Film

We are looking at the films, Kingsman, Skyfall and Weekend to form our main case studies.

Kingsman (2014) - Matthew Vaughn - Action/Adventure/Comedy

Skyfall (2012) - Sam Mendes - Action/Adventure 

Weekend (2011) - Andrew Haigh - Drama/Romance

While Kingsman and Skyfall both represent masculinity through their male protagonists such as Harry Hart and James Bond who both wear expensive suits and have strength, wealth, skills and good manners. Such traits represent the dominant ideology of white, heterosexual, middle-aged and middle-class men. However the protagonists in the movie Weekend do not fit into any of these categories as they are homosexual and seem to be from the working-class judging by their style of living, dress code and use of language. The movie is largely about their homosexuality and the issues it brings forward, this might immediately portray the protagonists as emasculate to the audience since the typical stereotype of masculinity is deeply ingrained within society.

The genres of Kingsman and Skyfall immediately contrast with Weekend, which doesn't consist of any gadgets or weapons instead it is centrally focused on the relationship between the protagonists Russell and Glen. Although Weekend doesn't include any action scenes, the large use of dialogue makes the film a lot more realistic to the audience since it's a lot more relaxed and informal, which doesn't give off the impression that it was scripted beforehand. When looking at Kingsman and Skyfall which consist of many action scenes throughout, it is very clear that they both had a much higher film budget compared to Weekend. Kingsman had a budget of an estimated $81 million, Skyfall had an estimated $200 million and Weekend only £120,000.

Another feature of masculinity is often having sexual relationships with women, this is clearly seen in Skyfall where a majority of the female characters come across as sexual objects, this is particularly seen when Eve Moneypenny is shown shaving Bond's face and he starts to unbutton her blouse. Similarly, towards the end of Kingsman, the captured princess promises to sexually satisfy Eggsy as long as he saves the world. However, Weekend was unable to represent masculinity in this way as the protagonists are homosexual. Russell's character seems to be uncomfortable with showing he's homosexual out in public, one of the reasons for this is because he's worried about how people will react and will have a negative impact on his masculinity. However, by the end of the movie, we see that his interactions with Glen over the weekend have changed this as he kisses him in public at the train station multiple times, even after we hear someone mockingly whistling at them. This shows that masculinity and your sexuality should be two separate things.

Weekly News

Adele broke her Grammy award in two after saying it belonged to Beyonce

My source of information comes from the Independent, which is about the 2017 Grammy Awards, where Adele won the night's biggest awards, one of them being Album of the Year. During the acceptance speech Adele said "I can't possibly accept this award... The Lemonade album was just so monumental", after this she went on to breaking the award in half on stage as she declared it truly belonged to Beyonce.

However, there are only photos of this Adele moment as CBS cut away before it happened.

The Independent compared this incident to one of the main scenes from the movie Mean Girls where the protagonist (Cady Heron) breaks her Spring Fling queen crown into pieces to share with the other contestants.

Adele later added backstage "I thought this was her year. What the fuck does she have to do to win Album of the Year?" For such a successful artists like Adele to be saying such things I think it shows the public how constructed the music industry can really be, along with the rest of the media.

You can view Adele's full speech in the following SOURCE LINK