There is a crisis in the social construction of masculinity, and we need to raise boys differently in order to produce better men, according to cultural studies scholar Sut Jhally.

Jhally will visit Penn State at 7 tonight in 113 Carnegie, delivering a speech called "Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity."

The event is free and open to the public.

"His talk has the ultimate goal of helping us to understand how we can raise better boys, boys who become good men," said Mary Mander, head of film, video and media studies at Penn State.

Mander, who was instrumental in bringing Jhally to campus, said the topic of his speech is relevant to all students.

"All students in the university are potential parents. In fact, some will be parents in just a few years," Mander said.

Jhally studies issues relevant to college life, including the media's relationship to gender, violence, sexual assault, date rape, racism and commercialism.

"Sut's talk, I believe, will appeal to almost all segments of the public, but especially to the segment just now coming of age," Mander said.

Students may be familiar with Jhally's work. MTV threatened to sue him for his controversial and award-winning film Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Video. In the film, Jhally stripped music videos of their sound and focused on their imagery, concluding that the demeaning images of women in music videos contribute to a climate of rape and violence against women.

Jhally is the founder and executive director of The Media Education Foundation and the executive producer of a dozen other films including The Date-Rape Backlash and Advertising and the End of the World.

Angie Brown, coordinator of college relations for the College of Communications, said Jhally is well known and popular with college-age students, particularly those studying communications, art, political science and women's studies.

"He's not going to talk down to students," Brown said. "He'll talk with them, intellectually."