How movies teach manhood Colin Stokes

[Music]

[Music]

my favorite part of being a dad is the

movies I get to watch I love sharing my

favorite movies with my kids and when my

daughter was four we got to watch The

Wizard of Oz together totally dominated

her imagination for months her favorite

character was Glinda of course have a

great excuse to wear sparkly dress and

carry a wand you know you watch a movie

enough times and you start to realize

how unusual it is now we live today and

are raising our children in a kind of

children’s fantasy spectacular

industrial complex but the Wizard of Oz

stood alone he did not start that trend

40 years later was when the trend really

caught on with interestingly another

movie that featured a metal guy and a

furry guy rescuing a girl by dressing up

as the enemy’s guards you know what I’m

talking about now

there’s a big difference between these

two movies a couple of really big

differences between the Wizard of Oz and

all the movies we watched today one is

there’s very little violence in The

Wizard of Oz the monkeys are rather

aggressive as are the apple trees but I

think if the Wizard of Oz were made

today the wizard would say Dorothy you

are the savior of Oz that the prophecy

foretold use your magic slippers to

defeat the computer-generated armies of

the Wicked Witch but that’s not how it

happens another thing that’s really

unique about The Wizard of Oz to me is

that all of the most heroic and wise and

even villainous characters are female

now I started to notice this when I

actually showed Star Wars to my daughter

which was years later and the situation

was different at that point I also had a

son he was only three at the time he was

not invited to the screening he’s too

young for that but he was the second

child and the level of supervision had

plummeted so he wandered in

and it imprinted on him like mommy duck

does to its duckling and I don’t think

he understand what’s what’s going on but

he is sure soaking in it and I wonder

what he’s soaking in is he picking up on

the themes of courage and perseverance

and loyalty is he picking up on the fact

that Luke joins an army to overthrow the

government is he picking up on the fact

that there are only boys in the universe

except for aunt Beru and of course this

princess is really cool but who kind of

waits around through most of the movie

so that she can award the hero with a

medal and a wink to thank him for saving

the universe which he does by the magic

that he was born with compared this to

1939 with The Wizard of Oz has Dorothy

win her movie by making friends with

everybody and being a leader that’s kind

of the world I’d rather raise my kids in

Oz right and not the world of dudes

fighting which is where we kind of have

to be why is there so much force capital

F force in the movies we have for our

kids and so little yellow brick road I

mean there is a lot of great writing

about the impact that the boy violent

movie has on girls and you should do

that reading it’s very good

I haven’t read as much on how boys are

picking up on this vibe I know from my

own experience that Princess Leia did

not provide the adequate context that I

could have used in navigating the adult

world that is co-ed

I think you know there was a kind of

first kiss moment when I really expected

the credits to start rolling because

that’s the end of the movie right I

finished my quest I got the girl why are

you still standing there

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do the

movies are very very focused on

defeating the villain in getting your

reward and there’s not a lot of room for

other relationships and other journeys

it’s almost as though if you’re a boy

you are a dopey animal and if you were a

girl you should bring your warrior

costume I mean there are plenty of

exceptions and I I will defend the

Disney Princesses in front of any of you

but they do send a message to boys that

they are not the boys are not really the

target audience I mean they are doing a

phenomenal job of teaching girls how to

defend against the patriarchy but they

are not necessarily showing boys how

they’re supposed to defend against the

patriarchy there’s no models for them

and we also have some terrific women who

are writing new stories for our kids and

as three-dimensional and delightful as

Hermione and Katniss are these are still

war movies and of course the most

successful studio of all time

continues to crank out classic after

classic every single one of them about

the journey of a boy or a man or two men

who are friends or a man and his son or

two men who are raising a little girl

until as many of you are thinking this

year when they finally came out with

brave I recommend it to all of you it’s

on demand now do you remember what the

critic said when brave came out

I can’t believe Pixar made a princess

movie it’s very good don’t let that stop

you now almost none of these movies pass

the Bechdel test I don’t know if you’ve

heard of this does not yet caught on and

caught fire but maybe today we will

start a movement Alison Bechdel is a

comic book artist and back in the mid

80s she

recorded this conversation she’d had

with a friend about assessing the movies

that they saw and it’s very simple

there’s just three questions you should

ask is there more than one character in

the movie that is female who has lines

so I try to meet that bar and do these

women talk to each other at any point in

the movie and is there conversation

about something other than the guy that

they both like

right two women who exist and talk to

each other about stuff it it does happen

I’ve seen it

and yet I very rarely see it in the

movies that we know and love in fact

this week I went to see a very high

quality movie Argo right Oscar buzz

doing great at the box office a

consensus idea of what a quality

Hollywood film is pretty much flunks the

Bechtel test and I don’t think it should

because there a lot of the movie and oh

no if you’ve seen it but a lot of the

movie takes place in this embassy where

men and women are hiding out during the

hostage crisis we got quite a few scenes

of the men having deep angst-ridden

conversations in this hideout

and the great moment for one of the

actresses is to peek through the door

and say are you coming to bed honey

like that’s Hollywood for you so let’s

let’s look at the numbers 2011 the

hundred most popular movies how many of

them do you think actually have female

protagonists eleven it’s not bad it’s

not as it’s not as many percent as the

number of women we’ve just elected to

Congress so that’s good but there is a

number that is greater than this that’s

going to bring this room down in last

year in the New York Times published a

study that the government had done

here’s what it said one out of five

women in America say that they have been

sexually assaulted some time in their

life now I don’t think that’s the fault

of popular entertainment I don’t think

kids movies have anything to do with

that I don’t even think that you know

music videos or pornography are really

directly related to that but something

is going wrong and when I hear that

statistic one of the things I think of

is

that’s a lot of sexual asylums who are

these guys what are they learning what

are they failing to learn

are they absorbing the story that a male

hero’s job is to defeat the villain with

violence and then collect the reward

which is a woman who has no friends and

doesn’t speak

are we soaking up that story you know as

a parent with the privilege of raising a

daughter like all of you who are doing

the same thing we find this world and

this statistic very alarming and we want

to prepare them we have tools at our

disposal like girl power and we hope

that that will help but I gotta wonder

is girl power going to protect them if

at the same time actively or passively

we are training our sons to maintain

their boy power I mean I think the

Netflix queue is one way that we can do

something very important and I’m talking

mainly to the dads here I think we have

got to show our sons a new definition of

manhood now the definition of manhood is

already turning upside down I mean

you’ve read about how the new economy is

changing the roles of caregiver and wage

earner they’re throwing it up in the air

so our sons are gonna have to find some

way of adapting to this some new

relationship with each other and I think

we really have to show them and model

for them how a real man is someone who

trusts his sisters and respects them and

wants to be on their team and stands up

against the real bad guys and with the

men who want to abuse the women and I

think our job in the Netflix queue is to

look out for those movies that pass the

Bechdel test if we can find them and to

seek out the heroines who are there who

show real courage who bring people

together

and to nudge our sons to identify with

those heroines and to say I want to be

on their team because they’re gonna be

on their team when I asked my daughter

who her favorite character was in Star

Wars you know what she said obi-wan

obi-wan Kenobi and Glinda now one of

these two have in common maybe it’s not

just the sparkly dress I think these

people are experts I think these are the

two people in the movie who know more

than anybody else and they love sharing

their knowledge with other people to

help them reach their potential now

there are leaders I like that kind of

quest for my daughter and I like that

kind of quest for my son I want more

quest like that I want fewer quests

where my son is told go out and fight it

alone and more quests where he sees that

it’s his job to join a team maybe a team

led by women to help other people become

better and be better people like The

Wizard of Oz thank you

you