Group 1

I think people have done an excellent job pointing out the differences between "counter-culture" Captain America and Billy, and their southern competition for representing the 'male species.' In the 1960s a new wave of masculinity was appearing, breaking old gender stereotypes of the rough and stoic family man in favor of a trouble-free adventurer. So I would like to point out some of the ironic similarities that I see between these polar groups, the "old-school" vs "new age" representations of masculinity. In the end, both thought the other inferior, and even the open-road loving "hippies" were extremely mysoginistic. Both groups viewed the other as threats, the southerners saw the California Dudes perhaps as a threat to their old system and order of things; the Dudes felt the southerners and threats to their safety and perhaps even their freedom to 'progress' and morph as men. Either way they were still groups of white men exerting their dominance and superiority, meanwhile marginalizing women by using them as playthings but never taking them seriously, showing a common thread of masculinity through female domination.