My wife and I just watched this movie on Netflix and it has left me very frustrated. It was called The mask you live in. This was the tag line:

"The Mask You Live In follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America's narrow definition of masculinity."

The documentary tried to demonstrate that young boys before their teenage years do ok with sharing their feelings and emotions with each other but then at about 14 they shut down, isolate themselves and put on a "mask" to pretend to be something they aren't. Because they can no longer find an outlet for their feelings, they look to the media and the media feeds them all this garbage. . . and it changes them to see women as objects, listen to music about being "gangster", play violent video games etc. . . and that eventually leads them to think that to be a "Man" they have to be this staunch un-feeling sports playing. . . . woman hating thug. If the boy doesn't feel like he can do that, he becomes depressed and/or is ostracized by his peers.

Bit of a stretch. But. . . ok.

But then the movie ended.

Conclusion? Don't be a man.

I guess. . .

Seriously the movie finished and I was completely lost as to the point of it all. "Men = Bad" was about it. Men commit the most murders, men commit the most gun crime, men glorify rape and that's because they watch the most porn. Tons of stats about rape on university campus. Oh and all that porn is rape porn. Boys are the ones who shoot their peers in schools and it must be because they play the more violent video games.. . it went on and on.

BUT THEN! At one point there was a bell curve that overlapped the characteristics of men with women and it tried to point out that in MOST characteristics the sexes are exactly the same but it is the media that is pushing the "girls like pink and boys like guns" story. So. . . ok. . . then if that is the case then why not acknowledge that it is this tiny fraction of men. . . as your graph shows. . . that are buying into the "hyper masculine" story and that you are judging all men by? I guess that wouldn't have made for a catchy documentary premise. . .

Not once did it mention a single positive trait about men in our society other than to say that men have all the power and privilege over and over again. Especially sports coaches. It seemed to fixate on sports coaches.

The way I see it. . . the very last thing a boy wants to do in the entire world is talk about feelings. So they tend not too. That isn't cause and effect. That isn't the cause of "hyper masculinity" creeping into their psyche. It is simply a slight difference. If you are a man, "Opening up" is about the exact opposite of fixing a problem. Sometimes you DO need to open up. Men need to share/cry/open up. Absolutely. And it IS harder to find someone to open up to when you are a teenage boy but . . . that doesn't FIX anything in that boy's mind. We avoid it because it's not an action item that achieves the goal at hand. At the end of the cry session the problem is still there right? You need to do it but after you have had a good cry. . . Then what? YOU GET BACK UP! You do the hard things. You fight the good fight.

Men tend to like to DO. We get in and deal with stuff. We build and plan and push and compete and pull the long hours and dig the tunnels and fight the fires and plow the fields etc etc. These are all REALLY GOOD THINGS! And they complement the equally long list of REALLY GOOD THINGS that women tend to be great at.

If the narrative of this movie is to be believed, men would be roaming around in roving packs with machine guns strapped over our shoulders raping and pillaging across the land. . . because of our entertainment choices.

At no point did it give any tangible action items. No mentoring programs were mentioned. No ways to start a good conversation with your teenage son to get the ball rolling on how to guide them through a good man to man conversation about how the media's portrayal of men differs from what real men are like. No examples of programs that have worked. Oh. . . accept this one guy who's girlfriend left him with a baby and "he had to learn how to became THE MOTHER" Heaven forbid he be a good Dad. . . maybe?

Grr.

If the movie were honest in its intent to identify and solve the problem it would have at least suggested SOMETHING. Or at least pointed us to a helpful website.

But I don't think that was the point of the movie. . .

This movie just wanted to say:

"Men are bad because they don't open up to each other and it is the media's fault."

Roll credits.

Super fun! :-(