This thesis is concerned with expressions of toxic masculinity in television acting, illustrated on the case study of the television show The Big Bang Theory. This work sets the term toxic masculinity in the context of masculinity studies and draws on the theory of hegemonic masculinity formulated by the Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell. Her theory assumes the existence of multiple, hierarchically ordered masculinities, with hegemonic masculinity - considered by some authors tobe synonymous with toxic masculinity - on top. This work also surveys the history of the representation of the male hero from the early days of American cinema up to the present, as the empirical section deals primarily with an American television show. Special emphasis is put on the "nerd" character, who represents non- hegemonic masculinity and thus does not tend to be associated with expressions of toxic masculinity, although he is also guilty of this behavior. The aim of this thesis was to use qualitative content analysis to identify manifestations of toxic masculine behavior by the nerd characters of the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory and to determine how this behavior differs from that of the "jock" character, an embodiment of hegemonic masculinity. This research reached the conclusion that each of these two...

In 2012 and 2014, two hashtags, #1ReasonWhy and #GamerGate, exposed a highly sexist video game industry that was not welcoming female participation. This was affecting women working or wanting to work in it. Feminist technoscience studies explain this phenomenon by applying theories concerning the masculine domination of our society and the perception of women as “others.” Despite the numerous challenges and struggling for inclusion, women still create video games, many as independents, taking advantage of free game engines. Hence, my aim in this thesis was to understand the interconnections between technology, specifically in the video game industry, and its social impact. I focus on the balance of male and female participation in the video game creation, the role of game engines, and the enablers and inhibitors for female inclusion, as an important component of decision making for organizational change in this industry. I conducted an inductive qualitative research approach with eight semi-structured interviews with female video game creators from the Latin American region. My findings reveal that using free/affordable technology, such as game engines, is not enough to guarantee female inclusion in the video game industry. This industry is resistant to change and tends to reinforce male predominance by hiring only a specific type of worker that matches the perfect gamer, usually young males. The participation of women in the video game creation teams (which include developers, designers, artists, testers, among others) would bring balance, diversity, new voices and fresh/new ideas, as well as women empowerment to the table. In addition, eleven inhibitors and eight enablers were identified as factors for female inclusion in the video game industry.

As the media consumption among adolescents is increasing, it is crucial to study the depiction of gender norms on screen since they are strongly affecting the identity development of the young viewer. Therefore, this essay studies the depiction of femininity and masculinity in SVT’s 2019 web-based TV series Eagles from a gender perspective and discusses its didactic potential for working with common values in the subject of Swedish for upper secondary school. The study shows that the depiction of femininity in the TV series is breaking several gender norms, but meanwhile the heterosexual matrix is constantly present. The depiction of masculinity is more gender stereotypical and includes several features from traditional masculinity, but also some related to toxic masculinity. Eagles is, however, showing a progressive view on gender since some characters are developing over the season and therefore suggesting that change of gender norms is possible. Eagles shows great potential in working with common values since it does not only depict contemporary gender related topics such as locker room talk and toxic masculinity implicitly, but also explicitly discusses questions concerning body activism, the law of sexual consent and a changed view on female sexuality. The series could therefore work normatively for the students in its norm-breaking depiction of femininity and masculinity, but also be used as a scenario-based ground for discussing common values in its more stereotypical depiction of gender. / I takt med ungas ökande mediekonsumtion är det avgörande att studera gestaltningen av könsnormer på filmduken eftersom dessa starkt påverkar den unge åskådaren i hens identitetsutveckling. Denna uppsats studerar därför porträtteringen av femininitet respektive maskulinitet i SVT:s webbaserade ungdomsserie Eagles från 2019 ur ett genusteoretiskt perspektiv samt diskuterar dess värdegrundsdidaktiska potential för svenskämnet i gymnasieskolan. Undersökningen visar att gestaltningen av femininitet i tv-serien är normbrytande i stor utsträckning och ifrågasätter många av de traditionellt kvinnliga attributen inom film och litteratur, samtidigt som den heteronormativa matrisen är ständigt närvarande. Gestaltningen av maskulinitet är mer könsstereotyp och uppvisar flertalet traditionellt maskulina drag samt ett antal som kan kopplas till toxisk maskulinitet – men serien påvisar även en progressiv syn på kön eftersom karaktärer utvecklas under seriens gång, vilket visar att förändring av könsnormer är möjlig. Eagles värdegrundsdidaktiska potential är god eftersom den inte endast implicit gestaltar samtidsaktuella genusfrågor såsom locker room talk och toxisk maskulinitet, utan också explicit lyfter och diskuterar frågor rörande kroppaktivism, samtyckeslag och en förändrad syn på kvinnlig sexualitet. Serien kan således verka normerande för eleverna i dess mer normbrytande gestaltning av femininitet och maskulinitet, men också nyttjas som ett scenariobaserat utgångläge för värdegrundsdiskussioner i dess mer stereotypa porträttering av kön.

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