7 Movies That Show You The Masculine Ideal
Action movies are just as American as motherhood, apple pie, and capitalism. Movies like Unforgiven, Gladiator, Rooster Cogburn, Conan, Dirty Harry, Die Hard, The Dark Knight, High Noon, Man on Fire, Red Dawn, Tombstone, and True Grit speak to men in a primal language that transcends the story line on the screen. Men like these films because they capture qualities we’d like to think we have ourselves. We like the idea of being billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne and fighting crime in our spare time, pointing a gun at a punk and asking him if he feels lucky, or responding to the question, “What is best in life?” with “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!“ While there are dozens of deserving action movies, there are seven that are particularly good at revealing parts of the male psyche.
1) First Blood
John Rambo is a damaged character. His fighting in Vietnam left him with mental problems, made him ill-equipped to fit into society, and led to him ultimately having a difficult and lonely existence. However, there are two things about him that make the character click with men. The first is this:
Teasle: Are you telling me that 200 men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?
Trautman: You send that many, don’t forget one thing.
Teasle: What?
Trautman: A good supply of body bags.
Rambo doesn’t pick the fight, but when he is backed up against a wall, he is a one-man army. This theme is repeated over and over in action movies because it’s something men aspire to all the way down in their souls.
The other, more subtle thing that makes Rambo appealing is that he shares a grievance that most men have on some level or another: his sacrifices are largely unappreciated. He went through hell to do what had to be done, paid a terrible price for it, saw his suffering shrugged off by men unfit to say his name, and was left holding the bag. There are millions of men who feel the exact same way. They’ve provided, they’ve struggled, they’ve done things they didn’t want to do for other people, and, ultimately, they found that it wasn’t valued. That makes it easy to relate to a character like Rambo, even if you’re not planning to shoot at anybody with a machine gun.
I don't know of any movies that portray all of that but that's Ok. I got to see it many many times in my father and my grandfather.
I see that occasionally around me today but by and large we are a lesser breed. We have been indoctrinated to be a docile, a more pliable subject for those who covet power, for those who believe that we the people are too deficient to have freedom and the responsibility that our forefathers wielded as a right.
Me, I'm only guessing, but has anyone ever mention the name "John Wayne" to you ???
2. Breathless (Godard's version) On one level, it's manly noir, and on the other, it's the interplay of real crime and idealized crime. Women always get us in the end, too.
3. Casablanca. The world-weary yet virtuous man.
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Beats out Star Wars for the idealized male adventurer.
5. Godzilla. Preferably one of the campier ones. Male wish fulfillment at a primal level. Who doesn't want to destroy Tokyo while saving it at the same time from other monsters?
6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Male humor of a certain kind. Silly, wordplay based, endlessly quotable.
7. Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, The invisible Man-all Universal monster movies. This is different from Godzilla in that all of them show the tragic side of manhood. Man as estranged creature, hideous thing, hunted, strong but with cursed strength. The male values and attributes twisted into dark things, and the only end is death.
I'd add more westerns, but I don't like that genre much.
These choices are ones that an overgrown adolescent would make. How about "To Kill A Mockingbird"? Or "The Old Man And The Sea"? Or "Captains Coutrageous"?
Gee, John.
For Eastwood, I wasn't so keen on Unforgiven, but really liked the way he handled duty and relations w/the women in "Pale Rider" and "The Outlaw Josie Wales". For Gibson, I think that first "Roadwarrior" was a little odd (and Mel so adolescent). I'd prefer (for duty and love) "The Passion of the Christ" and (for fatherhood and love of country) "The Patriot". I think it's a little odd to leave out Schwarzenegger - while his "Conan" may have been a little extreme, I like the way he behaved towards kids (and bad guys) in "Kindergarten Cop", for his strength and unstoppability in "Terminator", and his duty and self-sacrifice in T2. Another favourite actor of mine is Liam Neeson - whether it is his strong but supportive attitude towards women in "Nell", his honour, toughness, and devotion to family in "Rob Roy", or his lethal devotion to family in the two "Taken" films, the world would be a better place w/more men like these.
I don't know of any movies that portray all of that but that's Ok. I got to see it many many times in my father and my grandfather.
I see that occasionally around me today but by and large we are a lesser breed. We have been indoctrinated to be a docile, a more pliable subject for those who covet power, for those who believe that we the people are too deficient to have freedom and the responsibility that our forefathers wielded as a right.