Essay #1

1)
“Jesus, we have a fraternity in the house!” shouted the host. The audience exploded into cheers, yells, and whistles, as the majority was indeed frat guys. I was attending the Laugh Factory for the first time and I was excited to see what kind of talent that would unexpectedly drop by and kill the audience. You never knew when people like Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, or Dane Cook, love him or hate him, would hop on stage and perform. Unfortunately, this was not one of those nights. The talent however, was still good, the food was better, and as long as the drinks kept coming, I was a happy camper. As I sat there listening to the routines, I noticed a similar trend in jokes that never seem to get old with the crowd….relationships. Ah yes, when in doubt, bust out the marriage routines. One by one, each comedian would whine about how much his marriage sucked or how his kids hated him because he could never do anything right, further dwindling himself into self-deprecation to the enjoyment of the audience. Now granted, this was a comedy club, so of course they’re going to put themselves down in order to get a few laughs. But as I sat there, I began to ask myself, why is it that over the last few years, has there been an increasing trend in the media to portray men as dim-witted idiots? Idiots who are completely submissive and lack any kind of spine that would allow for them to stand up for themselves? It was an issue I had recently began to think about, so I decided that I would look into it a little more closely.

Turn on the television and there it is. Shows like “Everybody Loves Raymond” or “The King of Queens”, featuring the husband who every episode gets an earful from the wife, succumbing to her ultimatums, or being denied sex as a form of retaliation, to the laughter of the live-audience in the background. Commercials have also seemed to have caught onto this trend. There are too many to list but if you watch closely, many of them will present it in a kind of way where the male is childlike figure, while the female, who may be his wife or girlfriend, is the motherly figure who knows best and any attempt to see things differently from them usually results in her referring to him as “silly”. KFC had a great example of this where two grown businessmen were sitting in a stroller crying like babies because they hadn’t eaten yet. Suddenly, the wife appears with a chicken sandwich, talking to them in baby talk saying “awwww, there you go, is that much better?” The two men react by hopping up and down in their seats clapping their hands wildly. Now let’s think about this for a second, what kind of message is this conveying? I understand the humor that they’re trying to imply, but how would the viewers have reacted had the female had the roles been reversed? Looking back at advertisements in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, this was indeed the situation. A ketchup company once advertised their product with a new easy to open top. The slogan went like this “you mean a woman can open it?” Imagine how the reception would be towards that. Women’s advocacy groups would be marching up and down that company’s headquarters protesting and boycotting their products faster than you could say “wow that was sexist.”
Thankfully we live in a time where women have more opportunities than ever, but now it seems as though the men, specifically young men, have begun to come under fire, with masculinity being the target. Parents have become more protective than ever over their children. Most kids are no longer allowed to go around the block to play for fear that a kidnapper may be lurking in the midst. My 10 year-old cousin told me that his school has banned the game of tag because they said it is unfair to the person who’s “it”. Even on my way to school, I passed by an elementary playground and noticed that they’ve applied padding to every tetherball, basketball, and monkey bar pole. In little league sports, everyone’s a winner now, since they don’t want to hurt anyone’s self esteem. What happened to competition? What happened to learning valuable life lessons through tough losses and hardships as a team? Mix this with the fact that many young men are being raised by single mothers with no male role model, and what results is a child that is overly coddled and sheltered from the harsh realities of real life. So what can be done to prevent this from happening? I’ve discussed the recent media trend amongst adults but how will these stereotypes begin to look once these young boys mature into adults? Will a male’s masculinity be seen by society as too aggressive, overly macho, insensitive? Over the next few weeks, I’ll be looking into these issues and present articles from other writers so we can see what the overall consensus is on the issue of masculinity.

2)

The Eagle has landed!! I’ll have to admit, at first I felt that I was going to be alone in this endeavor (get it? Like the spaceship), but as I began to look around for blogs that shared similar interests in my subject, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how many were out there. Most of these blogs dealt with women bashing and how women were evil, blah, blah blah. Let it be known that my blog is not about that. I am a believer in gender equality, which is why I feel it is important to bring attention to the shift in gender roles and how men are beginning to be viewed by the media and ultimately, by society itself in a negative way. Many will disagree of course and claim that it’s merely society’s way of poking fun at how “all” men tend to act, very similar to how we men tend to be accused of grouping women into one kind of stereotype. I welcome all opinions, male or female.
I was pleasantly surprised on how many points of views I came across, including one written by a woman who felt that feminism had come and gone and that there was no need to bring it back. She felt that once it had passed, many women still enjoyed taking care of the household, while only a small group was left feeling like their rights or representation had failed to be met. One that caught my eye however was one that dealt specifically with the topic of males becoming overly feminized, titled "What Men Are Saying About Women". Despite the fact that is posts are few and far in between, with only 10 posts in 2008 and only 1 in 2007, the writer “Percy Anvil”, discusses in rich detail many topics about feminism in mainstream society, usually by examining news articles from the U.S and the U.K. as well as various videos dealing with women. Yes, he claimed, there was nothing wrong with a man sharing his feelings with a woman, but when shows like “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” began to emerge, he had to draw the line. He asked since when did society feel it was necessary for men to get a pedicure and manicure? What was wrong with a man having rough hands? Must we all be required to be as dainty as the opposite sex? With an audience being catered obviously more to men than women, his posts are at times controversial, but I suppose that's what’s expected when one deals with the topic of feminism. Regardless of which side you’re on, you’re bound to disagree with some of his points, which I think, makes it such an interesting topic to discuss. Overall, his blog seems as much informative as it is entertaining and I’ll be looking forward to his future posts.


3)"We write frankly and fearlessly but then we 'modify' before we print."
- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

It's interesting how over time, the reader can get to know the character of the writer or people in which they speak of through complex sentence styles, metaphors, and figures of speech. We can begin to construct an image of a person. We can come to understand the values for which they stand for, the type of hobbies and activities they enjoy partaking in and even the age of the writer based on the kinds of pop culture references they talk about or use as an example. In the world of blogging, I feel the various writers have begun to exemplify the first half of Mark Twain's quote, while the latter has begun to fall by the wayside, thanks to the anonymity of the internet. No longer can we feel accountable for what we say. Despite the fact that it can be both a positive and a negative thing, I see it from the perspective that one can now freely express his/her views without any personal censorship. In regards to my topic, it can be at times a touchy subject. It's the kind of topic that if discussed in a classroom or at a party, it would no doubt result in a heated debate between the sexes. As a result, many people remain quiet, despite possibly being well informed on the subject, due to social pressure. That is what makes blogging so beautiful. It allows those who we'd never expect to be so outspoken on a particular topic to express their views in a way that may or may not contrast sharply with their public persona.

When one comes across Youngbuck's "The Rantings of A Young Man In A Feminized Society", the voice you hear is exactly the one his blog title describes. He's a man in his mid 20s who see's the world a bit differently than most people might, perhaps in a George Carlin kind of way; in the similar fashion of how Carlin felt the government or media was having too much influence on how we dress and live our lives. He brings to attention in his trademark style of rants full of exclamation points, things he observes in his workplace, from issues such as dress codes biases to articles he finds on domestic violence. His ideas are always fresh and original. However, his big topic is usually relationships, as he always seems to be confused about why men decide to marry when he feels that the warning signs are all around us. I agree with many of his points and at times also feel just as frustrated with the way men allow themselves to be treated as doormats. He defends men by providing men proper responses and counter arguments to issues women always bring up around men, like the “Where is this relationship going?” conversation You get a feel of what he stands for and the kind of family he grew up around when he comically discusses going to his cousin’s house for Christmas in, "Are you on the down low?".

"I haven't seen you with anyone since you left that China girl." (She refers to my ex-girlfriend who is Filipina as a China girl, even though she knows her name and knows she's not Chinese".

I laugh, because I can relate to having family members question me on the holidays about whom I'm seeing and whether or not am I going to bring them around to the family. His style at times changes to a more sarcastic and even comical approach, almost as if to give the reader a break from the emotionally charged posts. I feel his wild style of writing and commentary is more than enough to keep me reading his blogs in the future and I encourage you to do the same.