Before I do my reflections on the movie Tough Guise and how it ties into the “No Homo" phenomenon, I want to point out something interesting that occurred right before we watched the movie. We could not watch the movie right away because there were some technically issues trying to get the VCR to work properly. When Professor Joy could not figure out how to get it to work, one of the male students spoke up and started giving advice and eventual Professor Joy gave the student the remote and he got the T.V. to work. I have scene this type of dynamic play out hundreds of times in my life. A female, no matter how educated she is, starts struggling with some sort of electronic device and immediately a male no matter what his standing in the group is offers to help with the problem. Men have been socialized to believe that they are the experts on all things mechanical/electronic. This is part of the overall socialization process where males are expected to wield more power even over inanimate objects such as televisions. Women on the other hand, are not expected nor taught that much about engineering or electronics. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because on the whole, the socialization process makes men more persistent when it comes to solving technological issues and women more likely to give up in favor of a man’s expertise. Since men actually use the electronics more, they become more comfortable using new machines and thus are able to assert their power and prove their manliness. (The only new technology that I think women are known for being more of an expert on is the Cell Phone and that is associated with the stereotypically female past time of talking on the phone.) Being a master of technology is just one of the many ways that a male can assert his masculinity in today’s society. 
       The video Tough Guise is all about how males are taught to assert their manliness in our culture and how it affects them in a variety of ways.  The video began with a montage of clips of men acting violently. A testament to how much violence males are exposed to in the media is the fact that I instantly recognized what every single brief clip in the montage was from video game Mortal Kombat to a brawl between Texas Rangers and The Chicago White Sox in 1993. The video goes on to point out all of the things that a man is called if he fails to live up to the image of masculinity that the media perpetuates today: fag, wuss, mama’s boy etc. 
       But has the media not always portrayed that a true man is masculine? Tough Guise points out how the media’s images of masculinity have all been super sized: GI Joe action figures have gone from looking like an average Joe so to speak to having gigantic biceps and chest muscles. Actors portraying super hero icons like Superman and Batman in the past were down right flabby compared to the muscle bound super heroes of today. Athletes, especially “professional wrestlers,” have gone from being bigger then an average man into borderline mutants who in many cases are using artificial enhancements to transform their bodies into real life action figures. 
       The ever increasing use of steroids and other harmful substances to live up to the new masculinity is just one of the many ways living up to society’s standards of what it means to be a man harms men. Men are also taught to be more violent and in most cases the violence males commit is against other males. Tough Guise discusses how the epidemic of male violence is not mentioned in the media or other segments of society because it is so engrained in the culture. Even though nearly all the school shooting are committed by males, that fact is rarely discussed as an underlying factor related to the crime. When we talk about rape and other crimes against women, we rarely acknowledge who the perpetrators are. We ask how many women were raped last year and not how many men committed rape in a given year.
 This need for males to constantly prove their manliness is typified in the year 2007 by what I call the “No Homo” phenomenon. I am a fan of hip hop music and first noticed the phrase “No Homo” constantly being used on hip hop blogs and message boards like Byroncrawford.com, Allhiphop.com, and XXLMag.com. Then last summer I noticed that many males between the ages of 12-24 were using “No Homo” after every other sentence at the local basketball courts (even in suburban areas like Watertown no less) where I play at. But what do I specifically mean that they were saying “No Homo?” Below is how the Urbandictionary.com specifically defines the current usage of “No Homo”
1. Phrase used after one inadvertently says something that sounds gay. His ass is mine. No homo
2. Used after a phrase that sounds ambiguously gay or 'homo', so that your friends won't call you a 'homo.“ 'no homo but we cockin' em' - Juelz Santana
”yo homie, i just spent five hours talking with my man on the phone, no homo”
3.Said to show that you aren't gay after saying something that sounded gay.  Hay man, pass the nuts. No homo.
I cornered him in my room and nailed him with a board. No homo
4.It is added in a sentence to make it sound less gay.
 1. Paul and I had each other's back all the time, no homo.
2. No homo though, Paul was a good friend
5.To rule out the homosexual context of a something said to another man. “yo, whatever man suck  my dick, no homo”
       The language of a particular generation or sub group of society is a great way to figure out the group’s values. In the case of the current generation of adolescent males, I believe the “No Homo” phenomenon is the result of the constant barrage promoting masculinity that boys get from the media and other areas of society that the video Tough Guise pointed out. It has got so extreme that many adolescent males feel the need to point out that they are not gay after nearly every sentence they say. That in a word is scary.