"Comic book masculinity and the new Black Superhero"

There have been recent studies looking into the masculinity, and particular heterosexual masculinty, and whether this forms a social construction. Masculinity is always portrayed as a stable gender, however similar to feminism, it is shown as a "masquerade" trying to hide certain agendas.

This could suggest an underlying, unstable level of gender identity, and is further emphasised by the dual characteristics, for example the extremes of "man and mouse." One side showing a muscles, sex appeal and social competences, and the other shown as skinny, weak and a social failure. However, these two oppositions may not be that different, as one defines the other.....

At its most obvious and symbolic level, comic book masculinity characterizes for young readers a model of gender behavior that has traditionally struggled to incorporate both sides of the masquerade, yet has recently slipped into the domain of the almost exclusively hypermasculine.

Classical comic book depictions of masculinity are perhaps the quintessential expression of our cultural beliefs about what it means to be a man. In general, masculinity is defined by what it is not, namely "feminine," and all its associated traits - hard not soft, strong not weak, reserved not emotional, active not passive.

One of the most obvious and central focal points for characterizing masculinity has been the male body. As an external signifier of masculinity, the body has come to represent all the conventions traditionally linked to assumptions of male superiority. "Of course," Susan Bordo has observed in her discussion of contemporary body images, "muscles have chiefly symbolized and continue to symbolize masculine power as physical strength, frequently operating as a means of coding the 'naturalness' of sexual difference"...

This myth of idealized masculinity which is still incredibly pervasive remains dependent upon the symbolic split between masculinity and femininity, between the hard male and the soft Other....


There's loads more on masculinity, and what defines it.. etc etc on the site....

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-54421509.html