SIFF " Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll"

The SIFF movie "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" was an entertaining piece that displayed Masculinity throughout. The movie was about a Singer from a rock band. The film was about his life as a rock star, from how he got started to late stages of his band. There were times when they would show clips of his childhood that would relate to his current events. The main character was a married man when he began his band. He had two children, a boy and a girl. The movie showed the early struggles of a band by displaying stress, and hardship from trying to book gigs. Later the band started to get acknowledged and they slowly began to become a hit band. After one of the big concerts, The main character encounters two things. He has an altercation with his drummer.The drummer quits on him or at least he makes an effort because before he could finish his sentence, the main character "the lead singer" fires him. Soon after that he meets a groupie that he ends up dating. He also meets a young man who replaces the drummer. This was the starting point of the band becoming big. Parallel to their rising in stardom, acts occurred that many would think as a negative portrayal. The main character ends up buying a separate place, different from his family's,and ends up moving in with his mistress and is guilty of adultery. This later results into the wife asking for a divorce. During his experience in the rock scene, the main character has his son go along with him on tour and has his son experience everything that he does on in the rock world. When the son began to have a major role in the film, he was portrayed as dorky and a loser. He was picked on at school and was very awkward with people. By the end of the movie, he was a cool cat. Did i mention that the character was disabled and needs a prosthetic leg? Something I liked about the film was that the director did not immediately identify that the character had a disability. Everything went on as normal and it was up to the viewer to notice that the main character had only one strong leg.

The reason why I wanted to talk about masculinity in this movie is because in every scene, every piece, there was masculinity. So much that the women were only on screen as an idea of objectification. This film does not even pass the Bechtel test, where the women does not have conversation that does not involve a man. The characters on the film displayed characteristics that would be described my social norm as "Manly" things. Such as smoking, swearing, drug use, being a womanizer, and the strive for success. In the main character's married life, he was the man of the house. He was the one that made the decisions, and the wife was the one that cooked, cleaned, and took care of the children. The gender roles were easily identified during the marriage scenes. Once the son was able to travel around with the dad through the rock band experience, the film expressed how masculinity could change a child from being a loser to a rock star. As mentioned before, The kid was every awkward at first. The kid was heavily influenced by all the masculinity, that he began to change his hair to more of a punk look, clothes that were tore up and cut off, he swore and did not even go to school at times, which was to show he had become a rebel. The daughter in the film was only shown a couple of times and when she was, she was with her mother and was very quit and proper. The transformation of the child turning into a macho man took a halt when he took some drugs and nearly died. Displaying scenes like that make me think of manly experiences.

This film was good to watch, I laughed, and was interested throughout the film. It was clear that the film wanted to glorify "man" by displaying many characteristics of a manly man and ommitting women for the most part. Through this film the director was able to tie in a plot and picture that was creative which set him apart from mainstream film which I was glad I had an opportunity to witness.