In working on this blog I look at a fair number of media reviews. There’s a whole category of reviewers who are very critical of misandrist materials. The tone of these generally focuses on poor storytelling, female characters with no flaws (“mary sues”) and male characters with no redeeming qualities, heavy-handedness of “the message” (wokeness) and so forth. While I’m happy to see misandrist materials brought to light and criticized, I notice a curious absence in this critiques. No one points out that these stories and messages could be harmful to men. In particular, franchises that are oriented towards kids, like marvel and star wars, ought to bring up thoughts of the mental health of boys. There’s no shortage of discussion of what, in media, might have positive or negative effects on girls; surely this has guided the current direction, where flawless superpowered girls surrounded by inept and bad males dominate. But I have never, not once, heard one of these reviewers speculate that stories aimed at kids that exclusively paint males in an awful light, and then abuse and discard them, might be bad for boys.

This doesn’t make these reviewers any different from anyone else; NO ONE makes that speculation. But I notice it in their case because they are critical of all of the things that might lead one to noticing that.

Way in speculation territory here. Maybe it goes like this. These negative portrayals of men tend to lean into stereotypes about men. Men showing strength, taking initiative and so forth are painted as toxic masculinity. So perhaps this subtly pushes critics of those stories to embrace those stereotypical qualities of manhood. What’s wrong with showing strength, whether it’s a strong man or woman? What’s wrong with a man taking initiative? Are all of the male stereotypes exclusively bad things?

This may be a valid direction of argument. However, it would lead one to downplay male weakness. Real men, unlike the people who make these bitter stories, don’t sit around whining about stuff and trying to bring others down (I’m exaggerating here for clarity).

So it could feel across purposes a bit to then whine about how these stories might hurt boy’s feelings. Like real men, real boys AREN’T bothered by constant attacks, images of mga and so forth. It’s the people on the OTHER SIDE who are sensitive snowflakes.

(I suspect that the stereotype of the “fragile male ego” is part of this as well; I do think that this sterotype is harmful and important to talk about, I just don’t have any clear insights into it right now).

Here is where Bill Burr is very interesting. He talks about fear for his well being and for his life, he talks about experiencing emotional distress as a result of real life harms and aggressions, or from seeing or hearing about disturbing things. In several of these bits, a good portion of the time is spent on how he processes these emotions.

What is interesting, surprising, and novel about all of that is he does all of those bits with a distinct and integrated masculinity. What I mean by “integrated” is that we experience no irony while listening to the bit; it’s not the joke of the massive bull stopping to smell roses, or the pro wrestler having a good cry. His manner is broadly, almost obnoxiously masculine as he essentially gives himself therapy or points out misandrist inequities in society. Self therapy and speaking up for yourself in the face of inequality actually feel like manly activities in his bits, and it’s only later (if ever) that you realize the novelty of this in the modern context.

He has a brilliant bit about seeing Koko, the gorilla, being told that her kitten had gotten hit by a car and died; the last 15 minutes of this bit are like a bizarre self therapy session, where he moves from being seriously angered by what he had seen to processing the clip in a larger social and environmental context. At no point is he ironically masculine (bull smelling roses), at no point does he mock his own masculinity (Will Ferrell style), and at no point does he sound anything like a therapist.

His style of manly complaint puts in relief an interesting feature of our conservative and progressive models for men…they have a lot more in common than either would care to admit, especially from the perspective of an individual man whose life and experiences aren’t perfect. The conservative says that real men are strong and don’t complain. The progressive says this same thing, just in more convoluted terms. A white, straight male has systemic privilege. A good man (an “ally”) understand this, seeks to make amends for this state of affairs and puts his energy towards using his privilege to benefit those who are intersectionally disadvantaged, not towards his own gain. Those who do not do this (for example, those who complain, express fears or concerns, etc) are…nazis, homophobes, transphobes etc. Conservatives tell men to be the breadwinners and take charge of providing for their families; progressives work to make sure grants and opportunities do not go to (or go less frequently to) men, with the assumption that men can and ought to provide for themselves, cheerfully and without complaint. To both, men are supposed to fend for themselves and endure hardships without complaint.

The conservative side of this is not particularly interesting or surprising, I imagine, but perhaps the progressive side is. There is a more subtle layer there…the variety of mockery that progressives direct towards the non-allies is very similar to the kind that conservatives direct towards men they think of as snowflakes. In an overt way we see this in many of the articles I’ve written in this blog, and we will see more in the second installment of this article.

In part two, I’ll talk about a bit of his where he describes his experience and processing of being a real life victim of sexual assault, and reactions that that bit generated.