Week 3 - Exhibiting Masculinity

According to The Sexuality of Men (Metcalf and Humphries, 1985) masculinity can be described as characterised by aggression, competitiveness, emotional ineptitude and coldness. I found it interesting that in Touching the Void, the climbers Joe and Simon displayed some of these characteristics and even though they nearly died, they still maintained a ‘manly’ exterior and initially seemed to have no visible emotion when talking about their experiences.

I also found that the mimetic effect of the docudrama created a dramatized version of reality and the staggering shots of Siula Grande and the background music just attributed to the climbers being portrayed as overly ambitious and heroic. 

For instance, when Simon says climbing Siula Grande would be a “challenging day out” and there was something “compelling about stepping into the unknown” this created the impression that the climbers were following the stereotypical idea of men being the epitome of physical and mental strength. Possibly my interpretation of the mimetic style of documentary emphasising the concept of Joe and Simon being represented as these heroic figures are a form of trope because men being able to physically and mentally dominate Siula Grande and the docudrama itself could be considered as a cliché.

However, as the docudrama progressed, I noticed that this concept of Joe and Simon being represented as competitive and cold started to break and the men did become emotional when recalling their experiences. 

When Joe says, “I was very alone, I was very scared” and he appeared to have a tear in his eye I thought this paralleled with the constructionist cycle of producing meaning. The fact that Joe was crying was a sign of emotion, the isolating language like “alone” and “scared” created the concept of men being fearful rather than confident therefore this created an emotional meaning in the recollection of their story.