Event #1 - Bro Code

The Bro Code; How Contemporary Culture Creates A Sexist Man (Thomas Keith)

The movie was about how our media today instills values and ideas about how men should be and about how men should act. It showed how everyday TV shows, movies, magazines and more portray men to be big, strong, successful, and powerful and the list goes on and on. The main focus of the film was to show how this idea is taught to today’s youth. Keith did this by breaking down the movie into four short segments. The segments were; Step 1: Train Men to Womanize, Step 2: Immerse Men in Porn, Step 3: Make Rape Jokes, and finally, Step 4: Obey the Masculinity Cops. Each step took you through how men learn to disrespect and put down women through media.

Starting with Step 1. The media trains men to womanize. Keith describes how men are portrayed in media. They are always looking for sex, power, and control. They have to be telling women what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Women are portrayed in these scenarios as objects of desire, or almost like something that is being hunted. Keith explains this by using MTV reality shows, mainly Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore reinforces theses patriarchal ideas that our society today still inhabits.

This reminded me of the Johnson piece we read. It is just another way to show how men are privileged over women, but with this culture there is never going to be any change if we don’t change the media.

Step 2: Immerse Men in Porn talks about how porn transforms the way that men look at women. In 1970 hardcore porn flourished and makes more money then many other big industries. Keith talks about how easy it is for boys to gain access to pornography because of the Internet. Now boys as young as twelve are being submerged into porn. Keith also mentions that girls will start watching at around age sixteen. It’s then continued to be explained how this is the sex education that boys are getting today, and the idea that women are sex objects is shown through this. The movie then talks about how there is porn that is extremely degrading to women, and more violent – hate porn.

I watched this movie well before we did our sex positivity blog and discussion and I don’t believe that porn is a bad thing, I just don’t think this is the way many boys should learn about sex.

Step 3: Make Rape Jokes is about how “boy culture” makes this okay almost. Keith talks about how this is a big issue. It has an impact on victims of rape and just shows violence against women. This should never be joked about in my opinion. These jokes are major problems on campuses. They make women more vulnerable, in the film there are even an idea, parties, trap the woman, and make her pass out. Achieving these things give guys status according to the film. Keith even mentions that there’s a no snitching rule. (In another class we watched a video about snitching, the culture is big in certain parts of cities and places).

Finally, Step 4: Obey the Masculinity Cops which is pretty much everyone who surrounds you. In this section Keith talks about how your dad, brothers, mothers, coaches and friends all reinforce how boys are supposed to act. This section also compares women to slaves, and mentions how women’s “love” is the only thing that will make a bad boy good.

This section reminded me of the Kimmel piece we read. How little boys are thought to be a certain way, like violent and muddy. But this isn’t the case, our culture definitely does submerge boys into an idea of how they’re supposed to be, and it is known to be true that men are at higher risk for violence then women, but this doesn’t mean we need to make is worse for boys by policing them.