"A manly man among men"

In two of his posts, Victor Davis Hanson takes what seems to be a break from the deeper, more philosophical and serious thoughts in order to wonder what has happened to Manly Men of Hollywood, and, in a follow-up query, why no Western movies?

I've wondered these things for a very long time.

I blame Alan Alda.

Somewhere in the 1970s, the arbiters of manly fashions decided that Alda was the man for a new generation -- soft, sensitive, witty, urbane, and all that crap. You know the stuff I'm talking about, where the sales point is, it's okay for a man to cry in public, even if it isn't over his home team. Not only is it okay, it's downright mandatory for a man to express -- nay, to deeply discuss -- his feelings toward his girlfriend (but not about how she looks. Heaven forfend he might make a sexist reference to the size of her... smile). It would be different if Alan Alda were small and pale and raised in a tenement in Brooklyn -- then we could understand why he whined so much through the 1970s and 80s, even without a Neil Simon script.

Alda was the prototypical metrosexual. Sure, the model has been updated annually, but they started with him. Geek chic, too, followed this man (not that I have much room for complaint, there. My own dad is the proud owner of many pocket protectors. But he's more than that. He's an Eagle Scout and a carpenter and a top-notch square dancer).

It's hard to muster money in show biz for somebody or something not already trendy. Rural is rarely in style. Suburban, yes. Cow town, not so mooocho. And real men with dirt on their denims and holes in their Stetsons... that's hard to cross-merchandise. What does one sell alongside a cowboy doll action figure? Horse, wagon, six-gun, cow, blanket... uh, that's about it, I guess. But an action hero in a science fiction adventure can have all sorts of accessories, all sorts of new types of alien or robot friends and foes, all sorts of spinoff stories, and the communications toys are to die for!

So we get the occasional Western feature on TNT (usually not terribly original, but at least they try). Which leads us back to the question of the Manly Man... where is he?

He's Ed Harris. He's Sam Shepard. He's Robert Duvall. He's Clint Eastwood. He's James Garner. He's Tom Selleck (forget his giggle on Magnum, P.I.). He's Brian Dennehy. He's Mark Harmon.

He's mature. In many cases, he's beyond mature -- he's aging. The thing about masculinity is that it comes when a male sheds his boyish outlook and stands independent. Usually, in order for a person to reach that point, he must endure some hardship in life, as the flame and hammer in the forge realign the molecules in iron and strengthen the metal. The boys of Hollywood, such as Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and their contemporaries/class have had relatively easy lives, except where they've made their own ridiculous decisions to block their cushioned paths. They were cocks-of-the-walk from adolescence onward, have had no true strife to develop their character. They live off their pretty faces.


I have nothing against a pretty face in an oater. In fact, it worked very well with Randolph Scott, with Montgomery Clift, or even with Marion Morrison (and he was a dandy, back in his singing cowboy days). But the true Hollywood lack, today, is in substance -- and that is where we fall back upon the corrupt corpse of manliness, in the mad-doctor hands of Alan Alda. He may have been erudite, but I'd not choose him to back me in a barn-raising (or a barn-burning, if need be), even if I had to choose between him and Gabby Hayes. A western movie needs its star to be a mensch, not a schmendrick.

Where are all Hollywood's men, today? Who wears the pants? Who has the backbone to carry a role of substance? Judy Dench. Helen Mirren.

The guy's a Dame.

Maybe the next Great Western movie should be about Belle Starr, or Martha Jane Canary Burk.


Tuesday Update: After sleeping on this, and, after the brief discussion (in comments) with the EclectEcon, I think I've found a better word for what's truly missing in most of Hollywood's young males, what they must gain in order to be seen as men : gravitas. They think they know what it is, but all they have is occasional earnestness.