The Man is The Head of the Household... but....

“The man is the head [of the household] but the woman is the neck and she can turn the head anyway she wants”

As soon as I read Gauntlett’s take on men’s magazines in his book Media, Gender, and Identity I thought of this scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Gauntlett begins by addressing the various themes in men’s lifestyle magazines such as FHM, Maxim, and Men’s Health. After giving a content-based analysis of the articles, he discusses the basic types of writing that writers of men’s magazines use.

What I found most intriguing, was his idea of how irony is used throughout articles in men’s magazines. Basically, he says that men’s magazines are designed more to feel like a friend joking around with a friend. Instead of seeming like advice and tips that a man needs to know, men’s magazines are designed to give the reader the feel that he is just “flicking through the magazines and not taking them too seriously” (167). Humor and sexist jokes are sprinkled throughout the writing to make the articles seem less informative and more casual. Gauntlett explains that “man men want articles [concerning relationships, sex, health or other personal matters], but they do not want others – or even perhaps themselves – to think that they need them” (168).

This irony and humor felt very similar to the idea that the mother conveys to her daughter in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In the scene I referenced above, the mother, on two occasions, shows that men simply need to be persuaded into the ‘right’ idea because they can’t obtain it on their own. The first example, when she says that a “women control the neck and she can turn the head anyway she wants” gives the impression that men are mindless. They follow whatever instruction is given to them in magazines. The humor and jokes are simply ways of getting them to blindly follow the magazine’s agenda. Later, the mother convinces her husband of who should go to work at the travel agency. Instead of suggesting the idea, she needs to make him think it was his idea. Here, she wants him to think he’s so smart to have come up with this idea and to creatively readjust where members of the family work. However, she knows that in reality it was her idea and she has only let him think he’s created the plan. Men’s magazines let men think they are just fiddling through a magazine and not seriously considering or reading any of the articles, but by creating a tone of “friendly, ironic and laddish” they can suddenly have a man reading the entire article all the way through and not just skimming headlines (167).

Since they are written in this humorous tone, it gives the impression that the magazines are to be taken lightly; however, since they are selling so well and topics are continually revisited, there is obviously a want or, in Gauntlett’s view, a need for them in society. He hints that as a result of feminism men are now needing to find a new gender role. He says that “[magazines’] existence and popularity shows men rather insecurely trying to find their place in the modern world, seeking help regarding how to behave in relationships, and advice on how to earn the attention, love and respect of women and the friendship of other men” (180). In earlier times when male roles were clearly defined, there didn’t need to be a how-to manual on masculinity; however, now that women are changing their roles, men must do the same.