What does being manly or masculine entail?
It's a thing I've been batting around in my mind for a while, but watching Jurassic Kingdom: Fallen World last night (or at least part of it) crystallized some of this thinking for me. Back in 2015 I watched the original Jurassic World, and while I didn't find any real fault with its leads, Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, I mused at the time that it would have been neat if the roles had been reversed: have her be the two-fisted dino-wrangling badass, and have him be the administrator who needs to learn how to love.
It's been so long since I saw the first installment that I don't remember, but in Fallen Kingdom they really drive home that Chris Pratt's character is a MAN, man. When he first appears, he's building his own house, for god's sake, and then bragging to the nerdy systems analyst guy that he rides motorcycles and wrangles dinosaurs.
But again, I'm not criticizing the portrayal, or even the idea that men might do stuff like that. I'm interested in my own eye-rolling reaction to it, and the idea that I should be rolling my eyes at it.
Somewhere along the line, in the stew of self-toxic ideas that I've taken on and internalized, is the idea that I'm a different kind of masculine than guys like Chris Pratt's character, and that the types are both diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive. Beyond that, it's worth being clear that "different" also means "inferior" - as I said, it's a toxic stew of self-limiting beliefs, and so it's the idea that I'm less manly/masculine than dudes who put out oil fires and have cheerleader threesomes.
The other day I was telling someone about a bit that I saw once from British comedian Michael McIntyre. He was talking about shopping with his wife, and meeting a super-camp shop attendant. His reaction, in the bit, was to lower his voice and act all gruff and manly, when really what he wanted to do was camp it up along with the shop attendant. I joked to my friend that I could relate to this, but thinking about it today, I started questioning that.
Or rather, I can relate to wanting to just be myself, for whatever that means, and not having to play at seeming like one thing or another. But being myself doesn't mean being particularly gruff or camp - I'd rather just be as taciturn and surly as I am in any situation...
Another place that questioned different types of masculinity/maleness was the first season of True Detective. The AV Club's recaps contrasted Woody Harrelson's character's traditional male anti-hero behaviors (drinking, adultery, corruption) with those of Matthew McConaughey's character, who's full of mysterious utterances and smirks about the rubes surrounding him. The reviewer pointed out Cohle's notebook and the way he collected evidence in it as a particularly male way of doing it, which I found interesting.
Without wanting to add to the self-criticism, and aware that I'm in danger of rambling out of control, I guess the answer (as always) is... not to worry about this stuff so much? On one level, perhaps the most important lesson I've learned is not to adjust my behavior or thinking to what I think people want from me. On another, worrying about whether I'm being the "right" kind of manly, or the "right" kind of manly for me, is just a waste of my mental resources: I'll appeal to some people, and I won't appeal to others. Real men, whether they're Chris Pratt, Matthew McConaughey or Michael McIntyre, probably have better things to worry about.
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