Masculine Sexuality Through Film Analysis

Masculine Sexuality Through Film
In this course we discussed the three level model of understanding Gender. These three levels are individual, interactional and institutional. According to Dr. Winfield’s lecture titled ‘Thinking Sociologically About Gender”, the individual level is how one identifies themselves; it is your personal portrayal of self in regards to feminity or masculinity. Lorber argues that the individual level is established at birth when babies are assigned to a sex category based off of their genetalia. The interactional level of understanding gender reinforces the individual identity. According to the lecture, the interactional level is an ongoing process. We are interested in how gender works on an interactional level. We want to know how we are structured into doing gender as oppose to who we are based on our gender. The last level is the institutional level. In this level, we reinforce the way gender is supposed to be structured in society. The family, intimate and emotional relationships as well as the economy reinforce …show more content…
The similarities and differences in both of these films show how the social construction of gender is presented in contemporary films. In both films, the institutional level of what it means to be man or woman effects the interactions that the characters had with one another. In contemporary films, men are always in competition against one another over who is the most masculine or who is the most sexually appealing. Women are supposed to be made up and glamorous. They are supposed to be very conscious of what the male character thinks o them or in some cases, like the women in Fight Club, they have no real role. Contemporary films heavily reflect what society thinks about how gender should be done. It just goes to show that we have a long way on this journey of understanding how we do gender in relation to our assigned