Certain motifs come up over and over again when one consumes a great deal of machismo drenched media. Whether it is an action movie, a Badass Book, or an epic poem, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good deal of muscles, must be in want of an absolutely RIDICULOUS amount of physical punishment. There is no kink here (at least no more than usual for these types of stories), the suffering doled out in the name of masculinity is merely part of the hero’s journey, a Sisyphusian trial through which the protagonist must emerge like a butterfly shedding its wings for even more vascular and shredded wings than previously thought possible.
This is no new concept. Homer tortured Odysseus for 10 goddamn years. The various Arthurian grail stories are essentially snipe hunts with which to torment the Knights of the Round table. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about Tarzan crawling across an uncrossable desert sustained only by vulture blood 50 years before Peter O’Toole made it look decidedly less badass in Lawrence of Arabia. Again, it’s the hero’s journey, there must be trials. But why so many? Surely obstacles can be overcome without having your hero so beaten down that he ends up having to give himself his own chest sutures and an adrenaline shot while driving to a final confrontation with more assassins than he can count on 10 hands (yes, a thing that happened it The Grey Man).
Is there something innately pleasurable to the male psyche to see such physical trials overcome? Arnold made famous “No pain, no gain,” while boomer dads made famous “walk it off, tough it out,”–is this all it is? Even a movie like The Hangover, perhaps the most toxically bro-focused movie of all time is essentially just two hours of the protagonists getting violated over and over in ever more ridiculous ways. And, while I think men in general are pushed towards withdrawn, tight lipped denials of pain, emotion, and real connection, there is also more to these stories than simple machismo.
Men do not have a corner on the “overcoming suffering” market. It is simply part of the human condition to persevere, to take everything life can throw at you and say “is that all you got?” Granted, in our daily lives, overcoming small inconveniences can feel like they might push you to your limit, so to see Bruce Willis slowly reduced to a bloody mess of a person in Die Hard–but still have the drive to overcome the final shootout and walk off into the sunset like ̶J̶o̶h̶n̶ ̶W̶a̶y̶n̶e̶ Gary Cooper with Grace Kelly is a truly inspiring sight.
Stories are all bigger than life, so too their trials should push the limits of the amount of punishment one person can withstand. Torture for torture’s sake is not a trial itself (I’m looking at you Sphaghetti Western 3rd acts), but testing the limits of the human body through choices you make yourself? That is the stuff that not just men are made of, but all humans.
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