Mar
2
Where Have All the Tough Guys Gone?
Filed Under Culture
Driving to work this morning, I saw billboards for “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” and “She’s Out of My League,” the kind of toothless, sissy-Mary pap that passes for adolescent power fantasies these days. Yeesh, what’s happened to young men? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that adolescence isn’t a phase for males; it’s perpetual. I read the “Kick-Ass” graphic novel last weekend and eagerly anticipate the film. I just finished watching “G.I. Joe” Volume 1.2 and am moving on to Volume 1.3 tonight. So it’s not as though I’m some cultural elitist. I like comic book violence just as much as the next sexually awkward young man with a largely absent father.
But I don’t like weenises. Movie heroes have become too sissified. I’m working on a script for class with a tough guy hero and was trying to think of research materials (i.e. comic books) I could review with a character whose values jibe with my protag. It occurred to me that Jim Steranko’s “Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD” is probably my best bet. And that title was published in the ’60s. Jeesus Kerist! I have to go that far back in time to find flinty heroes for inspiration?
That isn’t to say I think movie heroes should be brutes. Some of my favorite movie characters are deeply troubled. Marty McFly desperately needs to avoid his future mother’s advances and set up his would-be parents before he’s erased from existence in “Back to the Future.” But despite his having to play cupid, he’s still a courageous and resourceful hero, punching out Biff Tannen (who’s twice his size) before leading him on a chase through Hill Valley on a makeshift skateboard. Nowadays, Marty’d probably be some metro candyass who resolves his problems with an elaborate musical number.
John McClane, before he turned into a boring bald-headed killing machine, appears in the first “Die Hard” as a New York cop with a bruised ego. After a long-gestating row with his wife over her career, he has to kill his way through a dozen international terrorists to apologize for not being supportive.
Martin Riggs in “Lethal Weapon I” is a suicidal wreck after the death of his wife. It’s only after befriending his partner, family man Roger Murtaugh (and killing a bunch of ex-CIA drug smugglers), that he is able to move on to the next stage of his bereavement: acceptance.
The Terminator in “T2″ is an unemotional walking tank who learns the value of human life that comes from his interactions of his surrogate son, John Connor.
These are terrific movie heroes because they’re steely sonsabitches, but they’re not completely devoid of inner-conflict. There’s a happy medium between strong and sensitive. I think that’s somehow been lost, and now the cinemas are teeming with mopey, emo dinkuses. It makes for weak sauce cinema. Movie heroes are supposed to be larger than life, not your everyday schmoes.
Anyone who goes to see “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” deserves to get beaten up, and anyone who watches “She’s Out of My League” should die a virgin. It’s time for a tough guy renaissance.
-Brad Lohan
Comments
Leave a Reply