Connecting the Dots

Over the weekend I went to see the new Batman movie with my brother and nephew.  A great part of why I wanted to see it was to do something fun with my brother and nephew; part of the reason was to see Heath Ledger (who is insanely amazing in this movie) play the joker; part of the reason related to last weeks post: about the male narrative buried in the stories of superhero’s.

Let me say that I had a great time with my brother and nephew; eating amounts of popcorn and drinking amounts of coke only Americans would think of as fun as apposed to disgusting.  The only bad part was long I had to pee; I’m talking about half of a two and a half hour movie.  I swear I stood before the urinal afterwards for 15 minutes, shivering with relief.  And I was not the only one.  Men left the bathroom patting each other on the back, smiles on their faces.  And it wasn’t because the movie was that great.  The relief was.

This is not a Heath Ledger love letter, but he was amazing in the movie and was the only part of the movie that was great.  He was truly the most purely evil person I’ve ever seen on screen.  I read somewhere that Jack Nicholson warned him about the role.  Sometimes you give your all over to something and it consumes you (for Sam it is mommas breast).  I’m glad I went to see it just to see an actor dissolve himself into something so horrible.  Sounds awful, and perhaps it is, but imagine if people can dissolve themselves into evil the possibilities for transformation into loving, kind, and caring people?  Our ability to transform, to shift under circumstances and respond to one another’s varying needs is the most inspiring thing to me.

This is not a movie review, but a bit of social criticism.  You really wouldn’t expect me to only review the movie would you?  Last week I talked about Obama and responsibility and the national narrative of manliness being an independent, non-relational being and that men are only acting out the stories as passed down to us through superheros (how in the hell did I get involved in superheros?) such as Batman, Superman, and Spiderman.  Not that men are running around as the caped-crusader or flying into skyscrapers wearing Spiderman underroos.  Rather, it is that these characters carry the narrative DNA of what it means to be a man.

On this theme I got a bit from going to see Batman.  Bruce Wayne is a billionaire CEO of a fake company who is in love with Rachel but can not be with her until refuses to be Batman.  The problem is that Batman is the part of him that is able to benefit others.  Hold it!  Why the hell can’t Batman have a girlfriend? Too dangerous for her? Too dangerous for him?  Would he be too vulnerable?  Too emotionally involved to benefit others?  He is either single and powerful or involved in an emotional relationship  and unable to affect change.  This ties in with a popular saying I heard a lot this weekend: “Handle your shit” and various versions of it.  I have never heard this directed to a woman.  A man, however, is supposed to handle his shit by controlling everything on his own.  If you refuse to handle your shit, to use coercion and force to gain control, your manhood is easily questioned.  I have a good example.

A friend of mine was recently telling me of a situation involving her dad.  She wanted him alone to step-up to another individual who was upsetting other people.  He, on the other hand, wanted to do it in conjunction with others.  She was telling me this saying things like “He has got to handle his shit.”  I stayed quiet.  Not because I agreed, or even disagreed.  But because my brain works so slow and I wanted to chew on it for a while.  I have seen the dots and I am connecting them.  I love my friend; she is quite an open-minded, loving person, but she is harming all men when she says things like this. Harming them in the same way movies like Batman do.   Should my friend’s dad confront the problem one-on-one or get together a group to confront it?  I don’t know.  That would depend on the circumstances.  But one choice is not more manly than the other; it may be more effective, but not more manly.

Seeing this movie, hearing Obama, and my interaction with my friend has really got me seeing how pigeonholed men are and how we suffer because of it. I live with the fear of not being man enough on a daily basis.  And I know that according to the present means of measurement I am not.  That’s why I prefer relationships with women.  But they also collude in the suffocating of men.  Where do I go and where and with whom can I just be me without competing for the biggest cock (I may have won by the end of the movie considering how bad I had to pee)?  I have long considered myself a feminist and felt relatively supported in this environment.  While feminism has benefited women greatly, it has neglected men.  Men are imprisoned.  I am imprisoned.  And it is lonely.  How can I reach out to other men, who are themselves incomplete, suppressing anything that might be unmanly?  To try and connect with other men scares the shit out of me (not too mention the pee).  I had a great time with my brother and nephew, and  yet I talked about none of this with them. I am too afraid.  Giving into the fear, I give into the patriarchy.