Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Movies and manhood

How movies teach manhood

I came across this interesting Ted Talk entitled "How movies teach manhood".
Speaker Colin Stokes discusses how his 3 year old son watched Star Wars and instantly became obsessed with wanting to be a Jedi. It made him think about the protagonists in animated films and the difference between male and female characters.

He makes sure to include that there are so many good examples of female protagonists (especially in recent kid's films) that are heroic, but still, a different kind of heroic.
When a female is a protagonist, she is a warrior; she is brave, smart, and always on her toes. She is fair in her fights and comes out of the journey undefeated, while on the way dealing with either goofy or obviously villainous men.

However, when the men are the heroes, there usually aren't many women characters at all. Boys learn that to be a man you need to fight your enemies with violence, and once they are defeated, you can collect your prize which is a woman who has been waiting for you all along.

I think his point is that girls are taught how to deal with the patriarchy (which is great!), but boys are not. Although I know these are just children's movies, boys are not shown how to react with girls in a realistic way.



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