Coursework Essay updated (work in progress)

This essay will explore the representations of Males in the war genre both in earlier years but also in the present century, showing and expressing the different stereotypes that exist within the time of the types of media which are film, television and of Electronic games within the war genre.

Within the war genre there has always been a comparison that anything to do with war in generally associate with Males. This stereotype persists due to men mainly in the early 1900s being placed on the front line and from all the frontline, there became perceptions that you would associate violence, bad language and fighting with the gender of Male, which from this proception spilled over into media outlets such as films, television and then late after games. In the early 1900s world war 1 media outlets such as newspapers started to report on the events that where happening on the frontlines and what information was given to them from returning soldiers and officers. Some research was done by a researcher by the Name of Matthew Sitter did some interesting research into the war genre and he quoted that: The new form of masculinity

associated with the soldier can therefore be a "highly self-conscious performance of gender

(Sitter, July 2012, Violence and Masculinity in Hollywood War Films During World War II, Page 1

Which from this quote the war genre mainly can define all future stereotypes of a genre as they are perceived to do one thing as war in general being quite a sensitive topic as its mainly involved with death and sadness. Violence of which spilled over from being in just the war genre and is now hugely present in genres such as science fiction and action genres, with electronic media being Television, film and more recently the gaming industry. There were some codes that had to be followed back in the 1900s for media content that showed. The level of violence onscreen during the 1930's was limited by the Production Code with the co-operation of the major studios, and not by any squeamish or naïve audience.31 The popularity of films like Scarface attested to the fact that audiences were interested in seeing violence onscreen, and it was the Hollywood studios that were limiting violent content. Per the Code: “theatrical motion pictures... are primarily to be regarded as entertainment”. (chapter 2)

After the first world war, many aspects of war were associated with Males as all troops sent to fight on the front line where Male. During the second World War America saw that the war could be more lucrative and wanted to make films to show to people what is was like on the front line but in less of a negative way towards the public. This was since film had heavy restrictions on what could necessarily be shown in a form of personal media, with restrictions on violence and explicit content such as blood and swearing. So, in the middle of World War 2 Hollywood made their first war film which was called Mrs Miniver which was about Allied spies who were gathering information on German strategic targets to be destroyed, which was also happening for real on the front line of Europe. The popularity of the film showed that films of this type could be hugely popular and after the Second world war became hugely popular but also creating a stereotype of males as they were used for many war film as violent and tough and which this became the reinforcement for the identity of masculinity. As technology advanced in the world of film with computer generated graphics and CGI films that simulated war intensity became more graphic and historical inaccurate as many just focused on one element which was violence but with one key element still staying intact which was the people committing such acts where Male, violence was becoming more acceptable as film restrictions where becoming more relaxed as many where given age rating that determined in what the film could potentially show in terms of its content. In today’s world, we see increasingly highly graphic movies of war such of those of Inglorious Bastards and Fury. Now war films have the bespoke view of masculinity being present due to changing social attitudes played by woman as well as men. As a further development, we saw that as the technology and market grew for the war genre we saw other electronic media types emerge such as television shows and games which also portray the view of war and how un-serious the view of war has become and how much more of a fun type of media the war genre has turned into with high exaggeration and over the top prospected violence

In my research, I discovered to support this claim that in the Movie Fury (David Ayer, October 22^nd, 2014) with all the soldiers that take a huge role in the film are all males with no females being present as a part of the army but also with them being brutalist males with strong language and body language. A quote from the film to reinforce this point is: “We are here to killing fucking Kraus scum, not to play with fucking dolls so get your head out of your arse and do you fucking job of shooting the Nazi bastards” reinforcing the stereotype that all males in the army are aggressive. This points can also be shown in Battlefield 4 (EA DICE, October 29^th, 2013) as aggression is shown when one of the captured soldiers spits in the face of the Chinese commander who is holding them captive, with spitting being hugely dirty and as also as disrespectful towards the individual. Finally, to back up the above points In War Thunder (Gaijin 20^th October 2012), In one of the Cut scenes, one of the soldiers is seen stabbing an enemy soldier and then burning his dead corpse with some piece of debris which is on fire showing extreme amounts of violence and extreme aggression. A way that this point is challenged is in Fury when whilst the US soldiers where in one of the German towns a Nazi soldier is holding a surrender flag meaning that he is helpless and is being a coward showing none of the male masculine qualities, of aggression and violence but also not wanting to back down from a fight

Another point and representation I want to explain is all males being tough and not showing emotions 

A point to support this claim would be. At the beginning of the movie fury one of the main characters Norman doesn’t want to kill and his crew heavily abuse him due to that he isn’t the same as them. So, thus Norman gets angry and cries at the same time of screaming “I don’t want to Fucking be here” whilst punching the inside of the tank. Also in the middle of the Movie the tank commander wants to show Norman and teach him to kill Nazi soldiers by holding Norman in a head lock whilst he holds the gun and therefore the tank commander pulls the trigger and saying that Norman killed the Nazi soldier. Which results into Norman breaking down into a burst of anger and despair. Another example of this is in the television series Royal Marine Commando School (Channel 5, October 29th 2014) the training marines are getting grilled for doing a bad job at a training exercise and one of them is drifting asleep so one of the actual marines say to him “somewhere down your pants there is a pair of testicles, so take a grip” soon after the training marine gets very emotional and breaks into a flurry up unhappiness. In battlefield 4 at the beginning the main soldiers show little regard for the female soldier they are with, but at the end they show extreme emotion of anger when she commits suicide to save them from being killed. Before she does it you have a choice to choose who wants to sacrifice themselves and the other make soldier says “don’t give it to her wrecker, I’m a disposable piece of shit”. Whilst at the beginning he says “we should have to look after her as she doesn’t belong here” (showing total disregard for her being on the front line with them). Finally, in call of Duty Black Ops 2 (Treyarch, November 12^th, 2012) the male soldiers show heavy emotion of anger when the Militia snipe one of their friends and this translates in showing no emotion to enemy/mercy

References

Violence and Masculinity in Hollywood war films during World War 2 (Matthew Sitter)

 call of Duty Black Ops 2 (Treyarch, November 12th, 2012)

Battlefield 4 (EA DICE, October 29th, 2013)

Fury (David Ayer, October 22nd, 2014)

War Thunder (Gaijin 20th October 2012)

Royal Marines Commando School (Channel 5, October 29^th 2014)