A Real Man?

This week, a friend and I watched Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino--and the premise of a tough, old white guy who's learning to embrace new culture, new tenderness, and new possibilities about masculinity was all intriguing to me. But the tragedy of the film wasn't in the final scene, when Eastwood's character offers up his life in a pacifist sacrifice to stop the cycle of death in his neighborhood. As moving and incredibly poignant as that moment is, the tragedy of the film occurs earlier, when Eastwood's character takes the young learning-to-be-a-man Tao to his local barbershop so that he can learn how men talk.

And, watching the film, the moment that became the deafening defeat, for me, was when Tao and Eastwood walk into that barbershop. The barber--whom Eastwood has prefaced as a "real man"--is sitting on his chair, waiting for business, looking through a porn magazine.

The Education of a "Real Man"
in Gran Torino (which begins with porn use)

The magazine is never referenced by any of the characters, though. No one talks about it. But the fact that Eastwood's character has already denigrated Tao for his weakness and complete lack of "real" manhood sets up the barber as the definition of the authentic thing: masculinity in action. As viewers, we're prepped for the scene and we're supposed to laugh at Tao in his weak attempts to become a real man. Yet, this question is paramount to how our culture views men: can we really become "real men" by using pornography? Do we men reveal strength and courage by purchasing a glossy magazine for a few bucks in which women are made to look like meat and overt notions of domination, subjugation, oppression, and misogyny are rampant?

The barber's answer--and by extension, Eastwood's character in Gran Torino--is a resounding yes.

But the real paradox of this moment is that, only a few scenes prior, Eastwood's character watches from his front stoop as a middle-aged woman drops her groceries on the sidewalk as she's trying to carry them from the back of her car. A group of teenagers walks by. None help, and one gesticulates with an overt sexual enactment. The others laugh. Eastwood's character bemoans this display--and rightly so--and is impressed when Tao (the character displayed as the total opposite of a "real man") comes over to help her. It's a moving scene, and rightly so.

Yet, the irony is here: Eastwood's barber friend is fanning the pages of a magazine where women are portrayed as objects--totally useless other than to arouse men's appendages--and yet here, Eastwood's character expects these teenage men to help the women rather than see her as a sexual object through which to make themselves laugh.

So, we're teaching men two things, here: the women in porn magazines are not real women. Those are the kinds of women you're supposed to use, abuse, see as meat for your hunger, and basically dominate. In essence, they're not real and they have no emotions. So the disgust Eastwood's character evidences when the teenage boys make fun of the middle-aged woman is essentially this: That middle-aged woman is a real woman. She has emotions and feelings. You can't treat her as a sexual object or a punchline to a dirty joke.

It's the same old misogynist practice: some women are to be respected, others are to be treated as less-than people and used for pleasure. That's the only reason Eastwood's character can walk into a barbershop where the "real man" is using porn, yet he serves as the model man. A tough man. A real man.

We see the same kind of overt misogyny is the fodder of Tucker Max. In the sickening chants of a Yale Fraternity. Among e-mails of the previous Duke Lacrosse team. Ultimately, young men of every class, race, and place are adept at learning a tragic lesson from the men who are supposed to be their models: some women matter; some women don't. And a real man learns to tell the difference. A real man learns how to abuse and use women.

Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

The time for tough bravado and pretension are over for us men. It's high time we learn to display a more authentic kind of manhood--the kind that Michael Kimmel, Atticus Finch, Nicholas Kristof, Cornel West, Jackson Katz, Sut Jhally, Michael Kaufman, and so many more reveal. These men--among many others--are using their lives to show that a real man doesn't sit in a  barbershop looking at porn. They don't buy the excuse that pornography empowers women. (Gail Dines and Robert Jensen have powerfully articulated how a system of male dominance and oppression feeds off of pornography, not anything that empowers freedom for women.)

Instead, a real man is one who is able to listen to the stories of others and look full in the face of another human being, granting them autonomy, respect as a citizen of the world, and deserving of dignity. Real men live to enhance the voices of others, offering opportunities for women to be empowered, not denigrated. Real men seek to quit the addiction of glossy magazines and instead see the reality of the world in front of their faces. Real men know that all women deserve dignity. And in empowering others, real men also become empowered in an authentic, honest, and yes--dare I say it--even vulnerable way.

Cornel West is right when he says, "We know that misogyny is shot through the culture. It's in country. It's in rhythm and blues. It's in the White House, and it's on Wall Street." But the men of this generation and the next will be able to choose what kind of men we are going to be. It's high time we put down the glossy magazines portrayed women as objects and pleasure sites. And it's time we call out misogynist actions, jokes, businesses, and ideas as unacceptable--whether they're on the campus of Ivy League schools like Yale, on the fields of sports teams, or in our own hearts and bodies.

Like much social change, it starts by turning away from one ideal, and embracing another. Goodbye, Domination. Hello, Empowerment.

Rambo, Conan, and the Impossible Male

Walking home from the city center today pushing Tyler in the stroller, my eye caught an advertisement for the new Conan the Barbarian movie plastered along the side of a double-decker bus.

Under an image of Conan as biceps-and-pecs-the-size-of-Texas, the movie's slogan was printed in all caps: BORN ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

Immediately,my mind jumped back to four years ago, when Jen and I were leaving the movie theater in Flagstaff, Arizona after having watched The Freedom Writers, and we saw the movie poster for the latest Rambo installment. The slogan on that one? HEROES DON'T DIE. THEY JUST RELOAD.

So, along my walk home, my mind started a little mini-synthesis paper. (Perhaps I miss the classroom a bit, or maybe the rain that had begun pouring made me pensive.) I combined both movie slogans and came up with one that presents a fairly accurate depiction of what many men see as their culture-proclaimed epitome of manhood is: REAL MEN ARE BORN TOUGH; THEY LIVE TOUGH; THEY NEVER DIE (BUT IF THEY WERE TO DIE, THEY WOULD DIE TOUGH).

But when I tried to enter the next layer of synthesis and try to make my slogan fit men generally, or even any man specifically, I was stuck.

Thing is, a lot of men profess drivel like this. A lot of us y-chromosome-wielding guys might claim that toughness, battles, and reloading guns is what masculinity is all about. But the truth is, no man really believes it. (Though he may be suckered into it by the way his dad raised him, one too many Rambo films, video games where you can kill your opponent a thousand different ways, and bully-peer-coolness culture in our schools.)

See, every male student I've ever taught at the middle, high school, or college level has all had one thing in common: a heck of a lot of pretense. (This, by the way, includes yours truly.) In other words, all men learn that sooner or later, you've got to act the part and try to look cool, act tough, and carry a big stick / gun / sword / mouth / name-brand-clothing-that-has-been-advertised-by-a-guy-with--yes--pecs-as-big-as-the-state-of-Texas.

But every man knows, deep down, that this is all one big load of baloney. Because we men know how we feel. We know that we get sad; we get happy; we get lonely; we get scared (even terrified); we get needy; we get contemplative (yup, even those guys who you'd never expect it from); we want to get real.

I think there are a lot of us guys out here who would rather push a stroller than wield a sword.

Writers like Robert Bly, who popularized the notion of this secret, innate-warriorness / wildness / aggressiveness that all men possess and which has somehow been crushed by women, talk a big game. Their words get a lot of guys fired up, thinking to themselves, Hey, maybe Bly is right. I am a warrior. I need a sword! I need a gun! I need to tell this nagging lady to be quiet so I can lead the way! After all, Bly must be right because, hey, didn't they give him a Pulitzer Prize? And didn't John Eldridge translate Bly's notion of the wild man for the Christian male with Wild at Heart?

But in reality, maybe we men are starting to come to some new conclusions:

1. Courage isn't necessarily about one big moment of power and aggressiveness with a sword or a gun. It might be more about the way we live; the way treat people; the way we learn to love when it's excruciatingly hard to do so.

2. I'd just as soon drink a cup of tea and watch a rom-com with my wife rather than kill a thousand people on a video game.

3. It's a heck of a lot more fun to be honest rather than hide. Hiding gets old. Boring. Tired old script; same old hiding places. Ugh.

4. There's got to be something better out there--some better model.

And there is!  Men like Atticus Finch present a far more beautiful--and courageous--notion of what authentic masculinity should look like (and could, really could, look like).

In the Acknowledgements section of his bestselling book Guyland, author Michael Kimmel writes movingly about the wish he has for his sons. He quotes a poet and Pulitzer-prize winner (three times!) far different than Mr. Bly. Kimmel cites Adrienne Rich's wishes for her own sons--that they would "have the courage of women" regarding his sons, too.

What a beautiful desire: that we men would learn the courage of women--the courage to love when it's hard, to live not only the moments of glory but also the moments no one sees (that are no less valiant or brave). To walk among the noble souls who live not only for battle, but for peace.

Conan and Rambo may wield power when it comes to the masculine ideal, but men like Atticus Finch have another kind of courage and power entirely: the masculine real. real love; real conviction; real courage for the long journey. And I, for one, am a heck of a lot more interested in that.