In our daily lives, the media impacts us both positively and negatively. Nearly all types of media including films, television shows, and even documentaries influence us both consciously and subconsciously. In Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity, author and educator Jackson Katz argues that male violence contributes to American society’s definition of masculinity. (Katz et al.) The term, “tough guise” refers to the front that men put up to appear extremely masculine. (Katz et al.) According to Katz, this mindset contributes to the prevalence of violence committed by men. Throughout the documentary, he includes testimonies from men, assault and homicide statistics, and texts from American media to forward his argument. Written in 1999, Tough Guise is a great example to show how media can be critically approached, interpreted, and understood. Like most media texts, Tough Guise can be analyzed in three unique ways: political economy/context, textual analysis, and audience reception. These three components of critical cultural studies are known as the threefold project. (Kellner 8) The main benefit of analyzing media texts in this manner is that it avoids focusing only on one dimension of the media text by taking other components into account. (Kellner 8) To best understand Jackson Katz’s Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity, I will examine the text through political economy, textual analysis, and audience reception.
Political Economy and Context
Political economy is the system of production and distribution of a media text. Jackson Katz could have written Tough Guise as a film or even a television series, yet he chose to publish it as a documentary. Although films and TV shows can be adequate ways to communicate important issues in society, documentaries are a better way to inform common people about subject matters that producers believe are important and want to bring attention to. Oftentimes, films and television shows are dramatized and serve to entertain viewers as opposed to inform them. Since “most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power, creators want to appeal to the widest range of individuals as they can. (Media Literacy 68) Producing Tough Guise as a documentary, however, minimizes the chances of individuals being amused or entertained by what they are viewing. When people tune in to documentaries, they are expecting to learn new information about a subject and potentially form their opinions about the topic.
Similarly, the distribution of Jackson Katz’s Tough Guise was aimed at students, primarily preteens and teenagers. There is a common misconception that discussions about masculinity are only geared toward men when in reality, they can be beneficial to all people and genders. Jackson Katz shows us that masculinity not only affects men but also women. Targeting both male and female students was an intelligent decision. Informing young people about the dangers that a tough guise can cause is most beneficial at an age when they are evolving mentally and emotionally. Tough Guise is essentially teaching them that mimicking what they see in the media by acting tough will have negative effects and consequences.
In addition, there were “structural limitations as to what can and cannot be said and shown.” (Kellner 9) In Tough Guise, there are little to no limits regarding what Katz decided to include. Katz delved into nearly every aspect of violence, media, and masculinity and was very explicit in doing so. Throughout the text, there are several mentions of the words “fag” and “bitch”, and including such provocative terms catch younger audiences off guard. One common theme throughout the documentary is the prevalence of whiteness and heterosexuality. In response to the gay and lesbian movements, many white, heterosexual men left disturbing voicemails on the answering machines of homosexuals: “Go to hell, you lousy homosexual! I hope you die of AIDS!” and “I kill fags, you fucking losers…die!” (Katz et al.) Katz’s creation of such a raw and uncensored documentary exposes students to a world that they may not have been exposed to previously. Katz was more interested in presenting the most in-depth analysis as opposed to tiptoeing around the subject, even if that means making them uncomfortable. Doing this allows students to begin challenging the dominant ideologies that they are fed by the media and evokes new and intense emotions in them, which I will discuss further in the subsequent paragraphs.
Textual Analysis
Textual analysis is a way to examine different aspects of a media text including language, setting, images, and relationship dynamics to name a few. The goal of conducting a textual analysis is to gain more information and a better understanding of what viewers are selecting and how they are interpreting media. By analyzing different areas of a text, it becomes more digestible for a wider audience and allows viewers to have agency over how they decide to experience media. There are many different types of textual analysis, but qualitative content analysis and literary-critical textual analysis are the most important for this paper.
To start, a qualitative content analysis focuses primarily on understanding through means of looking closely at various features of a text. In Tough Guise, Jackson Katz does a beautiful job of showing and explaining how young men see themselves and other men around them. At the beginning of his documentary, Katz asks young men about what word comes to their minds when they think about traditional masculinity. (Katz et al.) These are a few examples of the responses that were given: physical, strong, independent, intimidating, powerful, and respectful. On the other hand, if men do not conform, they are called derogatory terms such as pussy, bitch, fag, queer, sissy, and wimp. Simply put, they are not considered “real men”. Being a man means being violent, and the media we consume reinforces this narrative.
The language used by these young men and the conclusions they draw from their experiences is extremely problematic because they instill a “predator-prey” mindset in young men. Through media and daily interactions, men learn that if they do not act violently, they will be deemed womanly or not man enough. Since they do not want to be the prey, they are essentially forced to conform by resorting to violence and a dangerous view of masculinity. This dominant ideology surrounding masculinity and manhood is crafted and reinforced by the media that individuals consume. Men are not rewarded for being their true selves, which explains why a great deal of them shy away from being sensitive and showing emotion publicly. They do not see the main characters of their favorite films and television series acting weak, so why would they? Our idea of masculinity is promoted and supported by the media texts we consume. Films and television shows are both guilty of feeding us false narratives about masculinity and what it means to be masculine. Despite their continuous efforts, young men are simply unable to escape this one idea of masculinity.
Additionally, a literary-critical analysis refers to both explicit and implicit parts of a media text. In chapter one, “Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture”, Kellner discusses how formalist literary criticism and semiotics work hand and hand:
“In more recent years, literary-critical textual analysis has been enhanced by methods derived from semiotics, a system for analyzing the creation of meaning not only in written languages but also in other, nonverbal language-like codes, such as the visual and auditory languages of film and TV.” (Kellner 10)
Before we are even shown the title of the documentary, we are exposed to both auditory and visual languages. Within the first few seconds of Tough Guise, Katz immediately captures the audience’s attention through audio examples from various media texts highlighting references to gun violence, toughness, domestic violence, and incarceration. Rather than easing into the topic of masculinity and manhood, we are instantly bombarded with disturbing photographs of women who have been severely beaten or assaulted. In the next scene, a rather upbeat song, Better Man by Pearl James, is playing while simultaneously showing visuals of men being tough, strong, and fearless. The combination of these auditory and visual images elicits an emotional response from viewers. We are intrigued not only by what we see but also by what we hear. Katz’s use of this technique is genius because it evokes an unpleasant feeling in the viewer and persuades them to continue watching to hopefully reduce this feeling or learn more about the topic presented. Introducing masculinity in such an intense way engages the audience and increases their curiosity. The opening montage of Tough Guise makes for an interesting analysis because it pieces together several media texts that are recognizable to almost everyone. By including likable and familiar films and television shows, viewers are left wondering how they relate to a discussion about violence and the crisis in masculinity.
Audience Reception
Audience reception refers to how media texts affect audiences, specifically how they shape their personal beliefs and influence their behaviors. Similar to textual analysis, there are different ways in which Tough Guise can be read critically: dominant readings, negotiated readings, and oppositional readings. “Different people experience the same media message differently” depending on which of their identities is most important to them and what experiences or hardships they have had in their lives. (Media Literacy 42)
A dominant reading is sometimes referred to as the preferred reading of a media text. Audiences accept the meanings encoded in the media text whether that be the producer’s intentions or the socially conventional representations. In some cases, dominant readings are useless because viewers fail to recognize or question inconsistencies within the media text and accept what they are presented to be true. A dominant reading of Tough Guise is accepting Jackson Katz’s argument and trusting that he has presented accurate information. Most individuals who view Tough Guise are left believing that America’s false view of masculinity leads to men behaving more violently. Like most documentaries, creators aim to inform viewers and bring awareness to an issue that is often overlooked. By including compelling statistics comparing violence committed by men versus women, Katz manages to persuade viewers to conform to his way of thinking about masculinity and its relation to crime.
Next, a negotiated reading is when audiences identify the dominant readings of a media text but refuse to completely accept how the encoder has intended it, which raises potentially unintended meanings. A negotiated reading of Tough Guise is one surrounding acceptance only of how masculinity and manhood are presented in society. For example, individuals may accept and understand the portrayal of masculinity in America but challenge Katz’s conclusion that it leads to increased violence and crime among young men. Audiences that accept some but not all implications of a media text are engaging in a negotiated reading.
Lastly, an oppositional reading is when resistance is celebrated, and audiences actively reinterpret the media messages in contrary ways. (Kellner 13) Individuals who engage in oppositional reading will reject nearly every element of a media text and come to their conclusions about what the creator was trying to present. An oppositional reading of Tough Guise produces a new interpretation of the information and topics discussed. Referencing the 1998 film, Smoke Signals, Katz comments on how “men of color need to adopt this hypermasculine posture [to] get the respect they have been stripped of by the dominant culture response.” (Katz et al.) However, different audiences may define hypermasculinity differently. For instance, men of color may seem more hypermasculine compared to other races and ethnicities not because they want to gain respect but because of their life experiences. Although Jackson Katz acknowledges how the experiences of men of color differ from those of white men, he fails to dive into how this very difference could explain why men of color adopt a “hypermasculine posture”. Men of color appear hypermasculine for several reasons. Their past experiences may have led them to be closed off from other individuals. If a man acted vulnerably in the past and that vulnerability has led to him being hurt or let down, he is more likely to take on a hypermasculine persona.
Furthermore, men simply see more examples of hypermasculinity in American films and television shows. At the time Tough Guise was created in 1999, there were significantly more examples of men being violent than men being vulnerable. There are countless examples of films that promote and affirm violence among men: Goodfellas, Rocky, Miami Blues, Scarface, Menace II Society, Hard to Kill, and Pulp Fiction. Interestingly, these films, along with many others, were all made before Tough Guise and depict male characters as tough and overly masculine. “Representations of [B]lack men in American film so often rely upon a particularly over-determined image of [B]lack masculinity.” (Henry 119) Katz’s analysis leads viewers to believe that gaining respect, which may not be the same belief all viewers interpret from his documentary. An individual who rejects Katz’s notion that all men put on a tough guise to gain respect is actively resisting the dominant reading of Tough Guise and creating a unique conclusion from the same text.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity provokes a variety of emotions in its audience and influences them to adopt the same or similar beliefs as its creator, Jackson Katz. By examining it through means of political economy, textual analysis, and audience reception, we can see that Tough Guise is much more than a media text about men and violence. Katz offers a thought-provoking documentary that not only comments on society’s perception of masculinity but also communicates how this perception affects men, women, and the world at large.
References
Five Key Questions of Media Literacy. Center for Media Literacy, 2005, pp. 14–68.
Henry, Matthew. “He Is a ‘Bad Mother*$%@!#’: ‘Shaft’ and Contemporary Black Masculinity.” African American Review, vol. 38, no. 1, 2004, pp. 119–26. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1512235.
Katz, Jackson, et al. “Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity”, 1999.
Kellner, Douglas. Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture. 1995, pp. 5–15.
This was originally created as part of a class assignment for Black Femininities and Masculinities in the U.S. Media Studies at the University of Virginia.
Destiny Rae Jones 