Masculinity in the Media

After watching Die Hard 4 in class, it really made me think about other movies and shows where there are extremely masculine figures like John Mclane shown. The first movie that came to mind in the Bourne serious. Jason Bourne is a secret agent who is now a hit man and is traveling around the country trying to get away from people who want him dead. He is played by Matt Damon. He is muscular, intelligent, powerful and incredibly intimidating. He just screams masculinity and toughness. No one wants to mess with him because somehow he manages to get himself out of every difficult situation he gets himself in.

There are 3 movies in this series and eventually in the last one he gets caught, but not until he has cause mayhem throughout the country. To prove his masculinity he single-handedly fights off numerous men at a time. The men he is fighting have weapons, but they don't stand a chance against Bourne. He's too quick and smart for them to catch up with him. He plays mind tricks on his enemies. For example, in the last movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, when he is talking to the guy who wants him dead, Bourne tells the man to come alone but he doesn't listen. So once he sees that he doesn't come alone he leaves and doesn't meet him at the the place they were scheduled to meet. He then goes into the mans office and calls him. The man tells him that he's in his office, but then Bourne says, "Doubt that. If you were in your office, then we'd be having this conversation face to face." To me, that is just the coolest thing ever and so unexpected and it just proves that he is always one step ahead of everyone that is out to get him. It's crazy and these movies are great. I highly recommend them.

Backyard Wrestling

Have you ever backyard wrestled? Have you ever watched the guys on the WWE and dreamed of being like them? Well I can't talk for myself, but I know my older brother and all his friends used to watch Monday night RAW every week as well as Friday night Smackdown. It became the "it" thing and they always talked about it. This obsession all started when they were in 8th and 9th grade. It was the cool thing to do.

They started out just watching it, but eventually it got to the point where they started idolizing these wrestlers. They wanted to be just like them. My brother and his friends each picked their favorite guy and at the time we had a trampoline, so they treated that like the ring. My house had a shed placed right next to it and they would treat that like the stage walking out from behind the scenes. They downloaded all of the wrestlers entrance songs and they would bust out of the shed and do the same entrance as their wrestler. Not only would they walk out like their guy, but they even made belts out of paper and CD's. If they were the Heavyweight Champion or the World Champion they would have a belt over their shoulder as they walked out of the shed. Then they would get into the ring and do some of the moves that were made famous by each of their guys. Nothing too serious, but they liked to have a good time.

I can remember to this day, my brother's favorite guy was John Cena. He thought he was toughest guy out there and no one wanted to mess with him. He was also cool because he was a rapper and his entrance song was written by John Cena himself.

They had so much fun acting like the guys on TV and luckily none of them ever got hurt. From my experience of backyard wrestling, I don't see it as a problem.

False Advertisement

Have you ever bought a product that advertisements said it was guaranteed to work? If so, I'm sure you were extremely disappointed and wanted to return the product immediately. There are so many products out there like this. For example, all the weight loss commercials are guilty of false advertising. There are weight loss pills and weight loss meal plans which claim they work, but they may not work for everyone. Sure some people may actually lose weight from these plans, but more times than not it does not end up working. Plans like Nutrisystem, The South Beach Diet, Weight Watchers, and Slim Fast are very popular. Pills like Alli, Hydroxycut and Apatrim are very popular. In the advertisements for these products they show men and women that are in great shape and happy. This is not always how people look after using these products. False advertising happens quite often in the media, more often than people think and it's something people should consider before buying a product. If you have been scammed before then you can relate.

Beauty in Hollywood

In the world of television, I definitely think there is a high standard for beauty. In many shows and movies the actors and actresses are always extremely good looking. In reality not everyone looks like that and I feel that people are judgemental of themselves when they don't think they are as pretty as the people on tv. For example, in the movie Mean Girls, there are the popular girls that everyone looks up to and wants to be just like. They are beautiful and all the other girls find themselves craving that popularity, attention, and beauty.