Assignment 1-3: Journal Article Analysis

Audience
An analysis of Peter Tragos’ article entitled Monster Masculinity: Honey I’ll Be in the Garage Reasserting My Manhood identifies the gender roles society identifies with men and women of the past and how those roles have changed in present. The article’s title suggests it is intended to appeal to women, which it is, but it also addresses all of society to explain the often baffling male behavior and tackles topics such as metro sexuality, to chauvinism, to male bonding in the garage. According to Tragos, the garage is the safest haven for men to be themselves without having to meet the expectations of women who expect a strong and sensitive male companion and without having to resort to offensive, obnoxious overly macho behavior such as the objectification of women (2009). Ladies, this means we should encourage our men to go to the garage!
Summary
The article explains that as gender roles changed in society, women were expected to be both strong and beautiful and men were expected to be both strong and sensitive, so as women gained strength, men had to gain sensitivity in order for balance between the sexes to exist (Tragos, 2009). Women no longer idolized June Cleaver, rather we saw women emerge as more authoritative figures such as Roseanne who held jobs, ran households, and disciplined the children, roles that once solely belonged to men (Tragos, 2009). Since men have given up some of the authority in the household, the article suggests they can reclaim their manhood in one of two ways: by objectifying women as Maxim men who look at sex kittens and listen to rap and rock songs with crass lyrics or by being more constructive and bonding with other men over custom vehicles as demonstrated in Monster Garage and American Chopper (Tragos, 2009). The author seems to think that the garage is a sacred place where a man can be a man, as there is no women or society telling them to be well groomed or well behaved: “Monster Garage and American Chopper recreate the cave in its modern avatar-the garage-for men to be in the company of men, albeit for sixty minutes, where they do not have to negotiate a blurred gender role nor assert their manhood by objectifying women”(Tragos, 2009).
Style
The article does not appear to be logically organized, in fact the reference to the two Discovery channel shows appears in the opening paragraph and then not for several pages later. One can get confused at first by all the pop culture references to June Cleaver and Donna Reed from the 1950s and 1960s to Clair Huxtable and Roseanne Connor (TV mom icons) to Lara Croft (video game character) and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy that do seem to appeal specifically to women and references to the shift in culture after World War II, NASCAR, and music from Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit that appeals to men. However, despite the organizational issues, the article does get its main point across which is a comparison of gender roles in a pre-World War II and post World War II society and how when men left the homestead to go to war those roles changed forever and kept evolving.
Key Idea
The key idea one can take away from Tragos is this: men and women seem to be assigned certain roles in society, but those roles are never set in stone, yet they are somewhat inherent. Even though it is alright for a man to show some sensitivity, he also still very much has a need to exhibit manly behavior by taking things apart and putting them back together which is what occurs on Monster Garage, American Chopper, and a slew of other male-themed shows. Also, the male bonding factor is not to be overlooked, “the garage was a place where things were handed down from father to son or grandfather to grandson” (Tragos, 2009). Is it any wonder men of all generations gather in the garage? Tragos explains it best in the article’s final sentence: “As men seek to return to traditional masculine identities, cutting up cars and building choppers is the road for returning to a time when men were men” (Tragos, 2009).

References
Tragos, P. (2009). Monster Masculinity: Honey, I’ll Be in the Garage Reasserting My Manhood. The Journal of Popular Culture, 42(3), 541-553.