Hypermasculinity in Pop Culture

I Am Sextraordinarily Me and I Love It!

Being comfortable in your own skin with yourself is hard for any person to deal with. One can only imagine how hard it is to be comfortable in your own skin with another person. Especially when that other person is the opposite sex—or the same. It’s even worst when the skin you’re in feels wrong. There is a time in every person’s life in where they come to terms with the person they are. One aspect of the person is defined by their sexuality. Sexuality is tricky for any adolescent, no matter if you’re heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or anything else over the rainbow. Everyone experiences that moment of freefalling called anomie—A state of normlessness in which existing social norms have broken down and have not yet been replaced by new ones.  Everything feels strange and you’re left trying to figure it out.

Film and television try to capture the awkwardness that adolescents go through during this anomie period. High school dramas are prime for showcasing this time in everyone’s lives. Most of the time the media shows heterosexual adolescents and their struggles of understanding their new feelings and emotions in regard to whom they are attracted too. However, not every adolescent is heterosexual. Nor is every adolescent’s “normal” the same as another’s. Also, this period can occur again during one’s adulthood. It’s only within the last thirty years that the film and television have decided to broach the subject involving different sexualities. It’s within the last ten years that the subject has touched onto shows meant for a younger audience from children to early teens.

That’s why I like to suggest everyone to check out my playlist I Am Sextraordinarily Me and I Love It! Featuring:

Steven Universe; The Answer

Alex Strangelove

In A Heartbeat

Sens8; Death Doesn’t Let You Say Goodbye

Queer As Folk; Gay Or Straight? That’s The Question

Steven Universe is a Cartoon Network Original that focuses on the titular male character Steven Universe as he’s raised by his family the Crystal Gems; Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. The character Garnet is a fusion between the two gems, Ruby and Sapphire. Garnet herself is recognized by the LGBTQ+ community as a transgender character. It’s a different take on the term transgender, but in the Steven Universe universe Ruby and Sapphire’s being Garnet is taboo as they are not of the same gem class. Still, Ruby and Sapphire are two female characters that are together in more ways than one. The episode The Answer, Garnet tells Steven the tale of how her fusion came to be, and the feelings that were involved in figured out who “she” is. The audience witnesses their before, during, and after anomie. The before being they are separate gems. The during being they fuse for the first couple of times. The after being understanding that their fusion makes them Garnet, an expression of their love for one another.

Alex Stranglove a Netflix original movie follows the character Alex Truelove who while having a girlfriend, wonders what his sexuality really is after a first encounter with an openly gay teen. All throughout the movie, there are discussions about how everyone looks at their sexuality and how other people view another’s sexuality. Alex Trulove struggles through anomie, as he tries to conform himself to one standard that he believes is acceptable and deny the possibility of being other. The support team of his closest friends help him navigate through this period and point out that he wouldn’t be other by today’s standards. The film ends with Alex and his now ex-girlfriend posting a video online about his experience with discovering his sexuality. It’s followed by real life videos of other teens and adults who have also come out about their sexuality. This film highlights the accepting of one’s own self to break from anomie.

In A Heartbeat an animated short film is about middle school aged Sherwin having a crush on his peer Jonathan. His heart knows what it wants, but Sherwin is conflicted about how it would appear to everyone around him as well as the boy he is crushing on. Sherwin spends the film trying to contain his heart and hiding from everyone, including his crush. When it’s revealed that he has a crush on Jonathan in front of his peers, the scrutiny that falls on both boys make him run in fear, breaking his heart, literally. This differs from my first two playlist options, as Jonathan finds Sherwin and gives him the other half of his heart. This shows the crushee accepting the love of the crusher, despite them both being boys. The anomie is fixed by an external force from the one experiencing the freefall.

Sens8 a Netflix original series by the Wachowskis shows the melding of eight different people’s minds. Two of the characters are Lito, an actor who is not out about being gay, and Nomi a transgender female who faces disapproval from her mother about her change. The episode Death Doesn’t Let You Say Goodbye, the two have a conversation about coming into their own regarding their sexuality. This is after Lito makes a devastating decision that will allow him to continue hiding his true self, but lose the man he loves. For Nomi, it’s a heartbreaking story about how uncomfortable she was as a he and was physically bullied because of it. She tells Lito how it shaped her into being the woman she was as it made her realize that being male was not who she was. Lito follows with how the first time he and his lover were together with a spiritual reverence. It was the first time he felt whole as a man. Both were awakening moments in their lives as they understood the part of them that makes them who they are. Both characters are adults, and show how anomie strike again at different times in our lives depending on the choices that we have to make.

Queer As Folk is a Showtime remake of the British hit series, following five gay men and their friends as they lives their lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The episode Gay Or Straight? That’s The Question, is the most unique item on my playlist. As the show follows homosexual characters, for their group it’s normal to be gay. Do they have heterosexual people in their lives? Yes, but they are few and far in between. Therefore, it’s a shock for the characters Michael and Ben when their adopted son Hunter—a former prostitute for men—tells them that he’s in a relationship with a girl. Hunter shows the same evasion and secrecy that any teen would showcase as they are finding their place among a group with a certain standard for normal. Normalness means something different to everyone. Hunter isn’t the only one to face anomie in this episode. Michael and Ben experience it as well, while they have to reorient themselves by remembering that being gay is the other. They also have to apply how coming out as gay to straight parents would be no different for a child to come out as straight to gay parents.