Movies reflect the changing roles of men in the 21st century. Here is what our community says about 13 powerful films.
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This post is part of our “Movies and Manhood” series that gives some of our regular writers an opportunity to share their views on how movies have impacted their thinking about men’s roles today. Our objective is to find the intersection between these films and the themes and topics we address here at The Good Men Project. Be sure to check out our other posts here.
As I’ve worked with a group of nearly fifty GMP writers who agreed to participate in this series, two things have surprised me.
First, I was surprised at many of the comments that our writers sent in. They were always insightful, sometimes funny, and occasionally a little heartbreaking. Movies—and really, stories of all kinds—bring up memories that have been buried for years and get to the heart of who we really are.
Second, I was surprised that sometimes I was way off base in regard to which movies would be popular with our GMP writers. Each writer is free to comment on the movies we suggest, and obviously not all writers comment on all films. But the responses were much more scattered than I imagined. Movies that I thought would provoke a strong response, often didn’t. By the same token, some writers responded very strongly to a few movies that were basically off my radar screen.
One thing is abundantly clear: movies are powerful, and they bring out strong emotions in each of us.
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This is the tenth post in our series, and one thing is abundantly clear: movies are powerful, and they bring out strong emotions in each of us.
Before we jump back to our normal format of posts featuring many comments on one movie, I wanted to do a sort of “roundup” featuring comments we haven’t used so far. This is a collection of thirteen powerful films, and the comments these films inspired from our writers.
Father of the Bride
Father of the Bride lays bare the bizarre expectations of American mating rituals. It’s like they are super excited to give their money away for a manufactured experience. I did cry a lot, though. Oh, and so many stereotypes.
Feelings Detective, The Good Men Project Author
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Father of the Bride is one of the single most regressive movies I’ve ever seen, with respect to its treatment of both men and women. It falls directly into the trap of playing the titular father as blind to the independence and adulthood of his daughter, clinging instead to an imaginary youthful innocence.
It casts weddings as a one-off indulgence of feminine fantasy, paid as penance to begin what is to be a hysterically patriarchal marriage. Any notions of feminist relevance are crippled by the played-for-laughs turning point which sees the literally incarcerated “father” held captive while his wife compels him to agree to a series of demands— a neutering of his masculinity necessary for the women to carry on.
I love Steve Martin, but the whole plot and virtually every laugh is earned by playing up the most insulting, inane gender conventions at every opportunity.
Edgar Wilson, The Good Men Project Author
Peanuts
They did a GREAT job at maintaining the nostalgia and just repeating all of the things we love about Peanuts. It has that 1960’s politically incorrect appeal, which is really funny. And of course, all of the girls have crushes on all of the boys who are emotionally frail and cannot deal with the attention. Or you can look at it the other way around, with Charlie Brown in love with the little red haired girl and he feels completely inadequate.
It’s funny how the girls were really empowered in Peanuts, save perhaps Marcy who followed Peppermint Patty around and hung on her every word.
Yasmina Blackburn, The Good Men Project Author
Beasts of No Nation
“A boy is nothing? Does the boy have two eyes to see … hands to strangle and fingers to pull triggers. Why are you saying a boy is nothing? A boy is very, very dangerous.”
And with that line from the Commadant (masterfully played by Idris Elba), a recently orphaned young Agu begins a transformation from exuberant youngster to ruthless murderer. The film Beasts of No Nation by writer-director Cary Fukunaga takes place “somewhere in Africa” in a conflict that has no name. Yet audiences watching a film filled with men of color fighting their way out of a system set up to carve out their souls may find themselves even more chilled by its familiar themes.
Nicole Franklin, The Good Men Project Author
The Walk
The Walk was amazing. It’s very much about a man learning to depend upon other people, and not trying to be an island.
Joanna Schroeder, The Good Men Project Author
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy is essentially a treatise on absentee fathers. As messed up as you feel, Dads, your kid is going to have to cope with your crazy feelings or absence in addition to being half you. So be gentle to yourself and teach that to your kid.
Feelings Detective, The Good Men Project Author
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I believe this movie connects with their audience because unlike its predecessors they are a bunch of criminals who when given the opportunity become heroes. This should remind us that criminals are humans and some of their choices are influenced by their upbringing as Star Lord was when he was raised by thieves. But when given the opportunity they can change and become stalwart citizens in their community. We as a society just need to give them a chance.
Keola Birano, The Good Men Project Author
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The Walkman and the mix tape in this movie struck me as particularly important. We know a lot of men have difficulty expressing emotion, and music is the way a lot of men are able to freely express emotion. The Walkman and mix tape were like the guy’s emotional anchor.
Wilhelm Cortez, Executive Editor at The Good Men Project
The Imitation Game
This well-crafted movie could be looked upon as a significant call out to a world-changing series of events that literally changed the course of history. It makes an even more profound modern statement when looked at through the question of what injustices are brought to bear when principles are overruled by homophobia.
Alan Turing, a socially awkward man, creates a solution that brings down the Nazis and saves millions of lives. He created the concepts on which all our modern computerized technology is based. Because he was gay, he was legally poisoned and driven to suicide. That last fact makes this film an iconic statement about the detriment the world enacts when it allows those who are not mainstream heterosexuals to be marginalized, bullied, and oppressed. It creates not only an injustice to the individual, but could lethally affect their contribution to the greater good of society, if not its ultimate survival. We need the people whom our limited sensibilities might claim we want to outcast.
Rob Watson, Lead Editor Dads and Families, The Good Men Project
James Bond series
James Bond—take your pick of the myriad iterations of the franchise—seems to be equal parts masculine wish-fulfillment and a semi self-aware parody of hyper-masculinity.
He swills alcohol without suffering the ill effects; he objectifies women without compromising his appeal or ability to win over new companions; he engages in sensational acts of violence with full confidence that the moral imperative is always on his side. It all seems to amount to some sort of reactionary fever dream for the male id, yet the lengths to which these films have gone in order to provide novel platforms for the fantasy man have grown increasingly convoluted and ridiculous, nearly to the point of pulling the rug out from beneath the whole dream factory.
James Bond is not a character, so much as a reconciling of regressive masculine tropes: the need to be both rugged and sophisticated, aggressive yet measured, clever but not overly brainy, sexually predatory but above reproach. He reinforces outdated and unrealistic norms, but requires a manufactured context to do so—as though the masculine ideal he embodies never really existed, never could exist.
Edgar Wilson, The Good Men Project Author
The Theory of Everything
Men seem to have a constant need to prove their worth—whether it’s the Neanderthal proving his prowess through the hunt, or, in the case of Stephen Hawking, proving his intellectual vitality through his scientific achievements.
Gail Hoffer-Loibl, The Good Men Project Author
The Martian
I’ve just got to love a main character who solves his problems, not with violent weapons, not with sexual swagger—but with math. Yes, The Martian is a pretty predictable hero’s journey: man tries to conquest new lands and ends up facing one challenge after another. But can Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) make potato-growing funny and insightful? You betcha.
There were other signs of 21st century masculinity in this movie—a woman was a commander of the mission and it seemed just … perfectly natural. She screws up big time by leaving our hero on Mars, but she makes up for it in the end with mutiny, bombs, and breeches. But the movie wasn’t about her, at all, it was about one man’s lonely quest to survive—and thrive—in the loneliest land of all. Mark Watney made us a part of his world. And we thrive right along with him.
As the 21st century changes, so do men. And sometimes that change is wonderful to watch unfold.
Lisa Hickey, CEO of Good Men Media Inc. and publisher of the Good Men Project
Bridge of Spies
Attorney James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks) isn’t an action movie tough guy. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t tough. He provides legal defensive for an accused Soviet spy for ideological reasons. But he’s no commie. He just believes that putting the American Bill of Rights into action is a true statement of what’s at stake in the Cold War.
Later, when he’s sent abroad to negotiate the release of downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, Donovan refuses to give up on another captive: Frederic Pryor, an American studying abroad whom East Germany imprisoned when he tried to get his girlfriend out of East Berlin. Donovan is emphatic that he will not leave Pryor behind.
Masculine strength of character is as ancient as the muscle man. We don’t need to redefine masculinity because the brute has never been the sum total of what it means to be a man.
Dave Dubay, The Good Men Project Author
Coach Carter
This movie is a great example of how to inspire students. Standards and rules are necessary for learning to take place but the key is that those expectations are made clear. If we hold our students, no matter their background, to a higher standard and treat them with mutual respect, even the most disengaged student can be reached.
Keola Birano, The Good Men Project Author
Interstellar
Interstellar, on top of every other high-concept space travel and laws-of-physics diversion it explores, presents one of the single most compelling representations of fatherhood and father-daughter relationships ever filmed. The entire film arguably exists to provide these templates for Father and Daughter with an opportunity to connect, communicate, and understand one another in a way that time usually prevents.
Sadly, the father-son relationship portrayed plays a bit more conventionally, where the Son in question embodies the worst aspects of what the cliché would label “Daddy issues,” treating his father’s self-sacrifice and recognition that some problems are bigger than any one person as a personal abandonment. He ages into a violent, short-sighted reactionary, and it is unclear why the script or characters treated him as so dispensable (or featured him at all) next to his sister.
Edgar Wilson, The Good Men Project Author
Birdman
Aging in and out of Hollywood is often portrayed as a “woman’s issue.” However, as we see in Birdman, men also struggle with the notion of getting older and losing the essence of who they are.
Gail Hoffer-Loibl, The Good Men Project Author
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Birdman portrays attempted rape for laughs—punctuated by a visual penis joke. Any subtext about masculine identity, impotence, or what is “real” in a contrived, staged world dissolves behind such a flippant treatment.
Edgar Wilson, The Good Men Project Author
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Photo: Twentieth Century Fox Corporation
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