Toxic masculinity is a term used to define the harmful aspects of masculinity that have been widely accepted in many societies and especially ours. It illuminates traits like exaggerated strength, high violence tendencies, lack of emotions, high sexual tendencies, sexism and many more. The boy or man who lacks those traits won't be *a man* or *should stop being a girl*. Movies are our reality mirror where toxic masculinity is highly celebrated and appreciated. You can spot examples of it in almost every Egyptian movie.
Starting from one of the most fun and liked movies in every home " Eshaat hob or love rumor" where Samiha "Soad Hosni" ,the main female character, didn't notice her cousin Hussein "Omar El Sheriff" because he was a hard working individual with a very serious attitude. He wasn’t cool enough for her as he didn’t have many love affairs like her other cousin Lucy "Gamal Ramses" who was very modern and into cooking, dancing and singing.Her father used to always bully and shame Lucy as he considered him not manly enough and not very strong. Her father externally changed Hussein and faked a love affair for him then BOOM Hussein got 1000 time more attractive and Samiha loved him. Lesson learned gentlemen, next time when you want to attract someone stop being yourself and fake relationships so you can become the perfect MAN, and if you're into activities like Lucy’s, we're sorry you're not manly enough.
Another example is one of the top listed romantic movies "Taymour w Shafika" where Taymour "Ahmed El Sakka" and Shafika "Mona Zaki" have a tight love relationship since they were kids. The whole movie's plot was about Taymour controlling Shafika's life in all aspects:she wasn’t allowed to go out with her friends without him, not allowed to travel with them, and he even controlled her career. In the end of the movie she left her job after years of working hard for the position she had and this was allbecause he's the man, he knows better. His attitude was violent the whole movie using his masculinity to rule their relationship with exaggerated jealousy; patriarchy defined.
There are many other movies not only those two; like "El Tagroba El Danmarkia or The Danish Experience" staring "Adel Imam" *whose toxic masculinity, sexism and sexual harassment are present in almost all his movies* In the movie he is the father of four sons. The father and his sons were all in a competition to win the heart of the Danish girl "Nicole Sabba" who lives with them, the whole family was violent, sexual harassers and highly aggressive. All criticism on the movie was about "Nicole Sabba’s” clothes,ignoring all the disgusting ideas portrayed in the movie. Well, look closely in every movie you'll find many malfunctioned patterns like those. Thesad part is that they made many young boys believe that this destructive demeanor will make them perfect men, but the good side is many other boys are trying to educate themselves on toxic masculinity.
Writer: Shahd Roshdy
Art: Farah Hany
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