Since the beginning of time till now, it is mostly known that men have always had the upper hand in most of life’s aspects, but is that always the case?
In the documentary of “The mask you live in in” it focuses on the way we are portrayed as men in society and how it is much more difficult to be a man than expected. The movie showed a wide range of the troubles faced by boys and men as they try to navigate the realm of masculinity. For us, it should be within our knowledge that to be accepted and looked at in this society is to be a man who doesn’t cry, can’t show emotions, to always be angry and get in fights, to drink, to smoke and to be “attractive” and on top of all that be good looking. You don’t have the right to speak up if you’re sad, scared, or if someone hurt us because we should always know how to manage ourselves.
To add some spices, in the world of movies and series, they always idealize men in an extremely unrealistic manner, like they are always strong and always be successful and live the “thug life”. When in reality it is very rare to find men like these and maybe even impossible.
Throughout The film, we start to learn what is true definition of being a man in this unperfect world and what are the different elements that affect us to make us who we are. One of these stood out most to me which is the role of fathers in our lives and how they have a huge impact in our own personalities. It is they who teach us who we should be as man, yes our mothers have a role but not in the matter of masculinity and all that I have mentioned above.
For example, it is has been showed that most boys that have grew up without a father tend to be either very abusive and controlling or the other way round which is super soft and very insecure. And neither of those are good to someone’s life. But most that grew up with a healthy family and have a good relationship with their dad are more mature and have their life balanced. In conclusion, I think that there should be at least one father figure in your life like your older brother, your grandfather, your uncle, or even your older friend that you can at least talk with about your feelings and anything you want to talk about.
Another aspect they showed in the movie is the impact of videogames in our lives, and how most of them include a lot of violence in which may result in making us more aggressive and may result in getting addicted to them. In my personal opinion, the violence in these games don’t affect a person who has a normal healthy mind negatively nor positively, the only people who may get affected are the ones who already have something in their mind that isn’t right. Addiction to videogames is also true, but if you are just a regular gamer, I don’t see that it is necessarily bad because playing video games is a form of getting your energy out and get distracted from this world, which is way better than smoking or drinking in every way.
In the end I think that society is slowly opening up to the idea that no one is perfect and that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. It may take a long time, but it is nice seeing that the world is still fighting for everyone’s rights and hope is not over for such topics.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 