This probably says a lot about me, but I love movies that are ABOUT toxic masculinity. Truly some of the best movies of all time are about men being sad because the crushing pressure to obsessively uphold masculine standards is spiritually hollow.

I find it hard to believe people are watching movies by filmmakers like Peckinpah, Cassavetes, Scorsese, Fincher, Nichols, Kubrick and the main takeaway is to think that they are outright endorsing what they depict.

it's also a stretch to say they are being condemned either, but they are depicting characters who are flawed and challenged. I wish the American cinema gave the same room to be broken to characters who are not white males.

One of the reasons why I also ADORE Kier-La Janisse's House of Psychotic Women is the way she celebrates and connects so deeply with the women who are the inverse of these types of men, most of whom are relegated to "unserious" genre films.

I'd argue, generally, the American cinema in particular (at least in the mainstream) is moving away from uncomplicated characters largely as a symptom of the industry being consolidated under large companies hedging their bets on "art" that is so devoid of conflict that it ...

will have wide appeal. It has no aims to be great or interesting because the risk involved in creating works of art that challenge the audience also risk alienating them.

Things are obviously very complicated in terms of the depiction of under-represented groups, especially when the American cinema rendered them invisible or as villains. There is a middle-ground though between purely aspirational representations, which often feel dishonest

and also play into equally problematic stereotypes that uphold impossible standards for vulnerable populations. We see this play out well-beyond cinema, where people's lives are discounted because they are flawed or make mistakes.