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Morgan Andrews

Dr. Erin Dietel-McLaughlin Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric Due: 11/15/13 Male Stereotyping in the Media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so many more social media sites have so much in common. One thing that really stands out is their ability to influence and persuade the outside world with their posts. Not only does the social media network have this power but also the media in general. Im talking about the Paparazzi who work for Magazines and Newspapers and the celebrities with TV shows. There are even influences flowing out the doors of Cinemas after the newest movie just hit theatres. Of course of one of the biggest problems that media has is stereotyping, but to make this even less general, the media has a problem with stereotyping body types. Most of the focus, especially in the modern world, has been focused on what women should look like. For example, women are often shown as extremely thin models in magazines promoting things that women want and need, such as underwear or clothing. Victoria Secret models are shown as having barely any fat at all and promoting a thigh gap as attractive. To put this into perspective, I watched a clip on Victoria Secret Models. The Average height of one of those models is between 59 and 511. The average weight of the models is between 110 and 130 pounds. These women are promoting unhealthy lifestyles. As an athlete, I am put into a lean category by having 11.6 percent body fat but weighing 153 pounds and being 59 and a half. Women are learning the wrong things through media and are downing their confidence.

2 What most people fail to recognize is that the same thing is happening for the male population as well. The medias role in stereotypes of body types has led to the insecurity of males causing over-exercising, eating disorders, and mental illnesses. In my paper I will be discussing how the media makes its audience believe that large and tight musculature is what equals masculinity. This sort of thought process can affect job opportunities, lead to drug use (such as steroids), and therefor affect quality of life. Due to media, men often become engrossed with the idea that they are not muscular enough. Of course not many men come out and speak about their insecurities or how certain images make them feel, but there is a focus on how men should look. This was proven in the eye tracking technology that I will explain about later in my paper. The men were found paying more attention to certain areas of the body and then saying that they had not cared at all about those bodies. Often men who do speak of their insecurities feel physically weak and now that they speak about the insecurities, the social world, due to media, is labeling them as emotionally and mentally weak. Men are often exposed to the invincible body types. If you were to step into stores such as Abercrombie and Fitch or Hollister there would be a six pack of abs staring you straight back in the face. Many know, those actors playing roles of characters with superpowers, god like qualities, or fighter tendencies that all of the women swoon over. Try to recall who won the girl; Spiderman or Peter Parker before he got bit by a spider; Thor or the kid who worked on the farm? Just about all of those characters bodies have nothing less than what this days culture qualifies as being perfection. Attention is often drawn to the washboard abs, cut arms, and lean bodies, or lack thereof.

3 The first major affect that this kind of stereotyping has on men is the mental affects that can occur. After researching a study called Influence of Visual Attention on Male Body Dissatisfaction After Idealized Media Exposure by Nikkelen, Anschutz, and Engels, I learned that the scientists used eye tracking technology to observe the male volunteers attention. Because most men would not be willing to share their dissatisfaction the observers came up with a science to better reveal the dissatisfaction. The study used fifty men in the experiment. Twenty-eight men were of the experimental group and twenty-two were those of the control group. An experimental group is that that has been affected by a certain medication or exposure while the control group has not. The volunteers assessed how they felt about certain body features and the items were measured on a Linket scale. Next was eye tracking. A study suggests that the; Gaze direction was classified as a fixation point if it remained in one of the areas of interest for at least 100ms. The first 200ms of each trial were excluded from the analyses, as participants had to fixate on a cross in the middle of the screen before each image, and therefore the first 200ms of eye tracking would not represent voluntary eye movements: the mean dwell time (the mean viewing time per fixation), total dwell time (total viewing time taking all fixations together), total number of fixations, and total number of first fixations (total number of times the first fixation is on a particular AOI right after an image is presented.) (Nikelen, Anschutz, Ha, Engels 6) Basically, the more fixation time spent on a certain area is equal to a longer dwell time and vice versa, if there are fewer fixations on a certain area there will be less of a dwell time. The study

4 showed that for the experimental group the more dwell time spent on the abdomen of a model then the more dissatisfaction that the participant has with that certain area of the body. Another argument to my case is the amount of stereotyping there is in movies to occupational areas, such as nursing. A male nurse in movies is often displayed as weak physically and emotionally. Hollywood depicts male nurses as feminine characters. Often small in physical form, the characters of male nurses are shown as morally corrupt, effeminate, or simply incompetent. Male Nurse-related feature films offer a unique, dominantly American, but flawed insight into the character of the male nurse. (Stanley 2535). An example of this would be shown in the movie Yes Man produced by David Heyman. The male nurse was always the butt end of the joke so he resolved this problem by going out and purchasing a motorcycle because he felt that this would make him seem more masculine. On the other hand if the male nurse is not highlighted as a highly feminine character then he is often perceived as a sex symbol. This is displayed in shows and movies such as Sex in the City. This common depiction of male nurses in feature films not only hurts their occupational field but in the end it ends up making the male audiences become dissatisfied with their bodies or careers. In general, when male roles are evaluated in studies of men and women, they are often used as points of comparison with the female roles than considered for their own unique attributes (Man to Man Kolbe & Albanese 1). Males often feel insecure due to the amount of attention given to them by the opposite sex. That is why if they are not getting attention and a swimsuit model in a commercial with a six-pack of abs is, the Common Joe feels as if it has to do with his body figure. For instance certain commercials goals are to make its audience (male figures in general

5 feel insecure about how they look and feel. For example, a home workout program shows before and after pictures of male figures. The previous image is a depressed, bald young man with keg as a stomach. In the after picture there is a vibrant young man with a six-pack and biceps of steel, and even a head of hair. Not only do these commercials make its audience feel insecure with a sudden urge to buy this companys product but it also gives a false sense of that often is crushed when the male population realizes that working out will not grow your hair back. Kolbe and Albanese state in their article that in a book called Gender Advertisements by Goffman (1979) that the models are choreographed. One of Goffmans major premises is that advertisers have an understanding of the use of physical displays and subtly communicate information about social identity, intentions, expectations, moods, and an individuals physical image (Man to Man Kolbe & Albanese 3). Hollywood and commercial producers need to realize that the muscle is not the only thing that can sell a product because they think that muscle equals masculinity when it is not the case. On another hand, the objectification in commercials can make a male seem as if his body is the only thing that is attractive about him. If an ad shows only the body of the male and it is cut off at the neck then the commercial is surely depicting that the body is the only thing attractive about the male. In contrast to my argument, there can be some self-improvement of the male audience. The photographs and character roles can inspire a lot of men to become healthier with their lifestyles. In another article Media, Gender and Conflict written by Agbenu Ochoga men were quoted as saying that they feel like such images promote the idea of a mens world. Even though this false sense of confidence would increase their quality of life, there is still an expectation that goes with being fit. Men are still seen as more masculine when there is more muscle.

6 In conclusion, it is proven that males are often stereotyped as being more masculine if they are fitter and more muscular. This appears just as often as it does for women but it is often hidden in the background due to the stereotyping again that if men show too much emotion then they are weak. This problem needs to have light shed on it because the male insecurities are leading to the use of steroids, many mental illnesses along with insecurity and the need to become something different than what the person is. Muscle does not equal masculinity.

Work Cited Elliot, Richard, and Christine Elliot. Idealized Images of the Male Body in Advertising: A Readerresponse Exploration. Journal of Marketing Communications, 11.1 (2005): 3-19.

Ferguson, Christopher. In the Eye of the Beholder: Thin-Ideal Media Affects Some, but not Most, Viewers in a Meta-analytic review of Body Dissatisfaction in Women and Men. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2.1 (2013): 20-37.

Kolbe, Richard, and Paul Albanese. Man to Man: A Content Analysis of Sole-Male Images in MaleAudience Magazines. Journal of Advertising, 25.4 (1996): 1-20.

Nikkelen, SWC, DJ Anschutz, T Ha, and RCME Engels. Influence of Visual Attention on Male Body Dissatisfaction After Idealized Media Exposure. PSYCHOLOGY of MEN &MASCULINITY, 13 (2012): 308323.

Ochoga, Agbenu Esther. Media, Gender and Conflict: the Problem of eradicating female Stereotyping of in Nigeria. Academia.edu

Signorielli, Nancy, Douglas Mcleod, and Elaine Healy. Gender Stereotypes in MTV commercials: The Beat Goes on. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 38.1 (1994): 91-101.

Stanley, David david Stanley NursD MSc HS RN Associate Professor University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia. Celluloid Devils: A Research Study of Male Nurses in Feature Films. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68.11 (2012): 2526-2537.