ABSTRACT
After analyzing more than forty representative 21st-century documentaries in which men and masculinity are the protagonists, the conclusions reached refer not only to gender but also to genre. Documentary films are valuable artistic productions and, as regards gender, a still largely untapped repository of texts that articulate the current discourse on masculinity in the United States with as much relevance as fiction films. Each of the sixteen chapters shows that the discourse is homogenous despite the diversity of film styles and the very diverse masculinities on which the films focus. Men in the United States, and elsewhere, live mostly concealed behind a mask imposed by patriarchy to regulate their behavior within a strict normativity. This mask has been mistaken for masculinity itself, which has therefore unfairly seen as ‘toxic’ when what is toxic is patriarchy. By taking a close look at the men behind the mask, what is revealed is that men cannot free themselves from patriarchy because they are not sufficiently aware of its oppression. Their portraits in the documentary films analyzed are for this highly valuable as tools of liberation but mostly incomplete and in need of further delving into the damage patriarchy is causing men.
