male role modes in tv/film

TheLWMA · 2022-05-09T03:27:58+00:00

I think the problem is that female characters are portrayed as kind-hearted, wise and usually have no real flaws compared to their male counterparts. There's also this sexist idea that female characters always have to disrespect the male characters.

Evil female characters almost always to have some sort of sympathetic motive. And the ones who don't are visually portrayed as being ugly and/or old.

House_of_Raven · 2022-05-09T04:21:39+00:00

Go and watch any show on tv these days. Men are portrayed as buffoons, incompetent, evil, promiscuous or misogynistic. Positive male role models that are realistic are very few and very far between.

p_and_q · 2022-05-09T12:22:39+00:00

A couple of things:

1) Ted Lasso. Great example of a tv male role model

2) Good role models rarely make for good tv. I could make the same argument about female role models.

3) You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. A lot of men who are said to be good role models are often marked as such because of their self-sacrifice (Ted Lasso being an exemption). Batman constantly puts is life at risk and multiple times just barely escaped fatal wounds.

Pretty_Garbage8380 · 2022-05-09T13:44:20+00:00

Well, they obviously have a vendetta against positive male portrayals in popular culture these days. The biggest problem I have with the GirlBoss Era of Entertainment is how boring it is...

Example...name which movie(s) share these basic modern plotline(s):

Plot A) A girl, who is the key to everything, has a hidden power that can only be unlocked if she believes in herself. An older male hero is there to guide her and teach her how to be a hero, but she ends up teaching him a thing or two. The girl almost fails, in a moment of self doubt, but then she realizes that she is powerful enough to face all her problems.

Plot B) A female villain, historically portrayed as being straight up evil, is actually a sort of rebel against the status quo and if she IS evil (she's not - just misunderstood), it's because a man (or a woman consumed by patriarchy) made her that way.

This Time's Up/GirlBoss/FutureIsFemale era of culture is super boring. Heroes without any flaws, who never fail, have been found to be boring whether male or female. But I suspect that the people who write these stories hate heroes in general and they absolutely loathe the specific characters they are writing.

BloomingBrains · 2022-05-09T05:16:37+00:00

I know exactly what you're talking about, but I see it as a fringe SJW narrative in movies that hasn't really taken over yet (and hopefully, never). Captain Marvel, the new Star Wars, etc. There are still plenty of movies with more mature takes on female as well as male characters alike.

A lot of Youtube sigma male clips are like Tony Soprano, Walter White, Scarface. Smart, strong but ultimately written as evil and they lose at the end.

This kind of bad boy idolization bothers me a lot more, actually. People look up to characters like this, not understanding that you're not really supposed to like or root for them. Those men are all villains (or anti-villains, at the very least).

It might be a lot healthier to focus on characters like Batman, as you said. You can write a anti-hero that struggles with their own inner darkness, as long as they ultimately overcome it and channel it for good, not evil.

The problem with characters like that (particularly male ones) is that feminists are catching on to the fact that heroes with inner darkness/social opposition, that are ultimately shown to be redeemed, can be an inspiring concept for men. So they are starting to dismiss them as "escapist edge lord incel fantasies" despite they themselves liking dark characters that are the opposite, and have no redeeming qualities. RE: 50 Shades of Gray.

hiddeninthewillow · 2022-05-09T04:17:20+00:00

This is maybe an odd lens to look at this through, but hear me out;

I completely agree with you, and the primary reason why is because I legitimately cannot remember very many positive realistic male role models from things I watched as a child; I was socialised as a girl (am gender neutral, it’s not a concept I identify with now) and didn’t have a male role model in my life so I got most of my male socialisation from media. I remember wanting Mace Windu to be my dad, really liked Remus Lupin, the father from My Neighbour Totoro seemed nice, and maybe I wanted all the ghost busters to be my uncles.

However, I also remember getting stereotyped negative perceptions of men from media too; all the bad guys were men, men were all overly sexual and creepy, etc. I can only imagine what that would have been like growing up as a boy. I know a lot of people talk about negative stereotypes of women in media and how that affects girls, and I could talk forever about that, but when I started teaching (I no longer do — too stressful 🥲), I realised that while yes, there weren’t as many female role models as there were males, there was a vast greater amount of male villains that no doubt affected my male students.

The twist ending is that this is one of the reasons why I advocate for the arts and against unfettered capitalism — we get better art when more people have more time to create!

And a last little bonus, if you’re looking for a good movie with a lovely relationship between a good man and a good woman, with just a hint of magical realism, watch Paterson. It’s my go to film for when I want to forget the world is scary.

Aimless-Nomad · 2022-05-09T09:57:10+00:00

Denzel Washington is pretty good.

Jonathanese · 2022-05-09T22:36:26+00:00

YES. Though I might make a post on cases where men went against the narrative and it went well. Like Katniss being more than willing to give her life to save Peeta, while Peeta was treated as an actual victim and worthy of rescue. That made me so happy. Because portraying powerful women usually came at the expense of claiming men were irrelevant, or her having to save a woman because "who could empathize with a man who needs rescue?"

A big thing for me is female villains. Women who are villains usually only have agency until that agency is challenged. Then she "turns good" and reveals that it was really a man who was pulling the strings all along.

That's been the tightrope walk with female characters these days. The things that tend to be missing are women who are true villains, and women who are funny. And there is a very specific reason for this which I think (or hope) the industry will learn to get past. To be funny, you have to be able to be a fool. To be a powerful villain, you have to be evil or have a gaping flaw. Both of these are absolute non-starters in the industry.

But if I can bring up one medium, one series that takes on both the issue of funny women, powerful female villains, great male role models, and many other, and eats that challenge unflinchingly: Avatar The Last Airbender.

It is basically a treasure trove of great male role models. I can write for ages on how amazing Iroh is. From his kind and mentoring nature, to his basic protest against the power and success society expects him to strive for in favor of finding simple happiness and being forgiving. But Piandao, Bumi, Hatoka (Sokka's dad), and many others were all amazing male role models.

Mild spoilers below if you are watching the show.

Sokka's story was such an honest look at coming of age as a boy. They literally had an episode just for him where he felt powerless, and that he felt this lack of power made him useless or even unwanted compared to the rest of the group, and they made a point of showing how this wasn't how they viewed him. Then they introduced Piandao to teach him the way of the sword, and we got to learn about the creative side of masculinity.

And Zuko's story was quite possibly the best example put to paper about struggling to define what it means to be a man. A character struggling almost literally between very positive ideas of masculinity on the one hand, and toxic masculinity on the other. And how he was essentially held captive in the need to prove himself and "restore his honor" through the pursuit of power because only power would grant him social respect. But his uncle was there to remind him just how more to life there was that he would miss so long as he focused on that one aspect of it. How masculinity's demands on men often rob us of the enjoyment of life.

Azula was a phenomenal villain and easily among the top few things I liked about the show, and quite possibly my all-time favorite female villain. She didn't "go good" and flip-flop at the end, dropping all her agency. She had a complete psychotic meltdown instead. She didn't turn into some sob story about how her father abused her. Her father very much preferred her to Zuko, and encouraged her for her whole upbringing.

And then genuinely funny women? Toph all the way. And while she did have some of that "perfect" trope in her power, it was clear that that wasn't the flaw or the tendency to make a fool of herself that makes humor possible. She was relentlessly stubborn and abrasive.

And yet, they only ever lectured you about gender in 2 episodes in the first season, and dropped it quickly. Even pairing Sokka up with the very girl he underestimated in the beginning. They also had arc for him in the Serpent's Pass where he kept trying to protect Suki. This wasn't put off as him thinking she's weak or him just being sexist. But him fearing to lose what he felt was the best thing in his life. That was really nice to see, because I'm sure most of us who have been overprotective of girls did so not because we felt they were less, but actually admired them or wanted to be the ones to take the hit instead.

So the answer to this question is basically just everything Avatar.

Algoresball · 2022-05-10T00:28:38+00:00

This is why I re watch Star Trek The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine so much. Captain Picard and Captain Sisko are such fantastic examples of positive male role models

I found Ted Lasso to be a great male role model as well and fantastic show all around

Comments