What do men want from movies? Personally, I want Keanu Reeves with long hair, Léa Seydoux with short hair, and Woody Harrelson with as little hair as possible (I still have nightmares about his fiery coiffure in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”). But I can’t speak for my entire gender.
The National Research Group, on the other hand, is desperate to decode the mysteries of the male mind. A new NRG study reports that young men ages 13-30 look up to male characters in entertainment who (among other things): A) hone impressive skills, B) enjoy positive male friendships, and C) can be classified as underdogs (like the Chicago White Sox, presumably, not dogs that go woof).
“In the executive suites of studios and streamers, it’s a constant obsession, figuring out what the next generation wants to see on screen,” declared Matthew Belloni on his podcast, The Town, which is a hub of Hollywood business gossip. “Billions of dollars hang on that question.”
On The Town, Belloni and the NRG’s Fergus Navaratnam-Blair suggested that the superhero movie boom birthed an unattainable vision of masculinity. I don’t entirely buy that—you can relate to Spider-Man’s romantic and financial woes without wanting to take steroids and don a unitard—but I am fascinated by Hollywood’s struggle to capture the complexities of manhood on screen.
Thus, I decided to analyze whether some of my favorite post-pandemic male movie characters are what moviegoers with a Y chromosome claim they want: skilled underdog bros. And in the process, I began to suspect that the NRG study is not only superficial, but breathtakingly misguided.
Asking men who and what they admire is the wrong question. What matters is not who we look up to, but who we look down on—and who we look straight at.
The Protagonist
Seen In: “Tenet” (2020)
Played By: John David Washington
Special Skills: Driving inverted cars, selecting the right tailor, pretending to prefer soda water over Diet Coke.
Positive Male Friendships? You bet! The Protagonist exchanges pleasantries with a friendly hijacker (Himesh Patel) and unashamedly weeps when BFF Neil (Robert Pattinson) nobly sacrifices himself to prevent a temporal apocalypse.
Underdog? He’s up against a Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) who can reverse time, so yes. Plus, it’s a tough life when your first name is “The” and your last name is “Protagonist.”
The Bottom Line: A manly man for an enlightened future.
Felix Keane
Seen In: “On the Rocks” (2020)
Played By: Bill Murray
Special Skills: Walking backwards, doing pro bono detective work, nonchalantly referring to the Queen Elizabeth 2 as the QE2.
Positive Male Friendships? Not a one. But a random NYPD cop doesn’t seem to mind when Felix enquires about his sex life.
Underdog? Felix is no underdog, but he’s definitely a dog. When his daughter (Rashida Jones) confronts him about cheating on her mother, he responds with five of the cruelest words in the English language: “You used to be fun.”
The Bottom Line: A manly man for a fading past.
Yūsuke Kafuku
Seen In: “Drive My Car” (2021)
Played By: Hidetoshi Nishijima
Special Skills: Directing plays in multiple languages, transcribing the stories his wife tells after sex.
Positive Male Friendships? He makes a valiant effort with an actor (Masaki Okada) who cuckolded him. But Yūsuke’s driver (Toko Miura), a young woman, is his only true confidante.
Underdog? Not only does Yūsuke become a widower during the film, but his actors keep failing to follow his direction to rehearse Uncle Vanya in monotone. “Simply read the next,” he commands them. Is that so hard?
The Bottom Line: Miserable and repressed. And a total badass.
Jean de Carrouges
Seen In: “The Last Duel” (2021)
Played By: Matt Damon
Special Skills: Jousting, mullet grooming, attacking amorous horses with shovels.
Positive Male Friendships? None. His best friend, Jacques le Gris (Adam Driver), leaves him for the unctuous Pierre d’Alençon (Ben Affleck), then assaults Jean’s wife, Marguerite (Jodie Comer).
Underdog? He’s a medieval brute, but he’s looked down upon by other medieval brutes.
The Bottom Line: An insecure, self-pitying, oft-underestimated loser. Who wins in the end.
Paolo Gucci
Seen In: “House of Gucci” (2021)
Played By: Jared Leto
Special Skills: Designing garments that prominently feature—gasp!—browns and pastels.
Positive Male Friendships? It’s difficult to tolerate a man who sends Al Pacino to prison and pees on Jeremy Irons’ scarf.
Underdog? Definitely. No one appreciates how smashing he looks in a plaid suit.
The Bottom Line: “I was born with a gift. I am an artist.” – Paolo Gucci in “House of Gucci”
Manny Torres
Seen In: “Babylon” (2022)
Played By: Diego Calva
Special Skills: Being a studio executive, drooling over Margot Robbie, escaping alligator-filled dungeons.
Positive Male Friendships? Sort of. He’s on okay terms with a Bauhaus-obsessed silent film star (Brad Pitt) and the peanut-loving drug dealer known as “the Count” (Rory Scovel).
Underdog? Manny is a classic Horatio Alger hero. If Horatio Alger wrote about a Mexican immigrant making it to Hollywood, getting run out of town by Tobey Maguire, and coming up with the idea for “Avatar” two years before James Cameron’s birth.
The Bottom Line: Nice kid. Too bad he loves movies more than people.
Burt Berendsen
Seen In: “Amsterdam” (2022)
Played By: Christian Bale
Special Skills: Testing painkillers, fighting Nazis, being Taylor Swift’s worst bodyguard.
Positive Male Friendships? Many! His best friend is attorney Harold Woodman (John David Washington), but he’s also pals with a pair of bird-watching spies (Mike Myers and Michael Shannon).
Underdog? Yes. Because his in-laws actively rooted for him to be killed during World War I.
The Bottom Line: His naïve nobility helps foil a fascist plot—and wins Zoë Saldaña’s heart.
Charlie
Seen In: “The Whale” (2022)
Played By: Brendan Fraser
Special Skills: Teaching English courses online, taking his nurse (Hong Chau) for granted, enduring his super-mean daughter (Sadie Sink).
Positive Male Friendships? No, but his attempt to enlighten a homophobic religious bigot (Ty Simpkins) is admirable.
Underdog? Charlie is dying, his daughter hates him, and he weighs 600 pounds. Yet he still strives to be kind in an unkind world.
The Bottom Line: A being of pure light.
Hae Sung
Seen In: “Past Lives” (2023)
Played By: Teo Yoo
Special Skills: Sightseeing in rainstorms, silently yearning for his childhood sweetheart, Nora (Greta Lee).
Positive Male Friendships? Hae Sung is the irrefutable champion of this category. He and his buddies in Seoul regularly get together to eat, drink, and mourn lost loves. “Hey, no problem,” one of the friends says when the weeping commences. “Cry hard.”
Underdog? When Nora moved to North America, Hae Sung stayed in Seoul. His passion transcends time zones, but it’s not easy being a Seoul boy in love with a New York girl. The distance between any two human beings is vast enough without adding an ocean.
The Bottom Line: Hae Sung found his past life. Now he needs to find his future.
Cesar Catilina
Seen In: “Megalopolis” (2024)
Played By: Adam Driver
Special Skills: Stopping time, designing biomechanical utopians that will magically solve the world’s problems, making the phrase “Go back to the cluuuub” go viral.
Positive Male Friendships? Only with his aide-de-camp, the butler, chauffeur, and historian Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne). Few others are capable of comprehending Cesar’s self-described “Emersonian mind.”
Underdog? The movie wants us to think he is. But Cesar is the unelected leader of the Design Authority, which has the power to bulldoze houses to make way for glowing parks and people movers. Wait, is he actually a dictator?
The Bottom Line: While “Megalopolis” rules, we are in need of a great debate about whether this guy is actually our savior.
