Football Town Nights
The video “Football Town Nights” shows the story of a football coach and his policy. Having started working with the new team, the coach established a set of rules the team members have to follow. One of the rules that caused a lot of protests and misunderstanding was the “no raping” rule. The surface meaning supports the point that no reason can justify rape. The video also covers the issues of collective guilt for by standing. However, to my mind, the video conveys much deeper meaning regarding the perception of masculinity and the established in the society gender roles. Katz stated that the culture created by the mass media is one of the major causes raping occurs.
The division of roles and typical features between men and women require from the man to demonstrate his power and domination, which are believed to be the main attributes of masculinity. The concept of masculinity as the embodiment of power and strength is so much embedded in a social opinion that superiority and domination are considered the inalienable part of masculinity. The necessity to demonstrate domination, and inability to do it, lead to the point that male have an inborn right to dominate over women. At the same time, Katz states that due to the influence of the over-sexualized culture women are expected to accentuate their sexuality, linking feminine identity with the obligation to let male use their body (Katz, 2006).
Taking Katz’ perspective into account, the “Football Town Nights” clearly demonstrate the misperception of masculinity as the boys from the team cannot imagine the life without this domination. However, instead of directing their physiological superiority to the game, they share the belief that sexual assault is somehow connected with their perspectives to succeed. Moreover, raping is depicted as normal and inalienable element of masculinity, whereas the refusal from it is equalized to the refusal from masculinity at all. For example, when the team player was injured and was said to be not able to rape, his parents reacted as if he lost his health and is not able anymore to realize himself as a man. Thus, the violence of the game is internalized on the private and sexual life. Remarkably, in the video, raping is considered normal not only by the boys, but also by the society in general. It is both the cause and the result of the sexualized violence.
Bordo states that society tends to support the stereotypic vision on man as on a warrior that needs to express his sexual energy. It leads to the justification of raping with the very nature of the male gender. Society accept the idea that “boys will be boys” (Bordo, 1999). This perception, to my mind, performs the function of encouragement as it equals the violence to normal behavior of males and even establishes the standard of behavior. Thus, for example, we can see how difficult it was for the couch to oppose the public opinion that supports the …
