Opinion: Where Are All The Men?

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Maxim comes to our house every month much to the delight of my husband and myself. This month's cover is graced with yet another very gorgeous woman scantily clad in some type of underwear with a teasing look on her face. On the cover is also located a headline of a featured article, Hollywood's Darkest Knight: The Mad Genius Behind Batman, and I am intrigued. Batman happens to be one of my favorite superheroes.

There is something about Frank Miller that might creep people out, but behind that facade of a fedora wearing skinny serial killer is a man's man who loves and respects women, and happens to glorify them in his graphic novels. For those of you not geeky enough to know who Frank Miller is, he has defined the dark brooding hero and took comic books from PG to rated R.

The current incarnation of Batman seen in the Batman Begins, and The Dark Kight Returns can be directly contributed to the inner workings of Frank Miller's mind. He is also responsible for 300 and Sin City. The highly successful movies based on his comic books were a surprise to "pundits who swore R-rated comic book movies would never work."

So why did the bloody movies that so offend the sensibilities of the every powdered bottom American gross millions of dollars worldwide?

Here is what Frank Miller has to say in a Maxim Interview:

There's been a massive failure on the part of the entertainment to come up with a new generations of heroes. Guys are so busy trying hard not to by guys...Right now there's a lot of boys out there.

All that pretty-boy stuff. The 40-year -old-virgins, it is just not my world. Lately there's been a real lack of that Robert Mitchum masculine force in film. You get these guys who are petty and vengeful. Or just...impotent.

Maxim had it right when it observed that "Miller's men have struck a nerve- pissing off knee-jerk feminists and antiwar liberals, thrilling fan boys and making millions- because he's one of the few storytellers who's figured out a way to create bad ass sons of bitches for the new millennium."

The article struck a nerve with me too, it made me realize that there are people who see Batman, Leonitas, Murphy and other characters as evil brutes, and that could not be further from the truth.

Before the castration of men in America real heroes were represented in the motionpicture media, and as the saying goes "Art imitates life." Now Indiana Jones is being brought back from the 1980's to show what a man's man is, and it could not have been done too soon!

One of my fondest memories of high school was when, in celebration of Star Wars, the band did a reenactment of the lightsaber fight between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vadar. The battle raged in the night with our two band member is cheesy costumes fighting with glowing toy lightsabers, the fans there to root on the football team were casually watching. Then in a turn of events we saw Darth Vadar was getting the upper hand. As the theme song came to a close Vadar struck down Luke who "died" on the field. The crowd stood and cheered, hooped, hollared and howled. For those of us who watched Star Wars hoping the ending would change and that whiney little bitch would finally shut the hell up were rewarded with gratification. I am sure the fanboys out there know what I am talking about "But Uncle Ooowen!" Luke was one of the first "heroes" that took our male society down the path of pensive teenage angst and not real men. This perhaps can explain why people preferred Han Solo and revered Darth Vadar. Nobody likes a whiner baby.

Men in America have for the most part ceased to be men and it is reflected in our current day culture. However, lucky for this endangered species the injustice faced by men has not gone unnoticed. The Emasculation of America web page was set up to fight the castration of men in the United States.

Emasculate: To weaken the power or force of; to deprive of or diminish the strength, effectiveness, vitality, or spirit of; or to effeminate or reduce the masculinity of someone or something.

The web page addresses the culture of permissive male discrimination that has permeated America through use of dastardly tactics like half truths, spinning of facts, and false appeals to emotion. These values are being taught on our college campuses across the nation.

These injustices which are sited on the web page are the responsibility of the feminist movement gone awry and allowing for overkill instead of equality. While the web page may be just as over emotional as many Gloria Steinem type feminist, it just goes to show that if you push someone too hard they will push back. Personally I would take everything on that website with a grain of salt and a worm, the same way I treat NOW.

Despite the rather Luke Skywalker whinesque approach, the group is right about three things, Men are being emasculated, the feminist movement started it, and the discrimination is rampant.

As a mother of two boys, almost three, I have been worried that in school they will be stifled.
Kindergarten seems to be the time when the emasculation begins, and it has begun with the elimination of contact games on the playground. Tag, Dodge ball, Tackle or Touch football. Some educators say the games are too dangerous with kids running into each other. Others say the games ruin the self confidence of children who are not very good at the games. Opponents of these bans that have surfaced across the country say that by taking away these high contact games that children are being held back from developing social skills, negotiation skills, how to set and follow rules, and other ways of social interaction that create productivity. They also say that by taking away these games that children are not learning thier own limitations, they are not being challenged, and they are being held back from reality. I happen to agree with the critics.

American children are being raised in an environment that is stifling for males and empowering for females. The tables have turned and there is no balance in the classroom or on the playground. The question is do we really have to completely switch society to achieve balance? I dare say the answer is no, and there has been a movement to fix this imbalance in the school system. Public schools have started to approach teaching children by gender with some wonderful results in test scores and confidence. Who knew treating boys like boys and girls like girls would be beneficial? Certainly not Gloria Steinem and others who promoted androgynism as the only real equality. The culture today uses false appeals to emotion to "guilt" people into accepting that the only way to achieve fairness is to destroy both ends of a spectrum. False logic that claims men and women are only the way they are because of societal standards and then attempts to break down gender identities. Sure this has damaged society as a whole, but the first victims in this were men.

The media has indoctrinated our children with heroes and role models that are nothing more than pathetic guys who lack the essentials of manhood most specifically confidence. Where we once had Val Kilmar playing a super genius science geek who had a kicking body and wooed women with his brain, now we have skinny little nerd boys being hailed as bad asses. As if a couple days in jail with a few inmates, some dyed hair and piercings, and leather could actually make any character played by DJ Qualls somehow appealing. Yes Val Kilmar's character in Real Genius may have been unconventional but he was a real man.

As children grow and move to College they are forced into ethics classes that demonize men and deify women. They are taught to be overly sensitive to submit to women else they will not garner one thing, the ever glorified pussy. They leave college brainwashed into believing that the guy with the disgruntled outlook on life that can read poetry and pout has a better chance with chicks than he does. The end up being like Ray Barone in "Everyone Loves Raymond."

Askmen.com writes:

Any typical television sitcom tells the sad story. On Everybody Loves Raymond , the perpetually henpecked Ray Barone is expected to endure his wife Debra's bitchiness, lack of sexual desire and anti-male barbs as she castigates every aspect of his behavior. When he wants to take off for a couple of hours to play golf, he's "not taking care of his family" (the symbolism of her denying him golf -- his putter and balls -- should be obvious); when he wants to relax in front of the TV after a hard day on the job, he "never talks to her or shares his feelings;" and when he wants sex, he's "constantly mauling her."

Poor Ray is not alone...

Indeed his is not. From boys to married men, boys are being told they are the one in the wrong. That it is wrong to be a man, and they must be more like women, it is now to the point where women have more balls than the men of society. Women are the ones who bring home the bacon, while many males stay at home with the children only realizing they are disgruntled when they are given the chance to work. Women are the ones who make all the decisions with the children from nurturing to discipline while men sit on the couch drinking a beer, watching TV and attempt to escape from a life of which they have no say so. Now women reject men, many divorce, many choose to be single mothers, and always they complain that men are not man enough to do what is necessary, but really what did they expect?

Where are all the men? They are caged in the bodies of the lost males walking around in a female's world.