These days, the question "You want to take this outside?" is most commonly answered with either laughter or the threat of lawsuit.
An oft-asked question is whether entertainment culture acts on society or vice-versa. The chicken or the egg?
I think one must first present an answer to the question of the development of aggression.
Men no longer behave the way that men were designed to behave. Today, we live in an ideally testosterone-free environment, in which gender roles are being reversed.
Society's ideal modern woman is strong, forward and aggressive, while its ideal man is sensitive, nurturing and passive.
Even the most modest acts of aggression are frowned upon. Any alpha-male tendency like bragging, outward statements of virility or roughhousing is considered a faux pas in any context aside from rock concerts or fraternity gatherings.
That's where today's entertainment culture comes in and serves its purpose.
Video games, music and movies have been blamed for violence in youth culture consistently for the last 25 years. This habit dates back to the link being made between Richard Ramirez, "The Night Prowler" and AC/DC. Ramirez's artist rendering included a black hat with the band's logo.
There's been a dramatic increase in the number of deafening explosions per Hollywood film made in the same quarter century that's passed. This is admittedly due, in part, to the drastic development of "movie magic"; but there's also been an increase in demand for a character that's willing to blow someone away to achieve a goal. Dirty Harry may have started it all.
The question has been asked thousands of times in nightly news reports: What gives with the popularization of violence?
The answer, I believe, lies in the feminization of the modern male. Few outlets for the male need to make a display of potency are allotted to a guy in the 21st century. There are contact sports, but even those are now conducted with a tight feminine leash, and usually only up to the age of 18.
More "potentially dangerous" moves are made illegal every year by wrestling referees at both the college level and the high school level. These moves certainly live up to their moniker, but the sport is supposed to be dangerous. In its Roman origin, the sport was a fight to the death. It has since become an increasingly harmless activity in which one must fear the threat of starvation more than any other potential danger.
And so, many young men turn to the entertainment industry to fulfill their base needs. The computer game "Doom" was a Godsend to kids starving for such an outlet because they were a generation denied bee-bee guns. It's tough to "shoot your eye out" with a two-dimensional, animated plasma bazooka. And the splattering of alien guts made an agreeable substitution for the similar act conducted on an animal in the steadily growing sterile realm of suburban America.
I propose that if people still "took it outside," the creation of the "mosh pit" would never have taken place. But it did, and it also happened in the '70s with the introduction of punk-rock. Moshing is indeed the most passive-aggressive activity available to today's youth culture. In theory, all participants "let it all out" but at the same time, "no one gets hurt." Ideally it's an act of unadulterated self-satisfaction, but simultaneously conducted with regard for others. It's a spin-kicking contradiction.
Men today have ditched their salt for soap and their flannels for facials. The metrosexual trend speaks for itself. Surely, fewer men in the '50s waxed their eyebrows and fretted over their tan.
As actual acts or declarations of physical prowess have decreased, the metaphorical representation of such has increased. There's more screaming in modern music, there's more killing in modern movies and there's an underlying and seldom-mentioned malcontent in the modern male. Hence, the shoe-shuffling genre of grunge became incredibly popular in the early '90s. Depression is the new happiness.
Women are hopping on the bandwagon too. It is becoming more acceptable, even encouraged, for a woman to be more aggressive. This has happened, not coincidently, as a result of the feminist movement, which made a strong push in the '70s. Today there is a proportionally greater number of punk rock acts that are female than there were at the genre's inception. With films like "Resident Evil," and "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," women are starting to take roles as action stars, demolition specialists who can outdo the men of the last 20 years. Arnold got it handed to him in a basket by the female terminator.
This progression towards gender-role reversal in the entertainment industry is certainly a sign of the times, as men are becoming more like women, and women more like men, than ever before.
