Mirror, Mirror on Masculinity: Are We Getting It Right?

0:05Welcome back to the To Be A Boy podcast with me, Elliott Ray.

0:09Elliott:And me, Joeli Braley. So we are very excited about this episode because we are so interested in the ability of the media to shape narratives and the conversation around positive or not so positive male role models in public life. So today we are delighted to be joined by Joe Hall from Channel 4 and Fergus Nararatnam Blair from the National Research Group. Together they have created the Mirror on Masculinities Report. Informed by the latest data around representation in media and advertising, the aim of the Mirror on Masculinities Report has been to connect directly with young men to explore their personal experiences, as well as the kind of content and messaging that resonates with them.

0:52The report sets out to highlight creative opportunities for brands to guide, inspire and relate to young men and more broadly to help shape the future of masculinities. So welcome to the podcast. Let's start off with an overview. In your opinion, why is this report so important and what was the most surprising thing you learned through the research? Thanks for having us. I think why this report was so important, why we wanted to do it in the first place, it stems essentially from a bigger research piece that we've been doing since 2019, which is called Mirror on the Industry, which is essentially our kind of ad audit of all representation in TV advertising.

1:33into that stems across all groups, all different categories, all different forms of representation and inclusion. So as part of that, we've ordered 1 ,000 ads every year in TV, the top 1 ,000 ads. And then from that, we've also done these deep dive projects, really getting under the skin of specific areas of representation. So we've done like women's safety, transgender people, class and social grade. And we were kind of looking for what was the next best route into that conversation. and on the back of some other research that we'd done early in the year, Gen Z, Trends, Truth and Trust which I think you've had James and Conrad on the podcast before us to talk about we knew this theme of gender and specifically around masculinities was really important and also it was what was really resonating with our brands and advertisers when we were taking that research out so it felt like a really natural fit and then we came across National Research Group who'd also been doing some research in the area so it felt like a nice fit to work together to create this project So just to add to what Joe was saying there, from our own perspective at NRG, and we're an agency that works across the entertainment industry, a lot of different clients, a lot of different players in this space.

2:43I think for us, one of the exciting reasons to be researching this topic was the fact that there is so much negativity around masculinity these days. You know, there has been over the last couple of years, really a flood of movies and TV shows highlighted, of course, by adolescents exploring the dangers of the manosphere, the dangers of toxic masculinity. And I think that's really important to be having that conversation. But I think what we're missing a little bit is the corollary to that, the positive content that shows young men. How do you actually respond to those challenges? How do you respond to that landscape to create a more positive vision of what masculinity can look like?

3:24And I think we have to remember as well, you know, the vast, vast majority of young men in this country are not watching Andrew Tate videos. They're not falling into the manosphere. They do not engage with that kind of content. they actually do have a broadly healthy relationship with masculinity. And that voice, I think, has really been left out of the conversation here. And that's what we and Joe and the team at Channel 4 were really trying to do through this research was to bring that perspective into the conversation a little bit more. Yeah. And you asked like what some of the most surprising things from the research were.

3:55I guess they were almost because we did these conversations a lot of the time in like friendship pairs. So it was a group of two friends who knew each other beforehand. And it was just kind of surprising, but also just really nice to see kind of those relationships and how they would talk about each other and their kind of understanding of masculinity and being men through the eyes of their friendship. And I think those insights kind of do feel a little bit missing sometimes in this conversation. And I get it because the Manus Fair and all that is a really scary place. But there's also these conversations happening.

4:26I think it's important that we bring them in so we really get in the full picture. Yeah, definitely is. I think, as you said, since adolescence, there's been a lot of reactionary narrative and some of course is reality. But I think we've all become very scared of young boys. And I think the picture has been painted quite negatively. But, you know, I go to church and I see young boys hugging each other and showing affection to each other in a way that I never did when I was 16 years old. And I don't think that narrative has been painted. So it's great that that's come out of the report as well.

5:00So what would you say currently in media and advertising, what would you say is the kind of current message, the current narrative that you think has been portrayed on screen to young boys? If you had to summarise that, how would you put that into words? I think I mean one of I guess the key stat and the big stat that we kind of led with from this project was that a third of men were saying that they rarely or never see the kinds of men that they want to be in advertising um and kind of media more generally as well there are certain aspects of media where they see it more online video sports they're the kind of places where they are seeing the kind of figures that resonate but in advertising I think it's because one in the nature of advertising and the way that kind of the world is becoming more individualized and more personalized they're then more attracted to the people who feel more familiar to them and more relatable in many ways so we're seeing for example angry ginger and i'm a celebrity right now and seeing how well he's doing and how kind of relatable he is um whereas maybe having johnny depp in an aftershave advert looking ripped six-pack is probably it feels out of touch right um and we heard that a lot they were the kind of people that were being mentioned when we were talking about some of the more negative aspects of advertising and advertising has to be aspirated aspirational.

6:16That's kind of part of what advertising is. But I think there is just that gap between aspiration and relatability. And this report, I guess, was trying to figure out ways of plugging that gap. And just building on what Joe was saying there, I think part of the challenge as well is the fact that when you look at the messages that are coming through to young men about masculinity from advertising specifically, but also the wider media landscape, there's a lot of contradiction within that. You know, on the one hand, you still have a lot of very traditional masculine archetypes that are very common within our culture.

6:49You know, the types of adverts that Joe mentioned, you know, celebrities with six packs, getting the girl, et cetera. You still have, you know, superheroes and fantasy characters who are very traditionally masculine in a lot of ways. But then at the same time, young men are kind of taking all of that messaging in, but they're also being exposed to all of this messaging about the dangers of toxic masculinity, the need to reimagine and redefine masculinity. And they kind of put in this awkward situation where they're trying to do everything at the same time. The researcher John De La Volpe, I think at Harvard has a very interesting term for this.

7:24He calls it masculinity vertigo, the idea that young men growing up in today's culture are kind of being pinballed between all of these different extremes. And it creates this situation where they feel as young men, there are a lot of expectations I have to live up to as a man, or in order to be able to claim the title of a man. But I can't figure out what those expectations are because I'm getting so much contradictory and conflicting information.

7:48Elliott:I find it really interesting that brands still use these aspirational type figures. I mean, I wouldn't call Johnny Depp an aspirational type figure because I have my own feelings on Johnny Depp. But as you say, you know, in adverts, you have these men often who are very muscular and very like ripped and not what most men are actually. And yet then we have the John Lewis advert and the Waitrose advert recently that's blown up and doesn't demonstrate that at all. And so, you know, clearly there is a market for doing something that's much more human and real and vulnerable. And people are really enjoying that.

8:31Elliott:It's having a positive impact on brands. So it seems mad to me that they're still going with this very old school way of advertising. And I think you see it across all gender lines as well. You have the same kind of aspirational stereotypes for women. It's the kind of same thing for men as well. And I think, yeah, the John Lewis advert is brilliant. And I've seen some kind of like mixed reviews on why it may not be brilliant. But for me, I think for the way it made me, I definitely resonated with it as a young man. and kind of like the relationship kind of when you grow up with your dad and the kind of bridging that talking gap and being able to how you communicate with your dad.

9:09And I think it's a really important story. And I think there's loads of people that I've spoke to who saw that and were touched by it and moved by it. And I think that's what advertising is supposed to do, right?

9:19Elliott:Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the kind of thing that brands should be doing. And it's great that brands are recognising this and it's becoming part of their, I guess, strategy to kind of show these kind of images of masculinity or these relationships which we all experience but we maybe don't see on screen enough. Do you think it's changing then? Do you think the advertising landscape will change? I think it is. I think there's definitely more of an appetite. I think across all the kind of areas of representation and inclusion and showcasing more stories, I think the issue is that there's this other side of it, which is the big DEI pushback, which is kind of washing over from America and how that's going to start to impact the brand landscape because ultimately we've got a lot of brands who are global brands as well.

10:03So what kind of that relationship has with it, I think that is a challenge. But I think certainly from the people that I've spoke to and the rooms that I've been in, there's a real appetite for just more relatable characters. It doesn't mean like completely changing what a man looks like on screen. It's just showing these stories, which we've been all experiencing for years and years and years, but maybe it's just not been part of advertising. Yeah, I'm really interested in this in terms of the power of advertising, the responsibility. So to read from the report, it says young men today are navigating a shifting and often confusing landscape of masculinities.

10:37While most are proud to be men, many are unsure about what being a man should or could look like. so when we talk about responsibility in regards to like we know there's there's a market in this so there's money to be made in representing different types of people but I believe like business should be for good as well and the advertising entity and business can have so much power in shaping those narratives what do you think the responsibility is of the advertising industry to like drive the narrative and be part of representing a healthy form of masculinity and helping young boys to grow up? I think it has a huge responsibility.

11:14I mean, ultimately, all of these challenges of masculinity that we hear so much about these days, this whole crisis of masculinity that we're told about, it is fundamentally a challenge of cultural narratives. It's a challenge of narratives about the role of men in society, how they fit into the broader kind of social fabric. And advertising, media more generally as well, has a huge role to play in shaping and defining those narratives, whether it's intentional or not. in our research we've looked at who young men look up to as role models we found only about half say that their primary role models growing up were real people in their lives you know people like fathers and brothers and teachers and mentor figures and so on so that means about half of young men are looking up to primarily either fictional characters from media or celebrities so the media that they're exposed to the kind of world that they see through their tv screens through other sources other devices plays this really central role for a lot of people in defining just the basic expectations they have growing up.

12:14I don't want to be too kind of high-minded about this. I don't think it's just, you know, they need to be thinking about this from a philanthropical perspective. I think there's also a commercial imperative here as well. You know, we're seeing that young men are changing their understanding of masculinity. And even, you know, one of the things that stood out to me in the research was you kind of go in with this expectation that, you know, conservative young men are going to have very traditional views on masculinity. Liberal young men are going to have much more progressive views. It's more complex than that.

12:43Actually, even a lot of liberal young men still have some traditional values that they cling on to. Even conservative young men still want to redefine masculinity in some ways. We heard a lot about this idea of emotional openness and emotional honesty when we were speaking to them. So actually, even just from a commercial perspective, reaching and engaging with this audience, creating content that's going to stick in their minds, it needs you to engage with these issues and to think about the evolving role of masculinity in society. I think it's important to say that we're not saying that it's all on the responsibility of brands and they're going to be able to change everything because brands, you know, they are, I guess, commercial entities and we're working with them as a commercial partner as well.

13:24But I think, yeah, there is, there's reports from the Unstereotype Alliance who do work around kind of like looking at the representation within advertising and the impact that then goes on to have on brand and we see that it does improve brand equity and it improves short-term sales likelihood um so there is a if you can't persuade your cfo to do it for good there's also this side of it of it does actually have a commercial impact because we know that brands that are relatable are the ones that we're attracted to and the ones that we keep going back to yeah and it's a big conversation um from some reform counselors that have said there's too many too much diversity in advertising and I made a post a couple of weeks ago to say I think they're completely missing the point because you know if I'm Tesco for example of course I'm going to make a diverse advert because I'm going to want to attract as many people as possible and if I'm Sainsbury's I'm not looking at Tesco and thinking oh they had a diverse advert so I'm not going to do that I'm going to make my advert as good as it can be which means getting as many people as possible represented so I can sell as many cereal packets or nappies or whatever to the most amount of people like this is business um and there's money to be made in representing all types of people so I'm really interested obviously Angujin's been in into the jungle um we've got influencers like Chunks and just people who you wouldn't have thought years ago before YouTube and the internet would have been celebrities or would have been people that were in a position where young people looked up to them whereas now we're seeing um different people whether it's race whether it's body shape, whether it's religion, who are massive, they have big platforms, and they are influential.

15:00From the research, where did you find young men were looking for the kind of men they wanted to be in the media? I know sports and entertainment kind of came out as quite big, but yeah, what were your reflections on where men are looking for positive representation of what they look like? Absolutely, you touched on two of the biggest places that people are looking for, for men that are relatable and not even that they're looking for it's just how people consume media nowadays and we're consuming media in a way that feels a lot more closer to us because we're there's such a plethora of people and we're not necessarily always having our media directed down to us we're kind of from the ground up so we've got these stories which feel like more in touch with who we are and kind of our backgrounds and where we've come from someone like angry ginge who's kind of made his name just playing twitch streams um playing fifa in his room this is the kind of thing that all a lot of boys we were doing what i was doing when i was growing up and the fact that he's now got a platform it kind of feels like you're in the room with your mates when you're doing that and i think that kind of male friendship and male community really fosters quite nicely in these spaces and i think this is something again with kind of like the online video world which is maybe forgotten about sometimes is how nice these spaces can be for for friends to kind of connect and also to provide that aspiration of I could go on and do something like this from my bedroom self-made and that kind of relatability I think is where um is what has been is really attractive and I think it's just it's not attractive because it's new or it's different it's attractive because it's actually something which is facilitating relatability on and things that feel real, which is, yeah, maybe not always been the case in media.

16:46Elliott:I think loads of parents will find that really interesting. You know, as an old bastard who has boys who watch Twitch all the time and is like, what is going on? Why are you watching somebody play a computer game? I just don't understand it. Realising what you just said, that it's like they're mates and you're just hanging out with them playing a computer game. I'd never thought of it like that before yeah I mean don't get me wrong it's still important to go out and touch some grass you know like we can't be staying in our bedrooms all the time there is a really important balance to get but yeah I think when we were speaking to the friends because we were speaking to them in friendship groups as well when they're talking about media through that lens of friendship and they're almost in that community together um whether that be gaming or whatever it is um yeah I think it's just a really nice example of how media can be really powerful.

17:40I think so much of it comes down to this idea of just demonstrating expertise. And when we ask young men, you know, what type of men do you want to see more of in the media? What type of men do you want to see more of in fictional stories? One of the most common responses we get is men who are real experts in something, men who have some kind of unique skill or expertise. And we see that manifest a lot in gaming streamers, as you said, but also in some of the other content creators that people are consuming. When we were interviewing young men for this research, we were asking them, you know, who are the YouTube creators?

18:10Who are the TikTok creators that you follow? A lot of them kind of fell in that category of people with very niche, very specific expertise. Outdoor Boys, for example, was a channel that came up a lot. That's, I think it's an American channel. It's the dad and his three sons, and they go out into the wilderness, and he demonstrates survival techniques, and he teaches you how to do things for yourself. that idea of just people who are passionate about things who have things that they're really knowledgeable about and who are sharing that knowledge and expertise that really resonates with a lot of young men and it's a big part of what they get out of that kind of wider creator economy these days it was really great for me as well because i could just note down a list of all these influences and youtube accounts i could then go and watch as a young man myself i got

18:50Elliott:i had loads it was great i mean outdoor boy sounds really wholesome i'm going to be recommending that to my kids but I often find the stuff that they're watching is just such a like brain rot although brain rot is a thing isn't it so when I say this is brain rot they're like no it isn't brain rot's this other thing but um I find a lot of the stuff when I watch it with them I'm like oh wow this is just chewing gum for your brain but um it clearly there is a lot of stuff out there that is really wholesome that lots of kids are engaging with my kids aren't I'll be honest there is yeah I think that there's that balance to be found because because there's so much content and a lot of it isn't is either crap content or potentially dangerous content there is a really fine balance and it's difficult and I'm not sure we have the answers yet on how to help young men navigate that or young people in general to navigate that but I think it's important that we make sure that we're having the full conversation and we're not just concentrating on the things which are the negative side of things yeah my girls watch um these kind of hollywood families there's there's one family they've got six siblings and she just loves watching it and they're just at home they build 7 and 11 in their house and they have like a slide in their living room they're very rich in these mansions and i'll watch it and i was there i said to her like what i can they were unboxing some toys and whatnot and i was like why are you watching people just open presents is that interesting and said to me like well why do you watch people run around playing football and i was like to be fair touche you've got a point i do think it is yeah there is a point there because it is just like being in the living room watching these people like having presents and you feel like you're there almost or you have some kind of parasocial relationship with them somehow and i think there is something in it which does connect to people and does work Yeah, it is that idea of like simulated friendship.

20:44I mean, you look at like Mr. Beast, for example, and yes, there's a like flashy challenge aspect of the videos. But so much of the actual appeal of the videos is the fact that he makes them with this big group of friends and you get to see them banter and joke around and have actually quite wholesome interactions while they're making the video. and you as a viewer get to feel like, oh, I'm a part of that crew by, you know, through this kind of process of surrogacy. I am, you know, I can imagine myself as part of that sort of friendship group. And I think at a time when having those friendships in the real world is harder and harder these days because of, you know, the direction of travel and society post-pandemic, the fact that, you know, youth clubs are closing, sports clubs are closing, it's harder and harder for kids to find those opportunities for real world connection.

21:27That kind of creator content fills a really important void there.

21:32Elliott:Do you think, though, it's a bit of six of one, half a dozen of the other, in that the fact that this content exists stops people having real-world connection as well, as the fact that, yes, youth clubs have gone and there are fewer opportunities, but part of me feels like sometimes my kids replace going out and playing football in the park with their mates with, oh, I'll watch this video instead and I'll get some connection and I don't have to leave the house. Yeah, I think it's difficult to say, right? It's a bit chicken and egg, which came which came first i do think that i mean when we speak to young people when we survey young people they do recognize that too much of their lives are lived purely online these days they actually show a really strong interest in finding more opportunities for those real world connections and i do think a little bit maybe that's kind of one of the trends we're going to see over the next few years is especially as this kind of gen alpha generation growing up at the moment as they get into their like late teenage years as they get to start exerting more autonomy more control over their lives i do feel like maybe there's going to be a bit of a response where they're going to say hey how actually can i use technology to help me find those opportunities to connect with people in the real world rather than just using it as a replacement i do think it probably has eaten it away some a little bit but i do think that young people themselves are responding to that and are trying to push back now.

23:17See fox.com for complete terms and conditions. The report made an interesting point of reflecting on the pressure to live out masculinity comes from. So no doubt, you know, the media is very influential, but the report shows that for most men, they learn about where it means to be a man from family and friends and teachers and mentors. However, the young men say the pressure to be masculine comes largely from women. so can you talk about what you learned about the empathy and attainment gap between young men and young women and how how you saw that playing out through through the research and the conversations you were having with the young men I think it's yeah and it's really important I think to stress where this question came from and it came from I guess the hypothesis of there's some research that NRG had done around kind of how there was pressure from other men and that was a really a big part of it and the research that we'd done gen z trends truth and trust and there was we saw this gender divergence we saw this real gap in not only attainment but also just like views and ambition and futures um and world views and i think so we framed the question as who is where is most of the pressure coming from so not as like if you it's an either or situation so if you have to choose between is it coming from men it's coming from women so it's definitely not saying that women are putting pressure on men and actually it's just a perspective of from men that more pressure is coming from women it's not actually that that is happening and I personally don't believe that that is what is happening I think it's just the perspective because of how society has developed and I think things like the dating landscape and the online dating landscape is a big thing here we were speaking to 18 to 34s right so that's kind of prime online dating landscape and also we've talked about some of the positive side of social media but some of the more negative sides of social media is how they their algorithms do drive these quite gendered spaces a lot of the time and so if you're seeing a lot of messaging which is either women saying um talking about things like a boyfriend is not um cool it's not cool to have a boyfriend these days or if you're if you're seeing men yeah it's embarrassing sorry um or if you're seeing men saying um that you need to go and get the girl this is how you do it this like i think those messages make it really confusing and they create this really zero-sum view of gender so i think that's where it's why the probably the statistic lent more into the pressure coming from women as opposed to that actually being a reality.

25:57Because, yeah, because the landscape is so much about men versus women these days, not about men and women together. I think that's exactly right. And I think that, you know, it's the same trend that we were talking about earlier in terms of the replacement of in-person socialization with digital socialization. If you look at the types of venues where young people are spending time these days, places like group chats and discord servers and video game lobbies even, so many of these venues are effectively sex segregated. There was some interesting research recently that showed that the younger you are, the more likely you are to only follow content creators online who are the same gender as you.

26:36So you do get that sense of young people living in these kind of sex segregated echo chambers. And then that's exacerbated by the fact that the content that you do see from the other side is the content that's gone viral. And often that's because it's driven by rage bait, basically. You know, young men see videos of women on social media complaining about men who are too short or too poor or not manly enough or whatever. And they think that's reflective of how all young women think about dating when that's not the case at all. And it's just that's the content that provoked enough of an angry response to break through into their social media bubble.

27:11Elliott:That is fascinating. and so true from my own experience with my kids. They don't watch any women online. They only watch male influencers. How do we solve that as parents? Do you think it's worth us trying to push with our boys some female influencers so they get some opportunity to experience women online and so they're not in these sex-segregated spaces as often? Or is there anything else you think parents should be doing to prevent that? I think so. I think, you know, when you look at how parents, we're doing some research on parenting specifically at the moment around some of these questions.

27:49But when you look at how parents approach some of these questions, they're looking at these issues of social media purely from a safety perspective. So they're, you know, they're looking at it through the lens of how do I give my kids enough knowledge to keep them safe, to make sure that they're not exposed to predators or scammers or bad actors online. And they see it as they see social media as primarily a source of danger. And I think to your point there, I think you need to reframe how you think about it. You need to think about it as an entertainment genre, as a form of media. And you need to recognize it's not just about putting those guardrails in place.

28:25it's about cultivating a healthy media diet. And it's about the positive engagement that you can have with media within that space and actually taking an interest in who are the people that my kid is engaging with? What does that gender mix look like? What are their backgrounds? All these sorts of questions, rather than just looking at it as this big sort of scary thing that I just need to put the right guardrails around.

28:48Elliott:Yeah. I mean, when I was growing up, You just had like, I think you had three channels when I was younger and like the TV for kids went off at like six o 'clock and that was it. There was nothing else to watch. But you you just you know, you got what you were given. And so obviously all of that included different sexes, different types of people, different stories. whereas now when there's so much choice and kids are choosing what they want to watch as you say they're going for somebody that's the same sex as them they're going for stories well there aren't even stories often there's not complicated stories there's just somebody playing a game telling you about their experience of that game which I mean it still blows my mind that they find that fascinating but um yeah so they're not getting those complicated human stories and different types of people and they're not getting it outside of the home well they are getting it a little bit but even like outside the home my kids just really seem to mix with other boys as well so they yeah they're gonna get to a point where they just don't understand girls at all because their only experience really of girls is probably me and and i can't do everything yeah do you know my eldest had a 10 year old birthday party a few weeks ago and she invited the 15 kids from her class and half were boys and half were girls and some of the parents who came with their daughters were surprised that there were boys at the party and if you see their faces like oh there's boys here it's like yeah she's friends with boys too um but let's talk about the Paul and let's talk about kind of the three pillars of masculinity that you found.

30:36So report highlights three key pillars that came through as themes, the conversations with young men that you were having were reflected men as builders, leaders and providers. So let's start with men as builders. I was particularly interested in the finding that young men believe in a goal based approach to life, especially in relation to the issues around male loneliness. That's very interesting and what did you learn about this as a pillar and what do you think young men want to see in the media representing men as as builders I think yeah this pillar in particular is really interesting it spoke a lot to what Fergus was talking about before about looking for experts or people with craft or people building themselves up in many ways and I think there is some issues with having a goal-based approach to life but there is also some positives with that I think the issues come when it becomes that is the old that you have this kind of a star in the sky that you're looking to reach and it feels unreachable a lot of the time because if you're in your 20s and you're um maybe struggling with work or struggling to find a house or feel like you're not being paid enough all that kind of stuff makes it feel further and further out of reach.

31:51So not only are you attracted to media, which almost gives you a route through to how you can build yourself up and better yourself. But I think it means that there is an issue with self-esteem a lot of the time. And I think that's a really hard balance for men to navigate. Because we're not always, we feel like we're being told, this is how you do it. This is what a man should be to, you should be building yourself. You should be building a life for you and your family. And yeah, at the core of all of it and all of the conversations was this just desire to be a good human, a good person. It wasn't even about masculinity.

32:29It was about things like family. It was about things like self-improvement. And these are just natural things that all of us want to do most of the time. It's just when it becomes so gendered and so about masculine behaviour or stereotypically masculine behaviour, that's where I think there is an issue with navigation for people. When we were interviewing young men for this research, I was really struck by how many of them said something to the effect of, you know, I don't really see myself as a man yet, but I'm working to become one. It's something that I'm working towards. That idea that manhood, being a man, is something that you have to attain or earn in some way.