Jennifer Siebel Newson’s documentaries The Mask You Live In and Miss Representative are quite significant testimonies in today’s society. Both documentaries analyze the effect that society has on both genders, both male and female. It’s conspicuous that societal norms are form of confinement for the individuals that live with in it. It’s a prison for the children that must grow up with and follow the rules of such discriminatory ideals.
Acknowledged as a convention to explore the religious, social, and civil problems and the rights of the Women all over the United States, the Seneca Falls Convection was the very first women’s rights convention. It garnered large amounts of widespread awareness and influenced several of the other conferences …show more content…
There are several things to learn such as the cultural and social context that plagues our lives today. It forced upon as piece by piece in hope that we will soon come to learn and accept it without question which we do. However, it seems as though it is much deeper than that. It is determined what societal norms we will follow from the time we are born, and this is because gender. Our whole lives are predetermined based on the gender that we are, it is a never-ending classifier, our moral code, our rulebook. Throughout the production of her documentary Miss Representation, there was a question that was continuously asked. This question was, “What about the boys?” The Mask You Live In is the answer to that question, a very detailed and intricate one at that. Jennifer called upon a lot of professionals to make sure that the information that she was providing was as accurate as possible. She included many psychologist, child advocators and so much more. The Mask You Live In dissects the male side of the story, Masculinity. Masculinity is what young boys are taught when they are younger, when they are expected to “man up” and put a barrier around then in attempt to be manly. Where they are not supposed to show their emotions, not supposed to cry, when they are expected to be strong, this caused them to lash out in violent fits, because they aren’t able to portray their emotions in the way they want to because they weren’t …show more content…
“‘Be a man’ is one of the most destructive phrases in this culture,” says a former NFL player named Ehrmann. American society classifies masculinity as a hard, strong, dominating, and controlling state. To “man up,” therefore, is to gain back that control that was once had, or to dominate a situation. Ehrmann goes on to say that masculinity is rated by three things sports ability, financial success and sexual mastery. If a male fail to perform well in any of these areas, then he is seen among men as a fail as man. This documentary also discusses the learnt behavior of boys, how the adults; such as teacher’s parents and so on are able to shape a child into what they want them to be. The adults shape their sons to be tough and not to cry because that is what men do. When young boys were interview and asked about how they felt, most of them said loneliness. This is a result today’s society, and the affect that it has on not only our youth, but the adults as