Cabot O’Callaghan sees the toxic masculinity in his favorite comic book character.
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I know too much about comics. Characters, origin stories, storylines … Ironically, I never really read them. As a kid, they didn’t appeal to me much. But friends I’ve known since high school were, and still are, comic jihadists.
It was like seven degrees of comic geekdom. Or may it was like staring at the sun too long. Their passions permanently burned into the retinas of my memory.
Sometimes beloved characters get trapped in bad actors in craptacular scripts that still manage to get green-lighted.
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Now that the technological leaps of cinema have caught up to, and in some ways surpassed illustration, comic geeks the world over find themselves in a complete jizzfest. Mostly. Sometimes there are roars of disappointment at a movie’s sacrilege, the divergence from comic fact too great to bear. Sometimes beloved characters get trapped in bad actors in craptacular scripts that still manage to get green-lighted.
There have been a few comic adaptations where I sat next to my friends on opening night to witness it like an old Obi Wan Kenobi: “I felt a great disturbance … as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror.”
I usually find their death-throes of protest entertaining. But sometimes I catch the movie’s inconsistencies and sins all on my own. That’s when I have to face my denial of being a comic geek, if only obliquely.
If I were to confess a favorite character (which I guess I am), it wouldn’t be the indestructible walking Vitamixer known as Wolverine, or the smart-mouthed golden boy Spiderman. Not professor Charles “Jean-Luc” Xavier, not Gandalf-Magneto.
It would be the Hulk. To see him portrayed so well in The Avengers movies fills me with child-like glee.
He’s a simple character. His tragic loner story is a bit Jekyll and Hyde, and he has an anger-management problem. His monochromatic skin color matches his singular problem solving strategy.
SMASH.
It’s such a gracefully uncomplicated way coping. And he’s the strongest there is. Ask him. Piss him off or stand in his way and he will seriously fuck your shit up. No talk, all action. It’s a technique that conveniently avoids the inescapable complications of life.
Men have been given license to convert vulnerable emotions to rage. The list is long, but they distill to just one. Fear. So we pursue power and domination to soothe ourselves.
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I guess that’s why I find the Hulk so appealing. He doesn’t give a shit. He will just smash his way through his conflicts and troubles. And in our male-dominated culture, this is the go-to solution. Men have been given license to convert vulnerable emotions to rage. The list is long, but they distill to just one. Fear. So we pursue power and domination to soothe ourselves.
We sidestep the hard work and humble introspection needed to follow our ills to their roots.
Culturally, existence is unendingly frustrating for us. Our lifestyle is like an occupying army, the enemy is everywhere. Monsters lurk in every shadow, even inside ourselves. Everything is an obstacle. All must be overcome. Controlled. Conquered. When we get stuck, when life throws us an uncatchable pitch, when our penned lives derail due to a greater and unstoppable force, the fantasy of our perception is ripped away unmercifully. We are naked. Powerless.
Life is so much bigger than us. It’s entirety is incomprehensible. We use our egos as a denial of reality. To acknowledge our powerless insignificance requires a brave humility beyond civilized belief.
Rage. It’s easy, for sure. Easy is not a solution.
Photo—Tim Norris/flickr