How movies teach manhood Colin Stokes
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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