Tangents
I'm off on a tangent. This passage from Noah Millman's essay, which I linked in a previous post, got me thinking:
I worry that boys, for deep psychological reasons, need to learn how to be *men* and not just abstract responsible adults. They need to be taught what manhood means. Masculinity is not instinctive; only its caricature, all aggressive ego and slovenliness is. And a culture that refuses to talk about men and women as distinct types will be unable to talk to boys about becoming men - with a consequence that these boys will grow up to be precisely the adolescent caricatures of men that we least want them to be.
That just strikes me as so right. I watch little or no television these days, and I get to see far fewer movies than I used to, and I haven't exactly immersed myself in contemporary fiction lately, but I've had a vague sense that there's been a decline in the depiction of "real men" in Millman's sense. We seem to get either the "adolescent caricatures of men" that Millman deplores or some slightly androgynous version of the "abstract responsible adult."
Of course, I'd like to write something more thoughtful about this, but that would require actually devoting some time to it. When I can't be insightful (which is pretty much always), you can count on me to be frivolous. So without further ado, here are my nominees for the best depictions (cinematic or otherwise) of "real manhood" in the past twenty years or so:
* Gladiator ...
Ummmmmmm, somebody help me out here. . .
Then again, maybe I'm being nostalgic for a myth of real manhood that never really existed. So what? I'd rather live by the old myths than the new ones.
I worry that boys, for deep psychological reasons, need to learn how to be *men* and not just abstract responsible adults. They need to be taught what manhood means. Masculinity is not instinctive; only its caricature, all aggressive ego and slovenliness is. And a culture that refuses to talk about men and women as distinct types will be unable to talk to boys about becoming men - with a consequence that these boys will grow up to be precisely the adolescent caricatures of men that we least want them to be.
That just strikes me as so right. I watch little or no television these days, and I get to see far fewer movies than I used to, and I haven't exactly immersed myself in contemporary fiction lately, but I've had a vague sense that there's been a decline in the depiction of "real men" in Millman's sense. We seem to get either the "adolescent caricatures of men" that Millman deplores or some slightly androgynous version of the "abstract responsible adult."
Of course, I'd like to write something more thoughtful about this, but that would require actually devoting some time to it. When I can't be insightful (which is pretty much always), you can count on me to be frivolous. So without further ado, here are my nominees for the best depictions (cinematic or otherwise) of "real manhood" in the past twenty years or so:
* Gladiator ...
Ummmmmmm, somebody help me out here. . .
Then again, maybe I'm being nostalgic for a myth of real manhood that never really existed. So what? I'd rather live by the old myths than the new ones.
posted by Kate Marie | 11:32 AM | Permalink
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15 comments
15 Comments:
How about the Lord of the Rings movies? A very conservative friend of mine who's usually opposed to depictions of men crying praised those films for striking a tone that he memorably dubbed "the shedding of manly tears."
While I don't expect all (or even most) depictions of men to involve gladiators or medieval Germanic kings, it would be nice if there were fewer depictions of men as complete and utter jackasses. Right now there's a Home Depot commercial that shows a woman intelligently receiving home-repair advice from a store employee while her husband repeatedly sticks a plunger to his forehead, as if he's dangerously retarded. Funny occasionally? Sure. Not so funny when nearly every sitcom or commercial depicts men as morons, prompting actual men to think that that's the norm and leading women to expect less and less from their husbands.
I see this phenomenon in many of my married friends. Often, the husband thinks he deserves praise, a medal, and a pat on the head simply because he took out the garbage one time or because he semi-spontaneously washed the dishes as a favor for his obviously exhausted wife. As a single guy, I like to hope that a more consistent decency will be expected of me when I'm married. For their own sakes, women shouldn't be willing to set the bar so low.
Jeff, you fool. A real man is supposed to do the manly chores: rotate the tires, clean the gutters, mow the lawn, chop firewood, kill & grill (never cook) dinner, wash and wax the car -- that sort of thing. Moving garbage from the kitchen to the outside can is woman's work; hauling the big can to the curb is man's work. But make sure you get one of those heavy metal cans that weighs a ton when empty, not those wussie plastic cans on wheels. Those just encourage divorce, making a woman think she can do a man's job.
(Yes, I'm joking. Though my mother says those sort of things and means it.)
I love "The Lord of the Rings" movies. Don't know how I didn't think of that. It's interesting, though, that the first things that spring to mind are taken from a fictionalized ancient Rome and "fantasy" literature (though I hesitate to use that term, since it's usually meant to derogate, and as you know I take Tolkien very seriously). It's as though the only safe way to depict men as something other than complete and utter jackasses is by setting them in ancient Rome or Middle Earth.
How about Rocky Balboa (or at least the Rocky of Rocky and Rocky II)? He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I think he deserves the title of real man.
And you're so right about the pervasiveness of the image of men as idiots and incompetents. Even things I admittedly get a chuckle out of (like Wedding Crashers) perpetuate the idea of men as eternal adolescents.
By the way, Scotty has been complaining recently about how Wonderdog gets exorbitant praise from some of her family members for changing a diaper or taking Wonderpuppy when he's crying. Wonderpuppy is my "little" brother, so naturally I don't praise him for anything. :)
Ooops, Wonder*dog* is my little brother, not Wonderpuppy.
Ah, Kate Marie, to be fair, is Scotty doing any of Wonder Dog's job? If she were to do some of his legal work, maybe she would get the kind of praise WD gets for changing a diaper.
UNLESS, Scotty is also working full time, in which case Wonder Dog needs to get his butt into the kitchen and cook or nursery and change and expect no praise.
I'm going to do a total female thing here, CIV, but so be it, I'm a female (though I have sometimes described myself as a gay man in a woman's body, and once, long ago, in my short eighties hairstyle phase, someone told me I looked like Jason Bateman, and it's not the worst "has anyone ever told you you look like ..." comment I've ever gotten).
Ahem ... I would suggest that Scotty does have a full-time job;actually, she has several full-time jobs. She keeps and cleans house (including grocery shopping and laundry), cooks meals, probably handles the finances, and takes care of two very young children all day long. I'd say the hours that are required at her full-time jobs are more than the hours required at Wonderdog's (though those are considerable). And she doesn't get so much as a lunch with adult conversation. Heck, at a certain stage in my own at-home motherhood, I used to even envy my husband's commute. That's, while I think Wonderdog deserves general praise for being a great husband and father, I don't think he deserves particular praise for changing the occasional diaper.
Okay, picture me stepping off my soapbox now and being hustled off the street corner by the local cop on the beat. :)
Anyway, I know you were just trying to defend Wonderdog's honor.
I once heard a rather insightful (and perhaps inciteful)comment than a woman compares her husband's domestic contribution to that which she accomplishes, while the man compares what he does around the house to what his FATHER did around the house.
Now, we have digressed from the assignment of depiction of *men* in film and popular culture. We are usually depicted as idiots. Most sitcoms have the attractive babe wife, who knows all, and the bumbling incompetent male. But, we guys can take it, no matter how inane it gets. I tend to go for just about ANY Russell Crowe character. . . Gladiator, Master and Commander, and especially L.A. Confidential, and that character of Bud White. Rome on HBO has great manly men in the form of the two gladiators. In fact, I see the show as a 'buddy movie' at its core (I'm sure it will be out on disc next year and worth an adult look).
If Wonder Dog needs me to defend his honor, than he must be a little sissie chihuahua.
[CIV tests if KM will jump to WD's defense in a classic case of "I can criticize my brother, but you can't."]
CIV supports and applauds all parents who actually parent their kids.
I think of Wonderdog more as a French Poodle with a pink ribbon on his head. And since he is MIA, I feel that I can pour it on.
CIV, you'd have to do something far worse than that for the "I can criticize my brother, but you can't" philosophy to kick in. But don't tease Wonderdog about chihuahuas -- he might take it as casting aspersions on his beloved chihuahua Angelique. And then the dog will be too depressed to go trick-or-treating with the Wonderpuppies, and all that money they spent on Angelique's "Glinda the Good Witch of the North" costume will have been for naught.
Stewdog, I thought about Russell Crowe's character from L.A. Confidential, but while I kind of agree with someone who called his performance in that movie one of the most "insanely sexy" performances of recent years, I didn't think the character quite fit the bill here. Master and Commander was great, wasn't it?
I did just remember the Dennis Quaid character from In Good Company, which was not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought it was a very nice tribute to the old-fashioned "real man." And then maybe Mr. Incredible works in that category, too.
maybe I'm being nostalgic for a myth of real manhood that never really existed
KM, I was hoping I wouldn't have to be the one to bring this up, but... well... um... Isn't Mr. KM a real man?
Or even Stewdog? Wonder Dog? Jeff?
Indeed, CIV, Mr. KM (the phantom blogger Sadeeq), Stewdog, and Wonderdog are all "real men," and I have every reason to believe that Rumpus fave Jeff is a "real man," too.
Hmm. I had a little more fun shopping for baby clothes yesterday than any 34-year-old straight guy has any right to have. I may have to recuse myself from any "real man" consideration until I catch up on my belching.
I think I can safely speak for any other women who are reading when I say to Jeff: Awwwwwww! Were you shopping for your nephew? That actually raised your standing in the real man sweepstakes -- as long as you went home and practiced belching instead of topping off the shopping with a mani-pedi.
Yep--his birthday is coming up. Among other things, he's getting jeans, a sweatshirt, and a little fleece hiking vest.
Also, a family friend just had twins, and so did a professional acquaintance of mine, so I walked out of the store with an armload of business-casual onesies...
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