Concept Blog

The screenings on Thursday helped me to understand the concept of hegemony because it showed me how a reinforced cultural ideology affects a society and can become an everyday norm. James Lull states that, “hegemony is the power or dominance that one social group holds over others.” Another way to understand hegemony is one group of peoples ideology impressed upon others outside the group; the ideology is so dominate that a society adapts the ideology in part of their belief system.  Hegemony is a process that can be changed when challenged; however these ideologies are heavily reinforced. Hegemony is when societies or cultures think something is normal or that things that are opposite of the norm are unacceptable.

            The film, “Tough Guise” is a great example of hegemony. It is a film that shows how Americans have hegemony about boys being tough. Lull states, “Hegemony requires that ideological assertions become self evident cultural assumptions.” I think “Tough Guise” did a great job showing that as Americans we think boys should grow up to be tall, strong, an emotionless. Two common phrases little boys hear growing up are, “boys don’t cry” and “boys don’t play with dolls.” It is perfectly fine for a male to cry or for a boy to play with toy dolls, but since we as Americans have adopted such a strong hegemony about boys being tough we as a society have force male into being more self conscious about their masculinity and have therefore pushed males into feeing that they are not real males if they are not tough.