Abstract

HOENISCH, Julio César Diniz  and  CIRINO, Carlos da Silva. The media and the mirror of masculinity?. Estud. psicanal. [online]. 2010, n.33, pp. 61-74. ISSN 0100-3437.

This article deals with the partial results of a current research on the "crisis of masculinity" in contemporary society, analyzing how the media expose it. The analyses utilizes the psychoanalysis and social sciences operating concepts. Under different aspects, the media and human sciences argue that in contemporary times, "the" man undergoes a strong crisis of gender and identity, primarily due to the changing role of women in the labor market and their new roles in relationships. This study focused not only on analyzing the interviews presented in a magazine of wide national circulation but also on reflecting about the masculinity under the psychoanalytic theory, especially from the contributions of Jacques Lacan and the gender theories. The results presented in this first part came from a documentary research, whose sources were the articles regarding masculinity presented in Veja magazine, from August 2003 to August 2009. The analysis theoretical framework used as reference comes from the psychoanalysis, gender theories and discourse analysis. The results indicate that masculinity as a concept in the media shows a universal, without timeline, white, heterosexual man, member of a defined social class. It also shows the complex place that the concept of masculinity occupies in the psychoanalytic theory, often taken as the base and natural principle of another man - the woman, homosexual, black and other divergent subjectivities, sometimes seen as menial and sometimes as incomplete.

Keywords : Man crisis; Identity; Contemporary culture; Media; Subjectivity; Psychoanalysis.