I remember in an episode of Martin, the story line consisted of Martin finding out that his girlfriend Gina makes significantly more money than he does. Martin immediately becomes upset because Martin’s friends were present at the time, and it consequently sparked a feeling of weakness and “emasculation.”
Also in an episode of Family Guy, Lois is convinced by her friend Bonnie, Joe Swanson’s wife (the one who has been pregnant for about 8 seasons), to take Tae Jitsui. Lois becomes extremely good and she is even invited by the sensei to take advanced classes. She develops (or better yet, reveals), her violent side with the help of tae jitsui. When the other women in the dojo were asked to compete against Lois, they refuse, scared and possibly not well trained like Lois. Lois then violates the sensei’s rules by challenging and actually beating him. The teacher has now become the student. At the peak of her adrenaline and aggression, Lois pulls Peter towards her, kisses him, grabs his penis and says “This is mine. This is where my babies come from.” Completely embarrassed and mortified, Peter stands in shock as the whole audience is left with their mouths open and eyes bulging out the sockets.
The result of Lois taking Tae jitsui is chaos. Peter dislikes the new Lois, and even claims to have been emasculated during sexual intercourse. “Last night,” he explains to Brian with a facial expression as if he were traumatized, “Lois was THE MAN.” One can infer that “THE MAN” can only be that Lois took on Peter’s usual role as the dominant figure last night. Again the unpleasant look upon his face shows that Peter did not enjoy it, but was rather used to provide the sexual pleasure and not get any in return, which was Lois’s original role.
What I find interesting is, Peter in the beginning, used Lois to beat up other men when he stirred up controversy. In fact, this whole Tae Jitsui thing began after Lois sucker punched a man who attacked Peter. As a reflex, she did what she could to help Peter. Who would simply stand and watch the person they love suffer a beating? For Peter’s own personal amusement, he took Lois everywhere he went like a cool new toy, displaying her cool “tricks” to everyone. He even went as far as selling tickets to his neighbors to see “Lois in action.”
When it came down to his own masculinity, Peter no longer found Lois’s antics amusing, especially when it came to sex. Forced into an unusual and as Peter may put it, “unacceptable” role during their sexual encounter, he felt less than a man. Similar to the episode of Martin mentioned earlier, it could be said that ideas such as money and sexuality govern a man’s masculinity. When one of these ideas, for example the size of one’s manhood, is challenged by another man, the man who “lacks” in that department may have his pride affected the most. Whereas in this episode of Family Guy, Lois’s heightened aggression and sexuality sends Peter into great despair.
So what does this mean? Could it be that a woman has the ability to emasculate a man if she excels and he lacks or isn’t up to par? How could a woman make a man feel less than a MAN? This seems pretty impossible, but if we consider how society and the media have constructed the role of a man, then a woman can actually “emasculate” any man.
When I think back, being the youngest of two brothers and two sisters, the lessons were definitely different. My sisters were encouraged to find a man who “had something going for themselves” and by that, I think my parents actually meant “He better have a job that pays more than minimum wage, and he BETTER NOT live with his mother.” I do agree with my parents. Though it is very difficult to survive on some of the considerably decent salaries, life would be less stressful than having absolutely no income at all. For my brothers, however, the lesson was more about finding a woman who is independent but can rely on you for anything. I know it seems a little challenging to follow, but think about the overall lesson: a man should want a woman who can do for herself, but she shouldn’t have to do it ALL and a woman should want a man who can provide for himself.
Women are raised with heavy expectations of men and men are instilled with expectations from childhood. When a man feels that he has not met these expectations, based on what his family, friends and environment has defined a man to be, he is forced to question or doubt his masculinity, just like Peter and Martin.
Action and thriller movies in particular place a heavy emphasis on masculinity in forms of strength and “bad-ass” attitudes. Is it possible to resolve the problem if the actors had roles that pertained to heartbreaks and maternity?
No comments:
Post a Comment