Angela Cordell
Instructor Holly Baker
English 201
8 August 2014
Jax Teller’s Unmistakable Dangerous Hypermasculinity Jax Teller is a character portrayed on FX’s original television show Sons of Anarchy. Jax is, for lack of a better term, a badass biker who doesn’t care what others think about him. In the beginning of the biker club’s series, rooting for Jax’s character to come through any obstacles on top seems like the right thing to do, even though what Jax and the Sons’ are doing is extremely illegal. Throughout the shows six seasons thus far, Jax becomes more and more violent. By the time season six of the popular television show comes around, it seems that maybe Jax is really not someone who you should be rooting for to succeed. The fact is, Jax is hypermasculine by nature, he was raised that way, he does not know any different. Hypermasculinity can be an extremely dangerous trait, especially when shown through examples of Jax Teller’s hypermasculine persona and contrasting it with appropriate expressions of masculinity. In the very first season of Sons of Anarchy the audience gets a small taste of what Jax can really do. His old flame, Tara Knowles, has moved back to town. About half way through the first season you become privy to the fact that Tara moved back to Charming after her father passed away, but mostly because she was trying to get away from her crazy ex-ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) boyfriend Josh Kohn. Things come to a head when Tara is home alone and Kohn suddenly emerges into her bedroom and attempts to rape her. Tara successfully wards him off by shooting him in the stomach and immediately calls on Jax. When Jax comes over and assesses the situation he tells Tara, within hearing distance of a bleeding Kohn, “you call it in, they’ll patch him up, and he’ll get a few years for assault, but then he’ll get out of jail and will be free to do this again.” Upon hearing what Jax had to say, Kohn starts yelling “This is your solution?! You stupid bitch! Once a biker whore always a...,” he is abruptly cut off by a bullet to the head by a furious Jax (“The Push”). Due in large part to his involvement with the Sons’, Jax is quick to react to any sort of emotional turmoil, especially when it comes to Tara, with violence. Had this situation arisen in real life, a man killing another man by standing next to him and shooting him in the head, would not have been the most plausible solution. The “right” thing to do would have been for Tara to call the incident into the police, but instead her judgment was clouded by her knowing what Jax is capable of. According to a Huffington Post article, hypermasculinity can be classified into four components: “Danger is exciting. Toughness is a form of emotional self-control. Violence is manly. It’s fine to be callous about women and sex” (“Be a Man”). By analyzing the incident that happened after Tara called Jax for help with an unwanted Kohn in her home, Jax definitely displayed at least two of the hypermasculine components identified – violence being many and using toughness as a form of emotional self-control. Jax cut Kohn off in the middle of his sentence about Tara about being a “biker whore” and shoot him in the head. Jax was made angry not only by the fact that Kohn had tried to rape and was harassing Tara, but by knowing that he would only come back and do it again if Tara reported the incident to the police and Kohn went to jail. Thus, without even thinking about the action, Jax made the rash decision to shoot Kohn right then and there. The correct way to handle this delicate situation would be to call it in to the police. While Jax and Tara can both presume that Kohn will come back after serving a few years in prison, he may likely have been scared straight and would have stayed away from Tara after being released; but no one will ever know now. Throughout the six aired seasons of Sons of Anarchy, Jax is seen trying to get free of the
