Masculinities Emotions

To start off this essay blog I’d like to say how the text by Carlos Andre Gomez and the movie “Invincible” are very relevant in today’s world on the topic of masculinity. I’d say in the past couple of years the outlook on masculinity has changed a lot. People are now having different opinions about this topic. I’ll be exploring my personal experiences with masculinity challenges like Gomez had in his text. 

  The short film “Invincible”2022 is about a boy who is placed in a juvenile detention centre, although we do not know the exact reason why Marc is there the film focuses on his mental struggles in the centre. In the movie water has a very big significance in Marcs life. I noted that when he’s swimming, he feels very free of himself. Its seems that he is in a totally different world when Marc is in the water. For example, in one of the scenes Marc triggers the fire sprinklers in his cell and you can clearly see in that scene how free he feels, and I think that scene clearly proves that his relationship with water is very different from the average person. I think Marc is struggling with the fact that he feels stuck in the centre, and I think his only escape really is water. At the end of the movie in the final scene it is believed that he drives the car into water to unfortunately end his own life. But why the water. I think he felt that he can finally be at peace with himself and that’s why he chooses to end his life in the water. Water Marcs world away from the real world. I think the ending is very poetic in the way that he commits suicide by using water although I don’t support his decision Marc thought that by doing that, he can truly escape his problems. I think this action pretty much is an example proves the negative side of having emotions bottled up and not having someone to talk to.

 Now in this text by Carlos Andre Gomez we see a person whose masculinity question. At the beginning of the text, he talks about wanting to paint his nails and how his mother and aunt were against, and I thought it was gay. This made him very confused and he then starting thinking that he was gay. The second scenario talks about when he goes to the discotek and coincidentally it’s a gay night he then goes home and decides not to tell his parents because he’s scared, they will comment something negative and anti-gay. After that night he really thinks that he is gay, but he really isn’t. I think this text goes against the old views the masculine ways. I experienced a lot of this old fashion masculine way vs the new masculine way when I went to Italy in summer 2023. In Italy I noticed that a lot of the guys did things very differently and I honestly thought that they were gay but then after talking to them and understanding their point of views, I understood them more and realized that they were not gay. To compare another difference my personal western views to the European views, was how different guys were with being friends with girls. Yes, people in the western society are friends with women but personally I believe that men here become friends with girls because they would potentially see them as a future partner, compared to Italy where guys are friends with girls because they genuinely want to be friends with them. I think that would view would be challenged here because it would be seen as more feminine for a guy to be with friends with a girl just like that. Here we believe that as a little more feminine because we think guys should mainly be friends with guys. One of the big things I noticed was the level of emotion that guys show. Another personal thing I saw was when my cousin broke up with his ex-girlfriend that didn’t last very long, when he broke up with her, he sent her roses and a book that she wanted. I thought that was so strange for a man to do especially because here usually when a guy breaks up with a girl, they tend to cut contact and end off on bad terms. My cousin taught me to be more emotional with my feelings and do what my heart tells me to do not what masculinity tells me I should do. To compare the level of emotion a man should show in the western world has to be very minimal and that’s why I find that a lot of guys in this part of the world are bottled up with emotions. 

 To conclude, I think I learnt that just being yourself is what counts and if that means painting your nails a certain colour even though you’re not a girl should mean nothing. For starters I think that men if started became more emotional with each other that would change the whole narrative on whether it is masculine to show emotion or not. I truly believe that the whole topic about emotions tie up with the short film and Marcs problems and his reasoning for ending his own life. All this to say I think the world is progressing with its views on masculinity and changing for the better of men’s mental health.

Bibliography:

Gómez, Carlos Andrés “Guys Club: No Faggots, Bitches, or Pussies Allowed.” Man up: Cracking the Code of
Modern Manhood, Gotham Books, 2012, pp. 65–83.
René-Lortie, Vincent, director. Invincible, TV5 Unis, 2022, https://www.tv5unis.ca/invincible.