Week 5: Masculinity

Out of the many topics portrayed in media about masculinity I chose to talk about appearance. Sadly, some of my favorite commercials, made by Miller Lite, are sterotypical and degrading to men. In our society we have followed this in-between-the-lines, codes of gender. These ideas of whats considered feminine or masculine. The Miller Lite commercial above does a great job demonstrating these societal-biased views of gender, implying that skinny jeans are for women therefor drink a manly drink. Accroding to the readings we did in class, "masculine identity validation is through the use of their body as an instrument of power, dominance and control."(Dines, pp 351) This is commercial did a wonderful job at displaying how unmanly the male in skinnys looks, as he even acted more feminine in the use of his body langugae.

You can even look at this example from the standpoint that a man is not masculine unless he drinks Miller beer instead of other unmanly beers. In this theme of commercials Millers actualy slogan is about not being unmanly. "Stressing gender differences in the context means defining masculinity in opposition to femininity." (Dines, pp 351) What I thought was most intersting and somewhat condradicting is that commercials Ive seen in the past encourage that a masculine man does not drink light beer. Miller actually is using marketing and sales tactics to idenitify that men can drink light beer as long as its a Miller Lite in order to still appear to be more masculine or manly. Overall I think that media is really selling itself to young-working class males in a vision of masculinity that provides men of all classes with a standard in which to judge themselves and one another.