The Toxic Male: Why We’ll Never Really Escape Him

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00:00Does no one care about toxic masculinity anymore? For a brief moment after the

00:04mainstream rise of Me Too, it seemed like the worst thing ever for a man to get called out

00:08for bad behaviors. But now the toxic male is thriving. He's getting worship on our movies

00:16and on our TV screens. He's got a million TikTok followers.

00:19You got your sword, your wife starts talking, and you're like,

00:22Shut up! I decide what I do. Be quiet. Cook.

00:27He's not only saying stuff that might have gotten him canceled a few years ago,

00:30he's writing a Me Too backlash that seems to be making him bolder and more unapologetic than ever.

00:36So it's not so much that the toxic male is back, he just took a quick breather,

00:40and the 2.0 version that's arisen from the ashes of Me Too is somehow even more toxic.

00:45The men who were declared banished from entertainment back in 2017 are selling out

00:49venues, returning to the director's chair, and getting Grammy nominations.

00:53And the toxic male heartthrob on screen is winning the internet's heart.

00:57Go f*** yourself.

00:58Here's our take on why the era of outrage over toxic masculinity is truly dead,

01:02and how Hollywood and social media have doubled down to put the toxic male

01:06back on top and at the center of our stories.

01:08We got another toxic dude on our hands.

01:14In the Irish black comedy Bad Sisters, a group of sisters decide to take down their brother-in-law

01:18because he's an example of a male so toxic that he's beyond redemption.

01:22The only way to help their sister Grace live again is to cut out the cancer that is this toxic male.

01:28Well, we just have to wait until he dies of cancer or something.

01:31Why not give nature a helping hand?

01:33This is a fictional representation of the Me Too mentality,

01:36that certain toxic males simply must be banished from society,

01:40and it seems to have held true at least for the most infamous target of Me Too,

01:44Harvey Weinstein, who was actually convicted for his crimes in court.

01:47Revisionist Western series The English is also about taking down the toxic white male,

01:51in this case a ruthless Englishman who massacred countless Native Americans and others,

01:55while the series underlines how that colonial brutality is what the Wild Wild West

01:59and modern American culture are truly built on.

02:02But these storylines about holding the toxic male accountable feel like the exception in contrast

02:06to what we're seeing in lots of other TV and movies and in real life to this day.

02:10Let's kick things off with the toxic male is heartthrob trope, which never truly went away.

02:15Take Euphoria's Nate Jacobs, a tormented, violent narcissist.

02:19What the f*** is wrong with you?!

02:21The show does explore what's wrong with him in a critical way,

02:24but that hasn't stopped him from becoming a fan favorite.

02:27Or look at another unapologetic HBO bad boy, Damon from House of the Dragon.

02:31A good and honorable lady of the Vale.

02:34In the Vale, men are said to f*** sheep instead of women.

02:36I can assure you, the sheep are prettier.

02:39His character doesn't even bother to sugarcoat any of his terrible behavior,

02:43but after just a few episodes, the internet was shipping an incestual,

02:47sexually charged scene with his niece.

02:49On the same network, White Lotus Season 2 gave us two storylines with an unspoken toxic male subtext,

02:55and ended up suggesting that when it comes to carnal, libidinal attraction,

02:59women are turned on by the alpha bro,

03:01How do you guys like being rich?

03:03and not by the nice guy.

03:04The show paints self-proclaimed male feminist Albie DeGrasso in a pretty unsexy light.

03:09I seem to be attracted to pretty wounded birds.

03:17His love interest Portia eventually comes to value his safe trustworthiness,

03:21but only after the more macho Jack turns out to be a dangerous criminal.

03:25In all these situations, the writing isn't portraying the toxic male behavior as right,

03:29but fans still respond to the toxic guy's charisma.

03:32Some of House of the Dragons' team said they were baffled that Damon became the internet's boyfriend.

03:36But is that really such a surprise when we look at the long tradition of glamorizing the toxic male

03:41onscreen?

03:42Perhaps the most epic toxic male bravado performance of all time is Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire.

03:48Don't you ever talk that way to me.

03:50As the ill-mannered, non-talkative brute who a woman could barely relate to,

03:54but who summoned deep libidinal desires.

03:57Since then, we've seen a thousand Stanley Kowalskys.

04:00Brando shook his fists so that Tony Soprano could rage-eat his way through six seasons of The

04:05Sopranos.

04:06What am I, a toxic person?

04:08The introduction of Tony Soprano in 1999 ushered in a new,

04:11modern anti-hero of pop culture.

04:13Sure, he's bad, but we could find reasons to forget about that,

04:16like his nice family and a house in the burbs.

04:18With shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad,

04:21I am the one who knocks.

04:23The glorification of anti-hero protagonists became synonyms with prestige TV.

04:28And when it comes to the game of who would you rather for classic TV and movie love triangles,

04:32the toxic option typically wins out for fans, all the way from Rick Blaine in Casablanca,

04:38to Tom Grunick in Broadcast News, to Troy Dyer in Reality Bites.

04:42What happened to your normal clothes?

04:44You look like a doily.

04:46To Jordan Catalano in My So-Called Life, to Edward Cullen in Twilight,

04:50to Tim Riggins' Friday Night Lights, to Jughead Jones in Riverdale.

04:54You're a cold, fake, duplicitous bitch.

04:58Generations of folks just can't get enough of the troubled, distant, monosyllabic,

05:02tortured, angry, leaning against walls dudes who more often than not have a

05:07wounded animal, please fix me storyline.

05:09At least when the toxic male is given redeeming characteristics on screen,

05:13it's easier to understand the appeal of his morally gray boldness.

05:16But today we reach the zenith of toxicity, with characters who are actual murderers and

05:21still liked by fans.

05:23Penn Badgley, who portrays fictionalized serial killer Joe Goldberg from Netflix's You,

05:27has said he's creeped out by his character's female fanbase.

05:30Have I mentioned that Joe is a murderer and he should not be trusted?

05:33And our culture's true crime obsession has contributed to the glamorization of real serial killers,

05:38like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy.

05:40Across the board, the tenets of toxic masculinity are still overly represented in the media.

05:45In a recent report that analyzed TV programs aimed at boys, it was found that male characters were

05:50"...less likely to show emotions than female characters, including empathy, anger, or even

05:54happiness, more likely to be shown taking risks, and more likely to be perpetrators of violence."

06:00Get what you f***ing deserve!

06:05So how did the toxic male engineer such a speedy comeback in both fiction and real life?

06:10Almost as soon as the conversation surrounding toxic masculinity entered the zeitgeist,

06:14there was right-wing backlash, which was followed by the introduction of the supposed

06:18crisis of boys and men in the media acting too feminine.

06:21And slowly but surely, Hollywood started backtracking from feminist stances that were

06:26now seen as overcorrection.

06:28Surely, there are some problems with the toxic masculinity outrage discourse.

06:32For one, it can be pretty unforgiving and lacking nuance, lumping in true criminals,

06:36together with more borderline cases of people with flaws who can learn and improve.

06:40We also opted to remove Ned from our releases. That's included removing his section from videos,

06:45digitally removing him from others, and choosing not to feature him in our merch throws.

06:50One strain of thought from a handful of gender researchers pushes back against the term toxic

06:54masculinity because the term portends that manhood itself is a problem to be solved.

06:59By definition, toxic masculinity relies on a form of biological essentialism. For example,

07:04an angry male who gets into bar fights to protect his female partner is just acting on his manly

07:09intuition. More centrally, the initial hand-wringing over toxic masculinity has now been overshadowed

07:15by a masculinity crisis covered emphatically in media, politics, and academia.

07:20There's a lot of sort of maleness coming to the fore and announcing itself in violence and racism

07:29and hatred. And this is complicated because some aspects of this crisis are real, while some are

07:35less so. What is true is that it's becoming more and more obvious that young men are experiencing

07:40feelings of dissolution, rootlessness, and a scarcity mindset these days. There are signs that young men

07:45and boys are falling behind girls, males are more likely than females to drop out of college, and the

07:49New York Times writes that men account for close to three out of every four deaths of despair, i.e.

07:54suicide, and drug overdoses. Male identity is at a crisis point. We try our best in society to pretend

08:02that historical toxic masculinity no longer exists. While the men at the top of society seem to be

08:07doing fine, the majority are struggling at dating. Even sperm counts are in steep decline globally.

08:13More broadly, it's clear that many men do feel as though their power, status, and identity as a man

08:18in society is being threatened. The collective angst is amplified in the media, as there's no short

08:23supply of punditry breaking down the crisis of manhood. On the right, we have the bow-tied,

08:28standard bearer of grizzled masculinity himself, Tucker Carlson, in a docu-series titled The End of

08:33Men. Senator Josh Hawley has made this issue his hobby horse. And it's also not just a conservative

08:38topic. On the left, professor and podcaster Scott Galloway is fixated on the crisis among young men.

08:44Or take this recent SNL sketch that lampooned the childlike clueless boyfriend.

08:49Oh no, Matt, don't cry. Ask for help like a big boy.

08:53Across the spectrum, men are being presented in the media as weak, soy boys, cucks, helpless,

08:58and useless. In response to all this anxiety, and the more real problems, unfortunately,

09:03a significant portion of young men are seeking guidance by turning to some very toxic elements

09:07of society for guidance, like the Manosphere. Influencers like Jordan Peterson, Paul Saldino,

09:13some guy called Liver King, and the rampant misogynist Andrew Tate, who has actually been

09:18charged with sex trafficking, attract obscene numbers on socials.

09:22I had all these girlfriends, so I'm like, maybe I could open a strip club and be a pimp.

09:26A more benign but even more influential version of the brofluencer is Fear Factor host-turned-controversial

09:32podcaster Joe Rogan, who consistently interviews former Navy SEALs, MMA fighters, and other brofluencers,

09:38and peddles products like supplements, grills, and other different supplements.

09:42Do you take it in raw form?

09:44I take it in capsules.

09:46Brofluencers run the gambit of imploring young men to make their bed every morning,

09:50to insisting that women are property to be owned, to a whole other list of repugnant ideas not worth

09:55giving oxygen to here. And a result of all these influences, males today are far more likely than

10:00their female counterparts to believe in conspiracy theories, and a whopping 86%

10:05charged thus far for the Capitol's siege are male.

10:07Who thinks that Donald Trump won re-election?

10:12While some of these brofluencers are a lot more dangerous than others, the reality is that these

10:17manly man ideals built on misogyny aren't helping anyone. Toxic masculinity is actually toxic to the

10:23toxic male himself, even physiologically. The most recent APA guidelines claim that men who have been

10:29socialized to conform to concepts of traditional masculinity, such as not wanting to appear weak,

10:34are more likely to suffer from issues such as cardiovascular disease and heavy alcohol abuse.

10:42So where do we go from here? An important antidote to toxic masculinity is modeling healthy

10:48masculinity, which asks for men to be in touch with their emotions and stand up for those they love.

10:52And we are seeing lots more examples of this healthy masculinity in the media,

10:56from Carmy from the Baron FX, who bucks the stereotype of chefs as total egotists,

11:01to really anything that Chris Evans does.

11:03I won't make a mistake again.

11:06Yeah, you will. But not because you're you, just because

11:10shit happens.

11:11Nick Offerman, known for his iconic role as manly man Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation,

11:15won over audiences on The Last of Us as a gay survivalist, who showcases traditionally manly skills

11:21while becoming more emotionally vulnerable through building a life with his partner in the midst of

11:25a zombie-esque fungal pandemic.

11:26I was never afraid before you showed up.

11:29Sex Education has a toxic male heartthrob who's gay and challenged to overcome his unhealthy habits,

11:34many of which are learned from his father. And thankfully, this is bleeding from characters

11:38on screen into the real-life actors who play them, with new Hollywood heartthrobs consistently

11:43subverting gender norms. It's not even just the young stars. Brad Pitt's embrace of skirts during the

11:47Bullet Train press junket was obsessed over. And Pitt admitted that trying to uphold a Clint Eastwood

11:52version of masculinity is exhausting. The more we see popular male figures confidently shrugging off

11:57dusty old gender mores, the more young men coming of age can feel less pressure to live up to an

12:01unreasonable idea of masculinity and embrace a whole new future of manhood. That's got to be better

12:06than some guy eating, well, why would you eat a vegetable when you can devour a testicle?

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