The 1980’s were a real mixed bag of superheroes. On one hand we had He Man, whilst on the other we had Astro Boy.
Not that there was anything wrong with Astro Boy, he just wasn’t what you would typically associate with being a superhero. I mean, he wasn’t actually a real boy in the sense that his character was flesh and blood, he was in fact a robot boy. Although I do suppose that he could fly and he could fire lasers out of his fingers!
He Man though was every part superhero. By day he was the mild-mannered prince, but when he got hold of that sword, and evil needed to be vanquished, then his alter-ego He Man would be summoned.
We also had Transformers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both possessed amazing powers of various guises, both with human qualities that a boy of the 80’s could identify with, yet both were not human. In the case of the Transformers they were from another galaxy and would transform from a car, motorbike or truck into a walking, talking warrior made of metal and car tyres. The turtles meanwhile were a result of a lab experiment gone wrong, who then met another failed lab experiment who happened to be a rat with exceptional ninja like skills!
Despite all of these new superheros or anti-heroes, I still preferred the likes of Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Phantom and the Hulk. What I didn’t realise at the time, but what strikes me now is that all of these characters either wore a mask, even if it were a metaphorical mask, or transformed themselves from a rather inconspicuous, benign or even mysterious being, into the superhero that they became known for.
They were essentially two different people. What most of them have in common is that they were each traumatized in some form, or they were running from something, or trying to find something that would heal their fractured, damaged souls. When not saving humanity from the latest catastrophe, most led miserable lives where they didn’t let anyone get close, where they were surrounded by either death, grief, sorrow and/or loneliness. Where their only true emotions displayed were anger, violence or a desire for revenge or redemption. They invariably didn’t have a family or a close network of friends. They solved most of their problems by violence, extreme violence in many cases. Actually, the more I think about it, I’d rather prefer to be one of those Ninja Turtles. At least they had a team, a large close-knit family, and a mentor. The idea of being one of these superheroes on reflection is not that appealing.
One afternoon as I was walking around the school grounds, following bus duty, most students had left for the day, having been picked up by parents or had caught a bus or train home, I struck up a conversation with a mum who was collecting her Year 6 boy from extra-curricular music instruction. She mentioned that her young lad loved playing certain characters from movies and cartoons like Wolverine, and he obviously gained a lot of pleasure from re-creating scenes or actions. She didn’t have a problem with this. What did seem to disturb her though was that this same little boy would make comments around the fact that Wolverine was tough, that he didn’t cry and that he solved all of his problems with physical force. This same little boy was starting to treat his younger sister with the same attitudes, not holding her hand, not wanting to show affection to his mother. She was bewildered as to where he could have gotten these impressions from and why they had taken hold so strongly in his mind. He was only Grade 2. I knew that it didn’t all come from Wolverine.
It came from broader society, popular culture, the school yard, older boys, older men, movies, TV ads, social media, sporting arenas – otherwise known as the crucible of life. Boys from a very early age, sometimes overtly, sometimes just by osmosis, are taught to be stoic, tough, to squash their emotions. Sure, there is a place for these characteristics – sometimes we all have to harden up and get on with things – that’s called resilience or grit. That’s different. As males we can still be plenty resilient but still have emotions. Instead the crucible of male experience teaches us to bottle up our emotions, to not show weakness or affection, especially as we enter the teenage years. What happens then is that we sometimes create dysfunctional relationships in our lives, we abuse alcohol to tap into our emotions, and we resort to violence as a way of dealing with pain, frustration, failure and embarrassment.
There is another way, and it doesn’t mean as boys and men that we need to forgo our strength, toughness, and stoicism both emotionally and physically, because these qualities are desperately needed at work, in families, across industries and social institutions. This way also doesn’t buy into the Andrew Tate misogynist bullshit, and other moppets like him, which just lines his pockets by the way. All of this is something to explore in the next blog 😊