Masculinity Analysis on End of Watch

Many of the masculinity points that Rafter talks about are found in the movie End of Watch. The movie focuses on two cops. Brian Taylor is white and very tall and strong. This is typically found in a cop films. Then he has a sidekick who is Hispanic named Mike Zavala. He is a lot shorter than and not as strong as Brain. Rafter explained that usually in cop films, the main cop is white and the sidekick is a different ethnicity. Mike is consider the side kick in this movie to me because he is never the first to do anything. For example, when the two kids were in the burning house Brian went in first, while Mike followed struggling to breath. He also was never the first to stand up against anyone or find anything first. Brian was the one who looked through the house when they got a call about the missing children. He was the one to find them in the back room all taped up while Mike watched the parents closely. There was one time that Mike stood up and was stronger than Brian, and that was when he fought the black man in his house and beat him up. That more so showed the strength of a police officer and their power towards the normal person. This is what is found in End of Watch.

At the beginning of the movie, these two men seem to be doing great things and saving people. They bust many people for drugs. They begin to start looking into these Mexican cartel people and detectives tell them to back off. They think they can do anything though because they have been doing well in the past. They end up finding themselves in trouble when the Mexican cartel is out to kill them. They are attacked while trying to bust them, and they both are shot. Brian is shot first in the hand and upper chest. He seems like he passes as Mike is laying over him trying to keep him alive. Then the Mexican’s are behind him and shoot him probably 20 times in the back. Brian ends up living and the movie ends at their funeral.

Race plays an important in this movie because the non-white is killed while the white lives. That shows a masculinity towards whites. Both men are married and that shows a sense of sexuality and masculinity.

Another interesting part of the movie was the role of the female. There were three female cops throughout the movie and one was killed. I like the way this movie includes women as being able to be police. They also said that they barely got their GED to be a police officer. This is a negative view on police. As the textbook said, this used to be shown in police movies a lot and police officers had a bad look on them. In recent years, there has been more regulation on the qualifications of being a police officer so that has not be as prominent in recent movies like it was in this one.

The ideas about masculinity that impact the recent media attention to police brutality against racial minorities is shown in this movie. Throughout the movie, there is not one white person who is a bad person. All of the people who are considered “bad” are either African American or Mexican. The setting of this movie is in downtown L.A. The neighborhoods are scary and none of the people are up to any good. The role that masculinity plays in our understanding of police use of force is important as well. There are a few officers who are of different ethnicities. This shows the viewer that a person chooses who they want to be no matter what color your skin is. The police use their force as strong men to show their strength and power over these people. They end up killing the leaders of the Mexican cartel even though Mike passed away.