-called sexual revolution changed the notion that sexual action and initiation were exclusively the province of males, another signifier of patriarchal masculinity lost meaning. Gender-based changes in the workforce and in sexual politics meant that sex roles were modified for a vast majority of people, especially females, yet even so, patriarchal notions of masculinity remained intact, even when those notions did not have a reality base. Hence the crisis in masculinity. A traditional institutionalized patriarchal social order was being challenged and changed even as there were no major changes in sexist thinking.

Men experiencing this crisis could either cling for security and safety to the underlying assumptions of patriarchal ideology or they could ally themselves with feminist efforts and struggle to create new conceptions of masculinity, new possibilities for the social formation of male identity. The men who chose change, who dared to ally themselves with feminist movement, were often gay or bisexual or in heterosexual relationships with radical feminist women. Many women in these relationships found that the men in their lives lost interest in transforming masculinity after the initial feminist fervor subsided.

Mainstream mass media, particularly movies and television, reflected the contradictions even as they continued to reinforce patriarchal thinking and action. Most men chose not to change, and conservative mass media supported their staying in place. Men’s continued allegiance to a notion of masculinity that could no longer be fully realized on the old terms led them to place greater emphasis on their ability to dominate and control by physical force and abusive psychological terrorism. Compelled to work in a public arena where men no longer asserted patriarchal control (job supervisors and higher-ranking bosses might be female), these men could fully enact rituals of patriarchal domination only in the private sphere. As a consequence, despite feminist changes in the area of work, incidences of male violence against women and children were escalating. Mass media, especially television talk shows, focused on male violence without linking that focus to ending patriarchy. Male domination of women simply became a new form of mass entertainment (hence the money-making spectacle of the O. J. Simpson trial). In social relationships with other men outside the sphere of work, men were more compelled than ever to enact rituals of domination. Among black males, black-on-black homicide fast became the leading cause of death for males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five.

In the world of television, shows directed at children never stopped their sexist myth making. One of the most popular children’s shows with a subtext about masculinity was
The Incredible Hulk.
A favorite of boys from diverse class and racial backgrounds, this show was instrumental in teaching the notion that for a male, the exertion of physical force (brutal and monstrous) was a viable response to all situations of crisis. When a sociologist asked young male viewers what they would do if they had the power of the Hulk, they said that they would smash their mommies. The Hulk was the precursor for the Power Ranger toys that are still popular along with more recent video games which allow boys to engage in violent ritualized play.

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 Ehrenreich’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 color 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 (like the hero of a popular adult drama,
The Fugitive)
unable to form sustained emotional bonds with friends or family, he cannot love. He thrives on disconnection and disassociation. Like the men of the Beat generation, like the more recent men of Generation X, he is the symbol of the ultimate patriarchal man—alone, on the road, forever drifting, driven by the beast within.

The Incredible Hulk
linked sexism and racism. The cool, level-headed, rational white-male scientist turned into a colored beast whenever his passions were aroused. Tormented by the knowledge of this transformation, he searches for a cure, a way to disassociate himself from the beast within. Writing about the connection between racism and the construction of masculinity in
White Hero, Black Beast,
Paul Hoch contends, “There is indeed a close interaction 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’ or over the barbarian beasts of other—in some sense, ‘darker’—races, nations and social castes.” Recent movies like
Men in Black, Independence Day,
and
The Matrix
rely on these racialized narratives of dark versus light to valorize patriarchal white masculinity in the realm of fantasy. In our actual lives the imperialist white-supremacist policies of our government lead to enactments of rituals of white-male violent domination of a darker universe, as in both the Gulf War and the most recent war against Iraq. 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.

The popularization of gangsta rap, spearheaded by white male executives in the music industry, gave a public voice to patriarchy and woman-hating. However, by promoting the voices of young black males (in the beginning many of whom were coming from the underclass), ruling-class white males could both exploit their clients’ longing for the trappings of patriarchal masculinity (money, power, sex) and simultaneously make their antifeminist messages the lessons that young white males would learn. Just as the conservative white men who control our government use individual black males—for example, Colin Powell—to preach the gospel of war to the American public (affirming the idea that the darker other is the threat that the heroic white male must annihilate), mass media demonization of black males as the epitome of brutal patriarchal masculinity deflects attention away from the patriarchal masculinity of white men and its concomitant woman-hating.

One of the ways patriarchal white males used mass media to wage the war against feminism was to consistently portray the violent woman-hating man as aberrant and abnormal. A perfect example of the lengths to which patriarchal white men will go to deny their patriarchal violence is offered in the PBS documentary about the Hillside Strangler. Viewers are able to watch psychiatrists talk with a white male serial killer who murdered adult women and two girls. It is a tale told in parts, each part highly dramatic and suspenseful. Viewers learn that the accused is a handsome, all-American white boy (I use the word “boy” because the commentators refer again and again to his boyish qualities) with a lovely blond wife and a baby son. We are told that he does not have the appearance of a villain, a killer. We learn that he is hardworking, well liked, etc. All these qualities made detectives and police (all white and male) reluctant to arrest him. He seemed to them to be an “unlikely suspect.” Even after his arrest, white-male mental health care professionals were brought on the case to at least provide documentation that if this all-American white male did indeed commit all these violent crimes against females, he did so because he was insane.

Finally a shrewd doctor uncovers that the accused has been pretending to be insane to escape punishment. It seems he studied psychology before he committed his crimes so that he would know how to appear crazy. When the doctor finally “unmasks” him, the Hillside Strangler states, “A woman is nothing to me. I can kill her in a minute.” As the trial closes and the white male judge reads his final comments on the case, he tells viewers that the Hillside Strangler was a misogynist, a man who hated women. Yet the judge does not link this misogyny to patriarchy or sexism or male domination. Instead we are told that the man’s mother whipped him to express her anger toward a violent, no-good gambler husband. In the final analysis a woman is blamed for this man’s violence against women—another case of “She made me do it.” Nothing is said of his rationally thought-out strategy of dissimulation or of the way he deceived many women and other people by pretending to be a nice guy, by impersonating the benevolent patriarch.

Since contemporary feminist movement, the genre of the mystery novel has exploited such feminist issues as domestic violence, rape, and incest to create male villains who are misogynists. Novels from
Jagged Edge
to the more recent
The Analysand
exploit feminist themes even as they uphold the need for patriarchal violence. In a real world where more than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed by men, it is not surprising that popular culture offers both negative and positive models of the masculine. Woman-hating dominator men are consistently depicted as loners, who may have been abused as children and who were not able to adjust in normal society. Ironically, these “bad” men share the same character traits as the “good” men who hunt them down and slaughter them. In both cases the men dissimulate (take on various appearances and disguises to manipulate others’ perception of their identity), and they lack the ability to connect emotionally with others.

In contemporary films such as
Good Will Hunting
the sensitive man is shown to have a violent undercurrent. In the movie Will is the working-class young adult who has the opportunity to become a healthy male if he can confront his traumatic childhood and learn to feel again. He is a cinematic portrait of a man in patriarchal culture trying to reclaim connections. Terrence Real writes about the film:

This patriarchal code is passed own through generations. The award-winning film
Monster’s Ball
depicts three generations of white men: the ruling patriarch, who is a victim of hard living, drinking, and smoking, his obedient patriarchal son, who works as a prison warden, and the third generation, the grandson, who is also following in the footsteps of his elders.

To realize the patriarchal masculine ideal, these white men must learn to disconnect from their feelings. The ruling patriarch addresses his son with verbal abuse, telling him that “Your mother wasn’t shit.” Shaming is the way he maintains control. Racist and misogynist, he is blindly followed by his son until that moment when the grandson, who is deemed weak because he is antiracist and able to feel, confronts his father. The boy asks why the father does not love him and then shoots himself in the mouth. His suicide brings an end to the patriarchal cycle and leads to the transformation of his dad, who seeks redemption among the black people he has previously hated. No other contemporary film exposes the evil of patriarchy as masterfully as
Monster’s Ball.
The path to redemption requires the repudiation of white-male patriarchal rule. Yet as in many of the films that portray men resisting patriarchy, in the end the shift is merely a move from violent dominator patriarch to benevolent nice-guy patriarch.