A Meme My Brother Sent Me

I'm writing about a meme right now and that relates to my paper. It was a single picture with a muscular white man standing in a firm stance just barely in the ocean. He is looking out to the water with an intense gaze and words that were added read "I will fight this ocean for calling me gay" and it perfectly fits the topic of my essay, For one, I understand it's a joke but the joke has truth in it. As it's being portrayed as a joke it's mocking men who think like this so strongly to the point where they would fight an ocean. This displays my idea in how masculinity is central to homophobia since being homosexual is seen as unmanly. This a false nature because gender and sexuality are separate. A man can be homosexual and yet be masculine. Also, in the meme he is going to fight the ocean to prove that he isn't gay or not masculine. This displays my idea in how violence is central to masculinity in proving themselves as masculine which makes violence against homosexual individuals with more occurence. Masculinity encourages violence to homosexual and gender nonconforming individuals.