Save the Males

When is the last time you saw a masculine character beat down or at least put some fear into the bad guy in an action movie, a la John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Bruce Willis, Sean Connery, or Harrison Ford?

Likely it was either Denzel Washington or an octogenarian Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Other than that, masculinity is dead in Hollywood, at least as far as good old fashioned good guy versus bad guy flicks are concerned.

You'll still see the idea of masculinity mocked. George Clooney does it subtly and Will Farrell does it much more crudely. They make the message clear that strong male types are outdated, foolish, and relatively useless. They join the stereotypical bungling father of situation comedies over the past fifteen years. Patriarchal symbols of wisdom such as Bill Cosby disappeared, replaced by men who could not outwit their more enlightened children.

Some see this as an attempt to create balance between the sexes in media culture. Men dominated power roles for so long, why not have women shown as powerful for once? I agree that there is nothing wrong with powerful women in strong roles, beating bad guys, protecting their families, or the country depending on the movie. But that does not mean that they must be accompanied so often by weak and/or incompetent men. The James Bond series has changed with the times most effectively. Bond preserved his womanizing and ability to win his fights, but was accompanied more and more often by capable female sidekicks.

What do the movies matter? The problem is that the assault on masculinity goes beyond culture. A child received an initially draconian sentence of forty five days in a dangerous alternative school. The young boy simply liked using a Swiss Army knife with his packed lunch. He was treated like a psychopathic killer. Boys playing war with guns used to be commonplace. Now it is seen as inciting violent tendencies. Even active boys in school often get misdiagnosed as ADHD simply for being boys.

Some of this actually comes from the memory of the Bush presidency. Bush was seen and described as an alpha male type leader, which he probably would not have disputed. Liberals don't care for John Wayne anyway, but presidents such as Reagan and GWB convinced many that powerful males in leadership roles led to nothing positive.

Males as they grow from boys to men play rough, wrestle, fight, and occasionally accidentally break things as they learn about the world. Some when they become men take risks, take on challenges, and dare to do great things. We should not discourage boys from being boys and men from being men. We should certainly fight the liberal media and culture that tries to impose its own anti male stereotypes.