Hey there, fellow movie enthusiasts! I’m on the hunt for films that portray positive masculinity. We often see movies with traditional, stereotypical portrayals of masculinity, but I believe there’s a world of cinema out there that can challenge these norms and offer a fresh perspective.
So, I’m turning to you, the experts of Lemmy, to help me discover hidden gems and well-known classics that showcase men in a positive light, breaking free from the clichés. Positive masculinity can encompass a wide range of qualities such as empathy, vulnerability, strength in character, and emotional intelligence. I’m interested in any genre – from drama and comedy to action and sci-fi – as long as the films make us question what it means to be a man.
Let’s curate a list of films that define positive masculinity in cinema.
Lord of the Rings trilogy.
There’s so much to it, the relationship between Frodo and Sam, Gimli and Legolas, the kindness and openness of Aragorn, the everlasting joyfulness of Merry and Pippin, Boromir who stood by his brother and Faramir who saw the good in people.
There’s so much to love in lotr
I could joke about the fact that there’s essentially no interaction between female actresses in the LOTR trilogy, or social media’s crazy love towards this series, but this is honestly a great example of positive male bonding and friendship, acknowledging and working through one’s flaws, and achieving an goal despite overwhelming odds.
Agreed on the women’s part, not well executed. I stand behind the hype though, both the movies and books are my all time favorites but I grew up with them :)
I had a difficult time with the books. The first ~60 pages are descriptions of the Shire and Hobbits. I loved The Hobbit though.
It was weird to realize that the books and movies were about different things
The movies are about the characters and their struggles to try and beat Sauron obviously
But the books got a lot more interesting when I started looking at them as the stories of a world and its history and the way that that world handled to coming and going of another dark lord. The threats he posed to peaceful places, the peace broken simply by his presence, and also the people and places legitimately above and outside Sauron’s reach. The fact that Sam’s star or Tom Bombadil would look at this great and terrible evil, the worst ever known to so many in the world, and to them it would be but another passing of an era, the opening of a new story dated to end like all the rest.
The scale and perspective of it all is just so dramatically different that I can’t help but feel like reaching that perspective is half the journey for the reader.
Interesting for me the main motive always was - that power will always corrupt people. Which seems to be a nice summary of Tolkiens time and experience.
I was just hyperfocusing through it, every time. On my teenage years to young adult I used to read it almost every year within like 3 days
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There are some great meta-analysis of LOTR and the positive masculinity it portrays.
This one is my favorite https://youtu.be/GruFzUsKddI?si=yDZL5QJQ1oJ-jOtf
Aside from that it’s a wonderful trilogy all round. It’s a great story of good vs evil, brotherhood, loyalty and friendship.
I have never thought about the Lord of the Rings in that light before. Thank you for this.
Solid, yeah.