What makes for a real man?
Second Thoughts on Two Films
I grew up in the era of action heroes. In the 1980s, action heroes were massive bodybuilders who amassed big body counts in their movies. By the 1990s, these movies began spoofing themselves with Hotshots or Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero. No one took these characters seriously as images of masculinity that were meant to be some kind of role model. Things changed when an action hero named Mel Gibson decided to direct and star in 1995’s Braveheart. Now, we had an action hero move into something that was to be taken as a serious film; it won Best Film and Best Director at the Academy Awards.
Braveheart wasn’t without its critics, but I find it an engaging and entertaining film. It is an epic, tracing the journey of a man from his boyhood. It has tragedy and tyranny, which must be overcome, and the hero has something of a martyr’s death. The interesting thing for me is how Christian leaders have picked up on the William Wallace character from the film as a role model for what it means to be a man. This has been done in clearly unhealthy ways by scandalous leaders, but it has also been an approach adopted by leaders I have plenty of respect for. An example can be found in Jon Tyson’s parenting book The Intentional Father, where he talks about watching Braveheart with his teenage son.1
Another activity we did—even though it sounds cliché, don’t knock it—was watch the movie Braveheart together. Think about when you saw that movie for the first time, how new it was for you, and what an emotional impact it had. After we watched it, we had this fantastic conversation about William Wallace’s desire for a life of ease and how he embraced difficulty.
I took on Tyson’s advice and watched the film again with one of my own teenagers. I am not exactly sure how I felt when I first watched it back in the nineties, but as I watch it now, it seems I have a complicated relationship with the film. This is art worth engaging with, and the brutality and violence depicted are important aspects of it. Rather than toting guns like many action heroes, Wallace typically bludgeons people to death. It makes me squeamish, but I actually prefer the realism of this to what typically shows up in film and television: someone is shot and falls over or even vaporised and disappears. However, I am left questioning whether Wallace was the role model I have been led to believe he is.
Embracing difficulty is undoubtedly an important aspect of becoming a man and the journey from boyhood to manhood. I presume the same should be said about becoming a woman and moving from girlhood to womanhood. Surely, this is an essential aspect of moral formation and the development of a virtuous character for any person. For people who have been shaped by the Christian tradition and the teachings of Jesus, as I have, one of the most challenging things to embrace is the forgoing of vengeance and to forgive those who have done you wrong. In the film, Wallace takes what could be seen as the easy route, and although you could say he is dishing out justice through vengeance, he must be described as utterly merciless. Then, in one of the film’s iconic scenes, as he is being put to death, rather than asking for mercy as the crowd and his executioner encourage him to do, he triumphantly cries out, “Freedom!”. It is a fitting end to the story, but I am not convinced this merciless life is the most inspirational thing that we can provide our children with.
Somewhat unexpectedly, I may have come across a more inspirational story of what it means to become a man and make a shift from seeking a life of ease to embracing difficulty in the 2019 movie The Peanut Butter Falcon. This movie stars Shia LaBeouf, who, like Mel Gibson, is a talented actor with much success in blockbuster movies. Also, like Gibson, LaBeouf is a Catholic who has had some media scandals related to his personal life. That being so, this low-budget, independent film about two young men coming of age and finding their way in the world may be some of LaBeouf’s finest work.
In The Peanut Butter Falcon, LaBeouf portrays a fisherman who doesn’t play by the rules, leading to him getting fired, doing something stupid, and ending up on the run. Along the way, he strikes up an unexpected friendship with a young man with Down syndrome who has himself escaped from an aged-care facility. This is a heartwarming tale, and something about the setting on the water in North Carolina and the culture of that part of the world appeals to my own tastes. I won’t say too much about the film as I suspect many reading this will not have seen it. The movie tackles many serious issues and does so in a very whimsical manner, but as I reflect on the journey LaBeouf’s character takes, what stands out to me is the transition to manhood that occurs.
Cultivating virtues is not an easy road; the easy road is often a path to destruction. This is what LaBeouf’s character in the film started out on, and though he was a grown man, he was, in a very real sense, just a young boy. His journey brought him to a place where he cared for others, and his life was no longer just about him. He embraced doing difficult things, but it wasn’t about getting even with those who wronged him; he became a person who had mercy on the stranger who came into his midst. This seems to be a better version of manhood than the mercilessness of William Wallace. We want our heroes to display virtues, cardinal virtues like courage, justice and prudence, but I’ve learnt that we want our heroes to become merciful as well; at least, that’s what the latest Spiderman film taught me.
Jon Tyson, The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2021), 67.