The funny part is Mulan is a myth. I watch a video where the interviewer was asking Chinese actors and actresses. The all said along the lines oh that myth. Fir that time period she would had been put to death the moment she was found out. Not to mention in the 90's. Historians start the hole. Their had to be female warriors and then low and behold they started to find them. 2nd wave of feminism was taking off.
@@OraDeCulcare exactly.. they can't even write a character.. I still don't know how those useless writers who only got being woke as a talent, get a job..
They aren't writing women properly. Very poor Character development.. Galadriel comes off as a spoiled violent, immature brat? She is supposed to be 1000s of yrs old already.
My wife is a retired clinician of the mental health industry. She had never seen Rambo First Blood. At the end of the movie where Rambo breaks down. She began to cry. She said that is what it looks like when someone has PTSD from the military. Not all PTSD looks like that but she has had some break down just like that.
They can't write female characters either. They are all perfect Mary Sues who can't be wrong. Actually, they can't write plot, dialogue, character development, relationships or anything else either come to think of it. I miss movies.
I feel that Hollywood just doesn't *want* to write male characters, because there seems to be this idea that certain cultural imbalances need to be addressed by tearing male characters down so that female characters can "finally" have their moment to shine on centre stage.
They make male characters look stupid to make female characters shine. They also make female characters look stupid to make male characters shine. Just write them as advanced characters and they will stand out over time. They can't even do that much. They cannot highlight one character without humiliating the other.
It gets annoying when a woman character has a small part in a book, anime etc then in the live action has to be in almost every episode or how a guy is the fighter of the group but in the live action the female character all of the sudden knows martial arts.
There can literally be a book where the magic system distinctly gives all the stronger magic to the Y chromosome and the adaptation will claim some girl who wasn’t in the book is the strongest
Growing up, I looked up to Mr. Miyagi (actually part of the reason why I got into karate myself and still practice it today). Wise, strong, witty, shows genuine care. His gentleness is often juxtaposed with more brutish characters particularly the antagonists in the series but was often shown as one of his greatest assets. I loved that character. I love the story on how Pat Morita got the role. I still carry a lot of Mr. Miyagi's one-liners, a testament to how iconic a character he is from an equally loveable and iconic performer. I haven't seen a Mr. Miyagi in recent movies, granted I haven't watched anything since Endgame. Thinking through it, Hollywood also seems to lack that kind of wisdom, too, not just in the characters they've dished out, but maybe in themselves as writers, producers, directors, and whatnot. And when they do try to come off as wise, it's so pretentious because the stone sinks since it looks down and not because of buoyancy and gravity.
Mr. Miyagi's humbleness was the most vibrant contrast with the antagonists. He never intended to show Karate around, it was this gentle gesture towards Daniel-san that got him to bring back the art. Before "everything" happened, I genuinely thought Luke Skywalker would land that role perfectly, since Yoda was (supposedly) gone and Rey (again, supposedly) needed guidance learning the force and how to control herself. And he exiled himself in contemplation, much like Mr. Miyagi was living in the first movie.
That's because everything has been fucken done before. Let's see how those who complain about it, actually fix it themselves. (In other words, these people who whinge will do jack shit to "fix the problem).
Holkywood seems to be unable to write any chatacter at all anymore. They can't seem to write humans. It feels very much like movies have become a hollow approximation of what films used to be, kinda like social media has become a hollow shell of what used to be people talking to each other and interacting. It's all empty containers and slogans.
The funny part is, that people are so used to these conventions that if you tried to write how people actually talk and act, you'd be accused of it being fake. Just take the example of Jamie Lannister. Who in their right mind abandons not only a family member, but a family member carrying their unborn child? Yet, this is exactly what the audiences wanted for his 'character arc' to happen. Take Finn, on the other hand. He joins the rebels because he is sick of the carnage, but then has no problems whatsoever when the rebels kill his former friends and colleagues en masse. This is what nowadays passes for 'realism'.
Hutch Mansell, from Nobody (2021) is a great masculine man. At the start of the movie, he's stuck in a repetitive cycle of daily life. Subtle ways of showing his marriage is in trouble. Later, when he starts taking control of his life, and making decisions. Winning fights. His life, and marriage gets better.
Hollywood can't write female characters either. I mean, do you think that contemporary "strong female" characters, particularly in the action-adventure genre behave in any way representative of real life strong, courageous women? Female social dynamics are just as screwed up in modern movies.
I was talking about this with a friend lately, I think it's a lack of life experience in modern writers, and by extension modern actors. Hollywood is in a bubble these days, in the 60s and 70s you had studs like Harrison Ford and coming along who were laborers or blue collar workers, or people born to average backgrounds like Michael Caine and Sean Connery. They also had role models from the earlier days of Hollywood when it was far more rough and tumble. As a result movies from the 60s, 70s, 80s and even the 90s and 00s feel so vibrant and alive, the characters aren't actors they're people brought to life. However time rolls on, and over the last 20 years we've lost so many iconic figures that were all integral pieces of the puzzle, and in fact the gears of corporations have removed that puzzle and swapped it with a simple check list. We get neat, tidy, boring movies written by people who got their jobs based on merit rather than talent. A perfect example of this is Game of Thrones D&D, when the show was practically written for them it was just fine, but as soon as those mediocre clowns got put in control the show went sideways. Hollywood is now full to the gills with incompetent fools like D&D.
Sports is a good example of how men act and feel. Modern Hollywood cares most about the emotions and big plays; the highlights. But actual male psychology and life experience is sports as a whole and not just the highlights. It is the training, it is controlling your emotions, it is finding your place within a team and game, it is strategies, it is about losing, it is about not being the most important part of the team.
For me, the epitome of masculinity was Gregory Peck: strength without brutality, confidence without arrogance, a quiet but unmistakable authority, compassion without sentimentality, dependable, capable, as a leader, a father or a husband. When he is in a movie, you know everything will be alright in the end. BTW, I am a woman and not American. Another great performance is Fredrich March in the first version of Desperate Hours, as the father who successfully protects his family against a home invasion by fugitive gangsters led by Humphrey Bogart. I miss the time when men were not represented as fools.
Indeed. I'm nauseated by current Hollywood eviscerating masculinity. They treat it as if it were a public health threat worse than smallpox. 😞 Just saying. Society can't function without masculinity and can't survive without femininity. It's a very basic factor. ☝️
@2:34 I would take some slight issue with the statement that "men have always ideally comported themselves in an undemonstrative way." This is *relatively* true; men have always been, ideally, less demonstrative than women or children. However, there have been historically wide variations between the levels of sensibility considered ideal among males; earlier ages were far more emotive in general, so that kissing, embraces, tears, fainting, and screaming fits were considered normal parts of a man's emotional equipment (Napoleon, for example, had rather a calculated trick of tearing off part of an interlocutor's clothing and dashing it to the ground as a form of intimidation). Much of the change in sensibility seems to have come in with Protestantism, which tended to emphasize the inner spirit over one's actions; the northerly, Protestant nations tended to regard the southerly, Catholic ones as childish and effeminate, and the Catholics in turn regarding the Protestants as brutish, dull, and shallow. (The Germanies with their contrast of Protestants in the Northeast and Catholics in the Southwest show the contrast strikingly in the context of one more or less ethnically unified group of states.) In historical films, of course, one faces the special problem of whether to portray people with strict historical accuracy, which would make people like Henry II rolling on the ground chewing the rugs or Sir Richard Grenville biting the heads off his wineglasses appear as emotional basket cases and lunatics, or tone them down to "update them for modern audiences." Gauging how much reality the audience is willing to accept is, of course, part of what determines a creator's mastery: in the immortal words of Michael Curtiz, he has to "put as much Art into the movie as the audience can stand."
I’ve always loved William Shatner’s portrayal of Captain Kirk. The characters flaws are not very evident in the TV series, but they certainly are in the films, and believe it or not, the man could put on amazing performances. He was a great hero of mine, growing up. Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall as Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, were perhaps the most powerful performances I’ve ever seen. A 1988 TV miniseries that puts cinema to shame. At least those two did. They towered over their fellow actors in that series. 🖖😀
Shatner is and always will be a god awful actor. Even the horrible child actors of today are better. A cardboard cut out of him would deliver a more human performance he's that wooden.
This is a very good video. I'm not sure I agree 100% with you, but your descriptions of male dynamics are definitely true of many men and we're not seeing these kind of interactions on screen any more. One example that comes to mind for me is The Searchers from 1956. John Wayne is often criticized these days (when anyone thinks of him at all), for his overblown screen persona - but the way he and the other characters interacted in that film felt real in a way that films often don't. 3:10 to Yuma from 1957 (featuring my favorite western star Glenn Ford) is an even better example, because one can contrast the way the characters interact in that movie with the remake from 2007.
I'm officially binging your videos now. I love hearing how other people have similar opinions as I do. Hollywood is so far removed from the regular person. It's very sad. And I cannot identify with any of these strong female leads that have no weaknesses whatsoever. I don't like them. They all come off as blue haired screaming feminists that don't need no man. Meanwhile my very favorite job is Mom. I find joy in my family. And while I can completely identify with the working woman who loves her job and her cat, that's fine. But when they put down everybody else for what the other people like, that's when you lose me.
It's not that female leads don't work, their LEADS never worked at all. And along the way they brought up the briliant idea "what if we humiliate different characters than what we're promoting? That will make them look good" No, we don't base success on other people's failures, that's simply inhumane. Ironically, that's the kind of moral they're imprinting on young women with these movies.
Remember the first Rocky. The protagonist doesn't win. He does his best. Comes close but loses in the end. Did anyone watching the movie think the movie would have been better if rocky won?
Your description of subtle male acting reminds me of a scene in Gettysburg where they tell Chamberlin that his good friend died. He sorta gets teary-eyed but mostly just nods and accepts it. The emotion is there, and it's powerful, but he never cries. BTW, that whole movie is a masterclass of male acting. It's great.
I think part of the reason why male dynamics are poorly written is because most writers these days are either women, or they are men who were raised by their mothers. I have nothing against women -- I am one -- but we really don't know anything about how men think or act when we're not around. I am a writer and I struggle with this, since most of my characters are male. Your video really helped me understand what I was missing.
That's really insightful. To me, it feels like men are portrayed either as wimpy sexist losers or mysterious mythical creatures. Meanwhile, real life men who are average and not that manly are not seen as real men. They're... something else, clearly.
Men are dominant, stern, confident, intelligent, masculine, calm, compassionate, strong, resilient, have standards and principles. The perfect example is Don Vito Corleone from Godfather, watch that movie if you haven't and you have yourself the perfect example of a man.
Eden - I know it's been about 10 months since you posted that comment , but maybe this will help... Think about the things that you like in a man... make a list. *Then* go back through that list and look for the contradictions. I'm 95% certain that they *will* be there. For example, most women say that they want men to "open up"... "be vulnerable"... etc... and yet, they also want him to "be their rock". That is one of the most common contradictions. If you want your male character to be strong, remove those contradictions that result in you being turned off... and if you want something else, well... have him do what so many of you *think* that you want him to do... then analyze your own reaction to it... and see if you think that he's *still* attractive. Ultimately, "being a man" is so *very* much about being what our women and children *need* us to be. We adapt to, and *for* them, and their needs and safety... and these days, all too often, we make the error of trying to do what women *think* that they want us to be.
I've only just found your channel, but so far your videos are very well written, thoughtfully executed, and seem to really tug at the psychological string that has been unraveling recent cinema for some time.
Well put together argument - it makes a lot of sense - especially that line that "dudes in movies are often now full of mannerisms that guys dislike" - especially explaining things too much
4 Annoying Main Male Stereotypical Characters That Entertainment Companies Should Seriously Stop Showing: 1. The Creepy Sexual Womanizer 2. The Hyperfeminine Flamboyant Whiner 3. The Lazy Drunkard 4. The Macho Gangster Thug 4 Amazing Male Characters That Entertainment Companies Should Definitely Show: 1. The Clever Scientist 2. The Heroic Warrior 3. The Protective Family Man 4. The Successful Entrepreneur
Sublimely succinct, supple segment by a measured and mature mind. Who could have envisioned an “Echo” more illuminating than the ‘original’ efforts of ostensibly talented (yet thuddingly mimetic) scriptwriters? Subscribing as we speak…
thatshort clip of "cool hand luke" gave me a mental "sigh" .. what a film.. idont think there was a weak or wasted scene in the whole thing... and then almost imeadiatly i hear a voice in my head .."what we have here...is a failure to communicate.." damn... now im gonna be trying like aboss to usethat quote in real life until i do :-)
The long road to understanding how to write a strong male character starts with one exchange: Cowboy One (to Cowboy Two): There are two types of people in this world. Those with a gun, and those who dig. You dig. If you are not offended by that sentence, understand it's pure simplicity and power dynamic, and you have a modicum of intelligence and talent, you can build an entire character and movie (series) around that sentence. Yes, even today. Sadly, I couldn't tell you how many sub-30 year olds know what movie that line was from.
Hmm as a male, I find I agree with some of these parts and not others. Please forgive me if you believe I’ve misunderstood. I’m 28 years old and like most people I’ve been through some traumatic experiences. But I’m not sure if being laconic or tight-lipped is somehow more classically manly than expressing oneself or joking around. To me, it can be comforting if someone cracks a small joke when I’m feeling down or if a situation is less than ideal. Of course there’s a time to be serious, but again, I don’t think a lack of emotion necessarily makes a man more manly. Maybe it’s because my dad is the kind of guy that likes to joke around, I’m probably biased because most of the men I was raised around also generally jocular and irreverent guys. For me, I’ll usually stop joking when I’m really exerting myself or trying to achieve a goal, but usually if I’m not depressed I’ll go write back to conversing and joking once whatever I’m going through is over. A lot of the time I am lost in thought and quiet, but that’s often because I don’t have anyone to talk with anymore. To me often feel emasculated because I went to school and I’ve been working as a janitor for years after college. It makes me feel like a failure. Being a failure on the bottom rung is what I find really emasculating, not being seen as a joker, but as a joke in myself.
New viewer here. I think the content of your essay is on point. For me, your tone needs improvement. You might as well have been reciting a book of stereo instructions to me. Maybe I believe it, but do you believe it? Where's the passion? Do you care about the subject that you're telling me about? This is ultimately your content, your art, so it's going to be what you want it to be. But if you listen to the critical drinker or the little platoon (two of my favorites who do what you're doing here), you can hear in their voice at times that they're excited about the content they're reviewing or extrapolating on. Sometimes they sound pissed off or annoyed, etc. And I understand that not everyone is going to agree with this take. But the only way that we can improve is if we get feedback, and maybe you think this feedback can help you get better, or maybe you don't. Thanks for making the video. Cheers.
You put into words beautifully this elusive quality I cannot articulate (being a woman), but notice is vanishing in our representation of men in cinema and in real life. It is awful to watch as other trivialize this way of being.
Modern writers don’t understand the key to being a male is to understand that while men are straight forward and logical, we also have emotions. We do infact feel sorrow, happiness, fear and so on but we don’t like to express them because innately all men play a game of poker. All men understand (if they were raised right) that you have to play things close to the chest and be subtle in life in order to assert your advantage at the right moment. The second you show a weakness you become a target which reduces your ability to assert yourself properly. As men we are preprogrammed for violence and to protect and thus we innately judge our fellow man as possible rivals and watch for these moments. It’s why a man loses respect for another man for crying because he sees the weakness and knows how to exploit it and how it could be exploited by others. You can’t depend on someone who falls to pieces easily and you can’t trust someone to have your back if they can’t handle something on your level or lower. We respect a master of craft, and the sheer grit someone puts into their pursuit of a goal because we respect strength and tenacity. Hollywood doesn’t get that because they weren’t raised right and most Hollywood men haven’t faced hard times and been forced to be strong so they automatically assume male behavior is toxic. That’s why they write men the way they do now. You can’t write what you don’t know and these writers wouldn’t know masculinity if it kicked them in the ass and told them to sack up.
Men were built for war. For both good and ill, every instinct, every impulse, every virtue--and every vice we have was born from this. Almost all social conventions regarding men all over the world were designed to help them be better soldiers and warriors. We thrive in such settings, and when left alone with peers, tend to form groups that resemble warbands. And that's partly why these modern writers can't write men. Because they can't write good soldiers. These writers lack a respect for war and the act of waging it. They can't write hierarchy without resentment over the concept, they can't write authority without undermining it, they can't write ritual and protocol without poking fun at it, and they refuse to recognize the art in war. They think softness is goodness. And so they can't write hard men without making them look silly or evil and generally antagonistic. Because they genuinely don't get why such men have their place in the fabric of society. They think they got there by bullying or strongarming others. They don't see that such men are often respected by other men who have chosen to elevate them in recognition that their characteristics would probably prove useful in an emergency.
I know why uncreative Hollywood writers do not like to write male characters anymore, but they can not write female characters either if they want them to be perfect at everything instead of facing the same personal struggles, or more personal struggles than the male characters.
Too many adults have grown up without fathers, or, indeed, *any* significant adult males in their lives... and this has been happening for *generations* now. It isn't just that they don't have fathers. They often don't have uncles, either, because their mother was, often enough, an only child... and when she wasn't, half of the time, her sibling was another female. And when they *do* have fathers, *they* often grew up without a father, so they don't know how to be proper, either. So, it's no wonder that Hollywood writers are so clueless. Even if they were still *allowed* to show men being *not* being useless, bumbling, incompetent, etc.
It's not surprising that writers from a culture where the majority(-ish?) of children are raised by single mothers don't have any male archetypes to reference.
Hollywood can't write female characters anymore either, unless they're completely flawless, perfect girl bosses. (Not that we can't have girl boss characters, but it's been overused to the point that it's become a cliche in and of itself, and no character, male or female, needs to be perfect; in fact, they're better if you give them flaws because they're more believable.)
I don’t like the way Hollywood writes men: Proceeds to describe how he likes men being written, which is indistinguishable from the way Hollywood writes them. You are correct about how acting, and the way the directors are not allowed to let the acting drive the story. How the producers just want scenes pushed along, this is true. But you realize though that you literally said “I don’t want empty stereo types to be the way men are written” then proceeded to generalize how you want all males to be written?
I honestly understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with the macho male characters in movies. I myself truly have a deep burning hatred for macho men because they make heroic masculine men look bad. Macho men do not actually care about women, girls, boys, and even men at all. They only care about themselves because they treat boys and men as foot soldiers & as practice dummies for entertainment & violence. They also treat girls and women as house slaves & sex objects for their own selfish pleasure, absolutely disgusting & pure evil.
@@markfennell1167 Thank you very much I really appreciate it because I am so frustrated with this sick insanity and I am very aware that I am not alone in this world to stand up against this madness.
@@markfennell1167 True masculine men protect children both boys & girls from abuse, they protect disabled people from discrimination, they protect elderly people from harassment, and they protect women especially if they are pregnant. Masculinity means courage and protection. True masculinity is all about standing up against abuse, bullying, sexual assaults, and other negative threats in our society to have empathy for others who are in danger or harassed. That is why I used the two words ‘courage’ having the bravery to stand up against evil and ‘protection’ by protecting innocent people who are bullied from evil. We as a society obviously need heroic masculinity not machismo period. Here are three video links below of three courageous men who saved innocent people from danger: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C1SbF4e_Y9k.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9H9b7HZQcUw.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QqpMsRwZk_c.html
The problem is sin so to fix the problem ... start at the beginning. Go to a man of God who knows the difference between titles baptism and baptism in the title-name-title of Lord Jesus Christ
Movies back in the day were as bad as today's, is just that the test of time has gotten rid of old trash & kept only what's worth being remembered. The same will happen with today's movies. In other words, you're as polarized as the average SJW.
can they write men some of them p they can, they choose not to, cuz they are so actively "deconstrcting" and cuckking da men u said "where men take the lead?" well, naturally, everywhere
Goddamn the amount of over-analyzing and reading too deep into things is astounding. This feels like a parody of overly-intellectual videos except he’s being 100% serious. I can’t believe a video like this isn’t parody. 😂
