Friday, January 31, 2014

The protective instinct

I just watched the movie 'Homefront', the storyline of which is geared straight into the heart of Divorced Dads everywhere.  Jason Statham plays a Widower (I guess that's the easy way to explain why Dad has custody) who is an ex-DEA agent with a Death Warrant hanging over his head, and that of his 10 year old daughter.

I mean, what guy like me wouldn't love this storyline.  Normally quiet and reserved (yet ruggedly handsome and intriguingly single) Dad is up against a gang of Bad Guys threatening the only thing in his life he cares about....his daughter.  Of course Badass Dad triumphs, and the trepidation on his daughter's face saves the life of a somewhat in-over-his-head baddy in the end.

Just like any narrative that appeals largely to men.  We like to think we are protective of our families.  Especially so when 'family' is largely a matter of imagination in the first place.

I have no real idea of what it is like to raise teenagers, for example, even though my daughters are late teens / early 20's now.  I am, in fact, a Grampa as of a few days ago, to be honest.  But whenever I see this kind of movie I eat it up.  It's like a surrogate form of parenthood.

My youngest daughter doesn't speak to me anymore, maybe that's why I usually picture her in the 'Damsel in Distress' role in these father/daughter dramas (It's a psychological thing older daughter, don't be jealous).  It seems to me maybe that's the purpose of these films, to re-awaken that protective instinct in men that have had it beaten out of them.

In this movie, the only adult woman portrayed in even a moderately congenial light has about three lines (and is amazingly attractive...that hair, never been attracted to that before...).  All the other women are utterly reprehensible.  Almost as if they were taken from the worst stereotypes of women the Manosphere complains about, x10.

And this leads me to wonder...is Hollywood extending an Olive Branch in times like these?  And if so....why?

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