On Masculinity, Moonlight, and Social Media
“I see masculinity being pushed in today's society all the time in parks, in schools, and anywhere that a group of boys can come together and push their agenda. These images in society are still being used to this day by ignorant boys or girls that feel like men should be a certain way, when in actuality everyone has their own way of being a man.”
The culture of masculinity on Youtube shorts and other platforms has become a force of pressure on teens. This pressure may come in many ways, from on your phone, to the people you may come across in real life. It tends to cross from the phone to real life through social media and what people put on it.
When a point is being made online and a lot of people support it, it makes some believe they have the right to push those agendas on other people, just because they believe themselves to be right, and in some cases to the point of harassment or worse. This same thing also applies to people who push the point that having masculine traits will lead them to being more successful in whatever they want. However, that simply doesn’t apply to everyone. Everyone has their own opinion about being masculine, and however they choose to apply that to themselves is fine, but it becomes a problem when those people start to harass others into their own ideas, making people feel like less of themselves just to prove a point. It's almost like harassment never ends when those same agendas are being pushed on your “For You Page” 24/7. It starts to feel like an inescapable void beckoning you close, and it makes you grow tired of the pain and makes you become something you’re not. For an example, think of the way masculinity was depicted in Moonlight — and how the main character felt trapped by other people’s idea of masculinity.
I see masculinity being pushed in today's society all the time in parks, in schools, and anywhere that a group of boys can come together and push their agenda. These images in society are still being used to this day by ignorant boys or girls that feel like men should be a certain way, when in actuality everyone has their own way of being a man. These images can cause harm depending on how they are pushed. Sometimes it can cause kids to question who they are and change who they are just to “fit in” or to avoid being the odd one out or the one who doesn't agree with the group. This can also cause harm when those groups of boys believe they have the right to bully someone just because they aren't as masculine as them.
This aligns perfectly with the movie Moonlight and how Chiron’s friend, Kevin, someone he had shared sexual contact with, betrayed him by trying to fit in with a group that openly showed their masculinity just to avoid getting the treatment he would’ve gotten if he was on the other side. Unfortunately in this scene, Chiron is surrounded by Kevin and the group of boys trying to push their masculinity, and in this scene Kevin is peer pressured into punching Chiron based on the simple fact that he’s gay and doesn't share the same masculinity as them. Due to the peer pressure, he listens when they tell him to punch him but Chiron keeps getting up showing almost more masculinity by keeping his composure — of course the kids don't see it this way and Kevin continues to punch and punch until the rest of the kids jump in and the security guard breaks up the fight.
Bullying is the celebration of pain. I start there to express a point made in Hanif Abdurraqib’s “They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us,” when he states “But what I am less in favor of is the celebration of pain that might encourage someone to mine deeper into that unforgiving darkness, until it's impossible for them to climb out.”
When I read this quote, I think about how in Moonlight when Chiron was getting beat on for being himself and how that affected his life going forward. After that fight scene Chiron went out of his way to prove a point that he wouldn’t tolerate being pushed around like that again, when his whole life before that was almost the complete opposite. When he was younger, he would let the other kids run off with the soccer ball even though he also wanted to play, but back then he didn’t care enough to retaliate. Now things are different; he's been “on the wrong side of the bridge that beckons you close,” a quote from Abdurraqib, more times than he can count, and he’s had enough, and he goes up, not to Kevin but to the kid that peer pressured Kevin into punching Chiron, and cracks him in the back with a wooden chair that causes him to collapse. Chiron is later sent to a prison in Atlanta, and that's the last time we see him in high school.
“Sometimes, that which does not kill you sits heavy over you until all of the things that did not kill you turn into a single counterforce that might.” This quote by Abdurraqib symbolizes what we see of Chiron when we next see him in his late to early 20’s. He looks and carries himself completely differently; he went from a scrawny kid that was mostly to himself, to this buff guy that controls his block in Atlanta through trapping. All the pressures he has faced when he was younger have shaped the man he has become now — for example, the pressures of masculinity being pushed on him from a very young age havenow created a man who is almost the embodiment of masculinity if you’re from the outside looking in. He’s a hustler, he’s muscular, and he makes money through the block. He’s been running this persona that he’s this tough kid that wants to run the block.
Chiron is a simple man, he doesn't need to be muscular to feel like himself, though he might use it as a distraction as we see in the movie; he also doesn’t need to be a hustler to feel like himself even though we see the way he makes money. All he wants is to settle down and feel safe because for the most part, he’s spent life chasing something he isn’t passionate about, but he has shaped himself this way because of the “celebration of pain that caused him to mine deeper into that unforgiving darkness,” the bullying he had experienced for not being as masculine as his peers. Fortunately for Chiron, he has climbed out due to a phone call from Kevin that lead to Chiron opening up and finally feeling comfortable enough in his own skin to relax on Kevin’s shoulder, knowing he’s accepted for who he is.
“Life is too long despite the cliche. Too long, and sometimes too painful. But I imagine I have made it too far. I imagine, somewhere around some corner, the best part is still coming.” This is final quote from Hanif Abdurraqib that relates to all of this. These same feelings can also happen through social media and the influencers on the internet.
Masculinity, just like many other things, can be toxic when manipulated or when determining how much respect that person deserves. Honestly, I see masculinity being used as a way to shape men, as a ploy to make some men feel more superior than others, and a way to give “hope” to hopeless men, almost like slaves, feeding them misinformation, making them believe the only way to find happiness in whatever they’re looking for is to follow the lead of others as they teach them “masculinity.”
But then what is masculinity? In actuality it involves the qualities about yourself that are regarded as characteristics of men; however, many qualities can be regarded as masculine or not by different people, and can be determined differently by different people too. This means that everyone’s image of masculinity is different and some people use that to take advantage of others. For example, the people that try to teach masculinity for profitable gain, most of the time use their influential power to make people fall into the trap that they will “help them succeed” when in actuality they are not giving those people the closure they truly need. Those people end up constantly trying feeding their desperate mind for something to latch onto, for something to make them feel alive or to help them feel like they fit into society. This is exactly what most influencers want, they want people to be desperate for an escape so they can bring you right back to them. Most times they are just lies meant to make you fit in a society that’s already corrupt or lies to make you come right back for their help again. It’s all just a ploy.