Natalie H. Katz. Advertising and the construction of violent white masculinity. 249-358.

Natalie Hage
Friday October 12, 2007
Gender & Popular Culture WGS 220 05
Katz. Advertising and the construction of violent white masculinity. 249-358.

Description:

• Violence in America is, and has been for decades, a "pervasive and serious domestic problem" and the media only serves to strengthen the matter.

• Media's exhibitions construct 'violence' as defining white males and even normalize it as what is considered 'masculine'.

Analysis:

• Discussions about different dominant groups lie within media representations, such as the strong and commonly used focus on African Americans (250).

• 'White manhood' has been strongly defined as multinational corporations basically sell people's identities in advertisements (350).

• Working class men are fighters for power, dominance and control. For men, muscular physiques are popular to have and aggressive attitudes are considered sexy. (351). This is perhaps one of the reasons why power and aggression is ultimately mistaken for violence in males, which is thereby depicted in products of the media such as video games, music, pro-wrestling and sports culture (352).

Vision:

• Males who struggle for a safe medium between masculinity and femininity must be accepted.
• Violence must be seen as a problem in our country and should not be used as a light way of depicting men in the media just to sell products.

Strategy:

• Realize the poor misrepresentations of characters of violence in the media

• Although appealing, ads containing domineering and aggressive men must be handled with care. Companies want the consumer to be attracted to the mens' 'intense/violent' appearances and assume a correlation with their product and masculinity.