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Defining hegemonic masculinity

When we talk about Eddie and masculinity, we tend to talk about the idea of toxic masculinity and the pressure that it puts on men to adhere to the status quo of it as they grow up. While pop culture calls it toxic masculinity, the more common term for it in theory circles is hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is the idealized form of masculinity in culture that connects masculinity to toughness, the subordination of women, and the marginalization of gay men. Researchers have condensed this idealized masculinity into five characteristics or tenets:

Physical force and control

Occupational achievement

Familial patriarchy

Frontiersmanship

Heterosexuality

All of these tenets are also wrapped up in the idea that whiteness is the default and the norm, automatically othering men of color. This construct of masculinity has also been explored/researched in immigrant spaces, and has found that immigrants who are white tend to be forgiven for not fitting the norm of hegemonic masculinity, while non-white immigrants are expected to fit this mold to be more easily accepted because they are already “lacking” the most important aspect of whiteness (this will be important later).

How does this apply into Eddie?

When we first see Eddie, we see him through the eyes of the rest of the 118, specifically Buck, and at first glance he is the pinnacle of hegemonic masculinity.

It starts by Bobby explaining that he is a decorated war veteran who was top of his class in the academy, and that he liked to be called “eight-pack.” This establishes his fulfillment of the tenets of physical force and control, occupational achievement, and – arguably – frontiersmanship, atleast on the surface. All of these tenets are confirmed throughout the episode with how well he fits into the team and his job, to the point that Buck is threatened by it.

It isn’t until after they pull the grenade out of the guy’s leg and Eddie affirms Buck’s own masculinity through those tenets (“You’re a badass under pressure” “You can have my back any day”) that him and Buck start over on the right foot. We then find out that he has Chris, which confirms the tenets of familial patriarchy and assumedly, heterosexuality, which is then confirmed again when he reunites with Shannon. (Yes, I know just because he is with Shannon and has a kid doesn’t make him straight, but it does project the image and that’s what’s important here.)

But almost as soon as we find out that he has Christopher, we also find out that he is struggling to get settled and find long term care for him while he is at work, and we also find out that Shannon is not in the picture. This cracks both the familial patriarchy and heterosexuality tenets.

It cracks familial patriarchy because this tenet is all about providing, being the bread winner, and being a strong father figure, and instead we have someone who is unable to navigate the paperwork to provide stable care and routine for his son. It cracks the heterosexuality tenet because this tenet is not just about being straight or gay, but also about successful in one’s sexual relationships with women and being unsuccessful in maintaining intimate relationships with men, which Shannon not being in the picture obviously negates. This is furthered throughout the season – and the show as a whole – by Buck and Eddie having an intimate friendship, that is kickstarted by Buck helping Eddie with his Chris and getting him the help that he needs through Carla.

Throughout the series, each tenet is cracked or completely shattered, no matter how much Eddie tries to maintain it. He continues to fail at his relationship with Shannon, despite his best efforts, when she asks for a divorce, and then he loses her completely by her dying.

He does it best to maintain physical force and control throughout season three, until he punches a guy over a parking spot because the only acceptable way for him to express his negative emotions through the lens of hegemonic masculinity is with anger, which leads to his fight club arc. This is the first crack in the physical force and control, and it culminates in the foreshadowing and warning that Bobby gives him, telling him that he is the guy that always keeps it cool under pressure and wants to make sure that Eddie doesn’t feel like he “has to lose everything to start feeling something.”

In season four, we see in Eddie Begins the first crack in occupational achievement and frontiersmanship. While he came onto the scene as a decorated war veteran with a silver star, we find out in season two that he only joined the army to support Christopher and Shannon and to fulfill the familial patriarchy tenet of being a provider, and gains occupational achievement and frontiersmanship of a military man as a side effect.

We learn in Eddie Begins that doing so causes harm, and that his focus on providing over everything – as well as his need to have control over the situation and his emotions – is a big part of why his relationship with Shannon failed the first time. Essentially, the need to fulfill one tenet was the reason he failed in another.

We also find out that his occupational achievement of silver star veteran and the frontiersmanship of fighting a war overseas only brought him trauma, and didn’t help him with he got out of the army. Again, his need for control over his emotions and his adjustment back to civilian life causes problems with Shannon as he asks for time, who leaves to take care of her mother because she cannot wait for him any longer (Sidenote: the first 90 days after a combat soldier returns home is a tumultuous time as they adjust from a warzone back to civilian life while the family also adjusts to them being home, and is a time when many military divorces happen – but that’s a different meta post lol).

Finally, we see a further breakdown of the occupational achievement tenet in the scene with his parents in El Paso, where it is explained that he is working three jobs to make ends meet. His silver star and military experience, while celebrated by his father and surely many others, didn’t help him find a career after being discharged and he is struggling to find something after the military. This struggle is also arguably heightened by the fact that he did not have a chance to fully acclimate back to civilian life before Shannon left and he had to scramble to provide and be there for Chris. This also breaks down the familial patriarchy tenet because he is not only struggling to provide for Chris at the time, but is also struggling to be a strong father figure that he feels Chris can look up to.

In his argument with his parents, he feels the criticism and judgement for failing to meet these tenets, as well as heterosexuality, and we can assume that it’s a driving force for him deciding to become a firefighter as an attempt to meet those expectations again. It could also be argued that he chose LA over Chicago because he knew Shannon was there, and thought that he could fix that tenet as well by being physically closer to her.

In the later half of season four and the first few episodes of season five, we see the breakdown of the heterosexuality tenet further. He is in a new relationship with Ana, but he continues to have an intimate friendship with Buck, and in the background (even though we don’t know it yet) is the knowledge in Eddie’s mind that Buck is in the will. Buck helps take care of Chris, babysitting during dates, and assuring Chris when he runs to him after finding out about Eddie dating again. When Eddie is shot, Buck is the one who takes care of Chris, the one who is there for him when Eddie couldn’t be. Buck is essentially a co-parent, and when we have a parent whose entire life is their kid like Eddie, entrusting someone with their entire heart is one of the most intimate things that Eddie can do.

This is reflected in the scene where Eddie tells Buck about the will, his trust that Buck wouldn’t refuse, and his admission that he knows that no one will fight for Chris as hard as Buck. The trust and the intimacy is clear, and even if there is never Buddie canon, this level of intimacy and trust with another man completely fails the tenet of heterosexuality.

The final nail in the coffin is when Eddie breaks up with Ana, admitting that he only tried as hard as he did for Chris, to fulfill the expectation of the traditional family that is often attached to familial patriarchy.

As season five continues, we see him struggle more with the tenet of occupational achievement. Eddie is back as a firefighter after the sniper, but we see him struggle in small moments, like the panic attack at the hospital fire. He is trying to uphold the tenet of physical force and control, pretending that he’s fine and that he “doesn’t even think about” the shooting anymore, and his denial culminates in Chris’ fear at Christmas that Eddie will die.

This leads to Eddie leaving the 118 and becoming a public service officer for dispatch, which isn’t as bad as working three jobs to make ends meet, but is still a blow to the tenet when people ask if he’s a real firefighter. Instead of the work that he prided himself on, he is relegated to the sidelines, but it is worth it to him if he can still provide and be a strong figure for Chris. His conversation with Chris about not being a firefighter anymore leads him to takes the steps to fix the occupational achievement tenet, and when he is rejected by Bobby – for good reason – he lashes out in anger rather than letting himself feel anything else. In this scene, he is holding onto the last tenet he has left, the one that has been his shield and his crutch through everything – physical force and control.  

In 5x13, we see him lose this last tenet. He keeps holding onto it, even as it harms him, even as it damages other relationships. He tries to justify it by his old drill sergeant’s words (“pain is weakness leaving the body”) and scoffs at Frank’s warning of exploding. When he does take Frank’s words about his first trauma to heart and reaches out to his old unit, he finds out that they’re gone – and that’s when the last tenet falls.

He destroys his room, an angry action, because it is how he knows how to express his grief, and he can’t bottle it up any longer. But the grief and the guilt is what we see when Buck kicks down the door, the anger long forgotten in the holes in the wall and glass strewn across the floor. He finally admits to Buck – his most intimate relationship – his fears, and this is what starts him on the path to healing.

Throughout his journey on the show, the tenets of hegemonic masculinity hurt him – if he tried to fulfill one he failed another, or they only caused him harm and trauma in the first place – but they had to completely crumble for him to let go of them, and start to heal. But why hold onto them so hard in the first place? Why keep trying to fix and maintain what has caused him so much harm?

Because for him, and the intersection of his identities, the expectations were stronger for him than many others. Eddie is a Latino veteran from Texas, who is the son of an immigrant, and all of these things culminated to a higher pressure to conform to hegemonic masculinity from a young age.

While we do not know much about Ramon, we do know that he is from Mexico. Because Eddie uses the phrase “from Mexico” specifically in season two, it is safe to assume that he was born there and moved to the United States afterwards. Though we do not know what age for certain, we can also infer that he was young enough to do so with his parents, since his mother is in Los Angeles with Eddie.

I mentioned earlier that non-white immigrants have a higher expectation to conform to hegemonic masculinity because of their “lack” of whiteness, and the Diaz men were no exception. Regardless of the exact age Ramon was when they moved, he likely saw the way that his father was treated, and even how he was treated as well. This pressure to conform to be accepted and respected – to “assimilate” - would be stronger for them, even if they started out in El Paso where there is a large Latino/Hispanic community. This means that they were not just expected to fit the mold out of tradition, but also to survive.

The same pressure that Ramon would have felt, as well as his father, are not something that happens in a vacuum. Because Ramon had to adapt to survive, he would know that the world would not be kind to his son if he did not conform as well, and would teach his son how to be respected and survive in the world that was crueler to him and his father than it was to other (mainly white) men. Eddie would have grown up with these expectations and little freedom to explore outside of those expectations, which would be reinforced by the community that he grew up in, many of whom would be non-white immigrants or descendants of non-white immigrants themselves. Over time, the trauma that forced these men to adhere to hegemonic masculinity became culture, and it left no margin for error.

When Eddie joined the military, the expectations he grew up with were reinforced, encouraged, and even expanded on to create a rigid set of expectations for masculinity to be a good soldier. Even if Eddie was a medic, he was still a soldier, and those expectations would apply to him as well. Even after being discharged, he would hold onto those expectations because they matched what he grew up with, and they were something that he could hold onto while the rest of his world was changing while he was simply trying to adjust to life outside of a warzone.

It wasn’t until he left his home and everything he knew that he didn’t hold on as tightly as the tenets failed him, and they knocked him down one by one until the only thing left standing was his trauma and grief.

Where does this leave him now? In the ruins of his old life, his old expectations, is the opportunity to create something new. Something that is authentic and true to him. He has known for a long time that this option existed, we’ve seen him encourage this in Christopher as he taught him differently than he was raised. But he had always still felt the need to meet the expectations that he refused to force on Chris. But now that it’s destroyed, he has a chance to build something better.

But he has one more thing left to do before he can truly start that path: confront the source of the expectations that have ruined him.

By going to Texas, even if it says he is reconciling with his father, we all know that there’s gonna be a confrontation. The reconciliation isn’t going to be full of feels and soft talks. It may not even be Eddie reconciling his relationship with his father. It will be Eddie reconciling the ruins of his own hegemonic masculinity with the person who first instilled it into him, looking at his own failings of upholding it and wondering why Ramon could do it and he couldn’t.