“Men don’t cry”: hegemonic masculinities and the culture of invulnerability in Plínio Marcos

Abstract

This article analyzes how hegemonic masculinities are represented and problematized in the plays “Barrela,” “Navalha na carne,” and “Dois perdidos numa noite suja,” by Plínio Marcos, establishing connections between violence, virility, vulnerability, and men’s health. The study adopts a qualitative, bibliographic, and analytical-interpretive approach grounded in masculinity studies and gender criticism to investigate how male characters reproduce, challenge, or displace socially legitimized normative models of masculinity. Based on the understanding that masculinity is constructed through ideals of strength, self-control, and invulnerability, the article discusses how such patterns negatively affect self-care and men’s relationships with healthcare services, especially in the context of prostate cancer and male psychological suffering. The analyses demonstrate that Plínio Marcos’s dramaturgy exposes the subjective, social, and bodily costs of hegemonic masculinities, revealing how violence and emotional repression operate as mechanisms for virile legitimation and the disciplining of male bodies. The article concludes that the playwright’s works function as important critical devices for reflecting on the effects of gender norms and on the need to construct more plural, vulnerable masculinities committed to practices of care.