The Pressure to Conform

The stories of Marc from the short film “Invincible” and Carlos from the text “Guys Club” are stories of two boys whose happiness was taken away by the societal expectations of masculinity. Both characters face a conflict between their desire to be themselves and the pressure to conform to the society’s expectations. Born into a world where gender roles are predefined, men feel the need to conform to be accepted. Although many men internally suffer from those roles, they trap themselves in it by compelling them. Both Marc and Carlos serve as an example of how the norms of masculinity break the lives of many men. “Invincible” and “Guys Club” made me realize that the way men express their masculinity differs from how they feel it internally; it also looked deep into the pressure that men experience due to the influence of institutions and people around them. Those works shifted my perception on the causes of toxic masculinity and its consequences.

In the works “Invincible” and “Guys Club”, both the characters try to abide by the standards of masculinity, but internally experience it in a completely different way. Marc, the protagonist of the short film “Invincible”, is in reality a highly sensible and emotional character. He is also very caring: take alone the relationship with his sister, we see how much he loves her. He is different from everyone else around him: in his youth institution, he is surrounded by aggressive and brutal, overall “manly” boys. He suffers as he does not feel comfortable in this institution with those people. I think that the story ends with his suicide because he cannot repress his emotions anymore, and he would rather die than feel alienated from the world he lives in. The story of Carlos from the text “Guys Club” shows us another reaction to the same issue. Carlos is experiencing similar issues, but his story ends in a different way. As opposed to Marc who feels like he can’t belong in this world, Carlos tries to conform to the masculine norms at first. Later on, he realizes that he became homophobic due to his surroundings being like that. He also discovers that he is gay but he cannot open his sexuality to the world, aiming to hide his true self as he is afraid that people would reject him. Our society dictates that real men have to be emotionally unavailable and cold towards each other, seeing each other only as a competition, and any sign of affection towards another man is perceived as homosexuality. When visiting other countries, Carlos discovers other cultures, where affection between men is not shameful; he really enjoys this open-mindedness that our society lacks. In his childhood he wanted to have his nails painted but got told that this is a feminine thing to do, which leads him to reflect on the pre-set gender norms and restrictions that follow them. Overall, our society imposes a lot of restrictions which prevent men such as Carlos and Marc to express their masculinity in their own way; men cannot live a happy life because they always have to fake an image of themselves.

People and institutions around the characters force them to be masculine and hide their emotions. These characters have to respond to the expectations that are set up by people and institutions. For example, in the text “Guys Club” Carlos feels the pressure from his family to be masculine enough. He writes about his father: “he’ll quietly encourage and enforce all of these masculine norms but still tell me to love and appreciate everybody”. This duality of expectations confuses him. He is afraid to tell his family about his experience with the gay club as he does not want them to reject him. From his childhood, he learnt to be homophobic because his school pers taught him that by their example. He copied their comportments: the way they insulted other boys calling them “pussy” or “sissy” for slightly different ways of doing things. As in childhood we adapt and imitate very fast the comfort of our surroundings, Carlos learnt to imitate homophobia and masculinity to fit in his community. As for Marc, he tried to adapt to the influence of his institution. He felt pressured by the way his camarades in the institution acted. They talked and acted in a way to discredit and objectify women, and were aggressive and competitive. When they had to write a poem, Marc wrote a really sensible one that expresses his emotions, and the class went silent, he did not get any reaction or support. His friend wrote a perverted poem about the teacher and his peers seemed to like it, as it is the way of thinking that is perceived as the right one for boys his age. Overall , the Youth Institution and Marc’s community was very judging, and Marc did not feel like he was included. He felt alien to this world, and because he could not express his emotions and felt alone, he committed suicide. He did not feel the freedom to express his thoughts.  As people, we naturally tend to fit into communities, and copy the other’s comportments to not be rejected. The community’s influence on us makes us involuntarily reproduce their way of acting, and this vicious cycle of continuously spreaded stereotypes never ends, causing multiple people to suffer. 

Both the works “Guys Club” and “Invincible” made me understand more in depth the problematic of men`s excessively stereotyped masculinity. Everyone heard about the feminist movements fighting stereotypes about women, but I never knew that men face the same problems. The power that men hold over the world leads us to think that they are free to do whatever they want, but the fight between their own gender`s expectations was a discovery for me. The stories of Marc and Carlos have really opened my eyes on how powerless men can sometimes feel; the image of masculinity that they produce can sometimes be just an illusion faked by someone who is afraid to lose control. 

All the unwritten rules that define how people should act based on their gender lead to a lot of consequences. Some of them include the propagation of homophobia, depression, and can even lead to suicide. One thing is clear: there are no good consequences whatsoever. The power that the institutions and people hold on us is crazy, and as it does not have a positive repercussion, the time has come to end it . Gradually, if the world will swap the politics of exclusion for inclusion of those who are different and choose to show their authenticity, the world would become a better place for all of us.