Gender roles: meat-eating girls and grass-eating boys?!

I knew that there is a TV drama called The O.C. and many of my friends liked to watch it a lot, also Gossip Girl, some are addicted to it, but I have never watched them in my life( American teen TV dramas somehow never attracted me...). So, I didn’t have so much enthusiasm as everyone did in the class, but still it was interesting to learn how masculinity is portrayed in media in America because it is quite different from it is in my country.

It’s interesting how the author of “Masculinities on The O.C.” categorizes the masculinity into a hierarchy: hegemonic, complicit, marginalized, and subordinate. The character, Ryan, who represents the hegemonic masculinity, is “good-looking, strong”, intelligent and “his aggressive behavior is justified as a defense of someone else,” whereas the character Seth, representing complicit masculinity, who is “portrayed as a weak and geeky social outcast, securing “his position as a male accomplice in supporting the values of hegemonic masculinity. And marginalized masculinity, men of color and with disabilities are underrepresented and subordinate masculinitiy, effeminate and gay men are used to make an offensive comments and “undo every other successful embodiment of hegemonic masculinity and render one a social outcast.”
We know that this kind of drama shows a fantastic world and those characters are not true but I think these images of men or manhood have a considerable influence on the viewers in terms of what they consider the high valued masculinity to be and cause them to construct the stereotypes of how the popular and attractive man (like Ryan) look like and act like. And besides, these images of how masculinity is portrayed also reflect those ideas and stereotypes we already have about masculinity; the media knows we know the characteristics of Ryan mean hegemonic manhood, so his characteristics as a man attract viewers.

I think a lot of U.S. media like ads, TVs, and films show this hierarchy of masculinity. Many ads emphasize the man’s masculine body and powerful position over a woman and almost always the models who show those are white men.
The U.S. media including films, TV shows, and almost everything go overseas. The O.C and Gossip Girl are watched in my country, Japan, too. Those images that American media shows can have stronger influence on how the people living in other countries, who are not familiar with the real life or people in America. Many of my friends in Japan, when they hear the words, “an American man,” they easily associate it with a macho man with blond and blue eyes. And also they almost forget that there are other ethnic groups in the U.S. like Indians, the Latin people, Middle Easterns, etc because those are not represented in the U.S. media and even the films which use minorities as leading characters like Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle sadly have never come over to Japan.
And on the contrary, it is true that people here also have stereotypes of my country, Japanese men and women, and the gender roles. Many people here might think that in Japan men are strong and women are dependents on men and always follow their husbands. This might be true in my parents’ generation, but now this is far from the reality. The manhood in Japan was thought to be a man having so called Samurai spirit: he is so courage and strong that they are always quite prepared to die to protect his family. Or more recently it was thought to be a man with 3k : a high income (Kosyunyu) an advanced academic background (Kogakureki), and above-average height (Kosincho).
But in these two years, media coined the terms “meat-eating girls and grass-eating boys.” The traditional gender roles are changing and the line between men and women is getting blur (see the article http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120696816).
I found the high valued masculinity in America is different from recent Japanese one because in America the men with strength, a leading skill, and masculine body are still common media image of hegemonic masculinity.
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But in Japan now men having sort of feminine trait, the grass-eating boy, is becoming popular in the media and also in the real life too. Many magazines show the topic title of “what grass-eating boys are like” or “why they can be popular among girls” on their cover pages. The characteristics of the grass-eating boys are :passive in pursuing love,pure, not greedy for getting women, focusing on family and friends, and eschewing the macho ways of the traditional Japanese male. On the other hand, woman, are becoming more independent, aggressive in approaching a man they like, and not liking to just follow men or rather wanting to manipulate them, so that they are called meat-eating girls.
Japanese media spread this type of men as the popular one loved by women and many TV dramas use these grass-eating boys to attract female viewers; and usually those dramas tend to show the ideal grass-eating boys for women, which are typically men with a cute face and enough strength to protect girls (but not violent), so they are popular among many women BUT not interested in them so much. The drama which shows this trend most would be "otomen(乙男）”, which means Girly Guys. The leading character is best at Japanese fencing and the most popular guy in the whole school. BUT he does not care about the female fans of his and his secret passions include sewing, baking and crocheting clothes for his stuffed animals. And he secretly likes the heroine who is a martial arts expert.



As you can see in the clip, even though he is strong enough to protect himself and the heroin, the heroin is also strong enough to protect him (without any weapons!) and finally leads him somewhere.
The article says,"It's not so much that men are becoming more like women. It's that the concept of masculinity is changing." The old characteristics of masculinity are now changing and the masculinity, which is kind, mild, and maybe more respectful to women is demanded in Japan. The media might greatly helped this masculinity to permeate into our society, but also the media might only sense the changing gender roles in the society keenly and reflect it in the media world.