How Mass Media Created the Transgender Movement Part 3: Hollywood
Movies and Television have defined what men and women should be for generations
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The first post in this series looked at how through most of history what it meant to be a man or woman was locally presented through the family and the village. The previous post then turned to how the Industrial Revolution and Victorian era changed the social structures and gave rise to mass advertising, which had a necessary narrowing effect on how men and women were portrayed.
Moving Pictures and How the Sexes Were Portrayed
By the end of the 19th century, movies created a new form of mass media. Suddenly, people could not only be portrayed in a still frame but interacting as well. This meant what it looked like to be a man or woman could be more easily presented and often made to feel very natural. Unlike advertising, which everyone knew had a goal of trying to persuade you, the movies did not feel like persuasion as much as presentation. However, whatever you present as normal is soon accepted as such.
Many of the early movies were actually very pornographic – to levels which would still shock many today. They objectified women and accelerated the move to treat women as sex objects. Because of the offensive nature of these movies, various cities and states started to try to regulate what could be shown in their jurisdiction.
Finally, the movie industry developed the Production Code of 1930 to self-regulate and to forestall greater external regulation. Joseph I. Breen was chosen to oversee the enforcement of the Code. Being a conservative Catholic, he reigned in the excesses of Hollywood and created a golden era of entertainment, which also had a purifying effect on the wider culture.[1]
While the Code helped clean up the standards, movies and then television still had a profound effect on how the sexes were depicted. In each of these, the choices of models or actors/actresses portrayed what was believed to be the ideal of what a woman or man should be. This included what the ideal physique of each sex should look like; however, these differences appear to have had a greater effect on women than on men. Likewise, these portrayals indicated what the ideal character and qualities of each should be. However, each of these was chosen not on an objective standard but on the cultural and personal preferences of those leading the mass media industry.
As a result, a girl who did not have the “preferred” figure[2] felt increasingly pressured to conform or else viewed themselves as somehow less feminine. Similarly, a boy who did not have the “ideal” build and voice was made to feel less masculine. However, neither of these has ever been uniform or universally attractive to members of the opposite sex. There have been times when there was even some pushback. Particularly in the 1990s, the rise in popularity of Jennifer Lopez threw the entertainment industry for a loop because they were shocked to learn that many men found this much more full-bodied woman attractive (which also shows what a small bubble they lived in).
Mass Media’s Role in Depicting Gender Roles
In the 20th century, both the development of household gadgets, which made tending the house and feeding the family less labor intense, and the depiction of an “ideal” woman led to a further narrowing of the nature of a woman’s role to being the pretty face at home and something of a sex symbol. Thus, a woman whose talents and abilities lay in other areas felt inferior.
At the same time, a shift also occurred in the way men were portrayed. It is hard to write exciting stories about gentlemen who live quiet lives while wearing top hats and tails, so the media sought a different ideal for men than in the Victorian era. Men became increasingly depicted in “manly” roles of policeman/detective, cowboy, or corporate bigshot. Once again, boys and men who tended to the creative arts or more caring occupations were made to feel like they were less of men.
Narrower Ideals and Roles Leave More Out
As these roles continued to narrow, more people felt left out. This, combined with the Freudian emphasis on sexuality as core to identity led more people to think that since their identity did not match pop culture’s ideal, their sexual identity must be different.
Historically, many men were talented artists and musicians, and they were viewed as great men and very manly. Opera singers, composers, artists, etc. were all seen as virile men. Amazingly, even the castrati were often viewed as desirable by women and were known to take advantage of the fact that they could never be held accountable for getting another man’s wife pregnant. In much the same way, roles like schoolteacher, nurse, and secretary were considered respectable jobs for men.
However, in the last 100+ years, this has been changing. Now the more sensitive and/or creative young man is often made to feel less male. An obvious exception to this is the rock star, but if you look at these men, they often depict their forms of hyper-masculinity. I think it should be of little surprise that now an increasing number of boys who are sensitive and/or creative have been labeled and/or self-identify as homosexual, but it is more because they do not fit an arbitrarily narrow definition of male. It has been observed that many who are in the gay lifestyle are attracted to it by a desire to be more male by drawing to other men.
In much the same way, girls who have not fit the mold have been pressured to try to fit in or else they have rebelled as well. A strong connection exists between extreme feminism and lesbianism. It should be of little surprise, therefore, that the first person to argue one’s biological sex and one’s gender are different was the bisexual Simone de Bolivar.[3] Likewise, it was the lesbian Judith Butler who argued gender is a social performance and not a biologically based reality.[4]
My contention is that the more our society has narrowed the “ideal” of what a man or woman should look and act like, the more people who do not fit this mold start thinking they must not really be a true man or woman.
The next post takes a look at how the “ideal” man and woman constantly changes in mass media.
[1] Tiffany Brannon, “Revisiting ‘The Production Code of 1930’s Impact on America,’” News, The Epoch Times, 10 April 2024, https://www.theepochtimes.com/entertainment/revisiting-the-production-code-of-1930s-impact-on-america-5626432.
[2] It is important to note, however, that this “ideal” figure has never been a static image. Consider how in the 1970s, the aptly nicknamed “Twiggy” was the supermodel extreme, but by the mid-1980s more curvy models like Kathy Ireland were popular.
[3] Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2020), 257–58.
[4] Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody, First Edition. (Durham, NC: Pitschstone, 2020), chap. 2.