A Geek History of Time - Episode 201 - Masculinity in 1980s Fantasy Part III

Episode Date: March 11, 2023

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, I'm not gonna merge it. Who gives a fuck? Oh my god, which is a trick on you, baby. You know what I'm saying? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and it's not as cold as Buckleman.

So, yeah, sure, I think I'm gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who's right so hard out of a stone. Yeah, I'm able to Open people up. Well, yeah anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah, so my cleave landing will make me a cavalier I thought it was empty headed, but being trash, it's really good and gruey. Because cannibalism and murder, go back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the records.

And you can use to live in the ground. A thorough intent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing quite a bit. So let me just... this is a geek history of time. Where we connect nursery to the real world, my name is Ed Blaylock, I'm a world history and English teacher here in northern California. And I have had one of those, you are now a person of a certain age moments in just the past

week. So the genesis of it is a couple months ago, a very good friend, long time friend of mine, and my DM, off and on, for half my life, passed away. Ryan McMurtry, a list's near the show, and a good friend of mine. And we, the group, kind of had to figure out what we were going to do to remember him. He was very specific that, you know, he did not want, he was not a believer, there was no, you know, and so there was no service, there was no event, you know. And so we decided as a group that we were going

to finish out the most recent campaign he had been running, we're gonna have two final sessions of that, and then as a group we had to finish out the most recent campaign he had been running. We're going to have two final sessions of that. And then as a group, we had to figure out kind of where we all wanted to go. And we decided that we all wanted to continue playing as a group. And it sounds at this point like I'm going to be the one to take over as our DM for the once-a-month game that we have. And I have to admit, it's really weird, but thinking about taking over that role and taking that role over specifically from him is kind of messing with me.

Like I really feel a very significant level of weight from it. And there's another member of our group who may yet decide that, no, no, he wants to be the one to take over. But he hasn't really said very much and he and I were the only two who said we'd be willing to do it. So right now I'm kind of thinking it's going to be me. So yeah, being on the wrong side of 45 or the higher side of 45 or the the higher side of 45. This is this is I guess one of those weird nerd life experiences. It's like, well, now I got to take over his DM. So yeah, I have that going on and and that's a bit

heavy. So I'm going to now ask you, what have you got going on? Well, I'm Deemyn Harmony. I'm a Latin and US history teacher up here in northern California. And my grandma died. Well, shit. I just wanted to top you. Okay. All right. All right. That actually happened. But I also just wanted to top you. So she lived a long and wonderful life and she was surrounded by people she loved and people who loved her. And I am intensely happy for her, actually. I'm happy for my mom for getting to be there. That having been said, no, a couple of things on the on the D&D side. Number one, my daughter decided that she wanted to create a subclass called the College of the Idiot. And it's essentially, it's a subclass of Bard and for 5e and it is yeah, I'm just going to read to you what my daughter wrote because she is a published author.

Okay, Bards of the College of Idiots are few and far between as they're not necessarily the most clever dashing heroes we all know and love. That's my 10 year old's opening sentence. Wow. Accidental comedians, your bumbling nature gets you into and out of trouble, endearing you to others and keeping you from harm. I swear to God, this is a Damian self-insert. Maybe. Unlike most parts who have to know things, your lack of knowledge somehow carries you through. The only reason you weren't hit by that warlock soldier's blast is that you stepped in a bucket and slipped. My daughter wrote this. Dodging masterfully out of the way of the barbarians' handaxe isn't your thing. You're more inclined to be barreled over by the charging center on your party. If you're a bard of the College of the

Idiot, you don't mean to be adventuring. You say stupid things and confuse everyone around you. You're a dummy who just happens to be on this marvelous adventure and, whoa, that are almost hit me. Thank goodness I was busy throwing up because of that poison gas. I don't know what edition I'm going to be running for. But would you like to include that? Yes. Hey, can I come as a guest? I'm the college of the idiot.

Oh my God. Well, at the very least you're you're going to appear as an NPC like as a oh my God. So yeah. And the role playing of that is you to a T. So that's, yeah. At third levels, your clumsiness and idiocy keeps you out of the way of harm. You can fall prone and get back up again, spending only 10 feet of movement as a reaction.

So essentially, you chumble one, but in, um, you can redirect any attack that misses you by more than five. You can have it bounce off of something and hit another creature or like, you know, it misses you more than five. You can have it bounce off of something and hit another creature or like, you know, it misses you more than five. So it accidentally cleaves their friend. And you're, you can do that up to your charisma modifier per rest as a reaction. So it's almost like snatching arrows, but for morons and your charisma bonus now counts towards your armor class if you're not wearing any armor. Okay. Which of the Wilson brothers is it? Who's famous for saying? Wow. Is that is that Luke Wilson? Oh, no, that's Owen. I was thinking about the voice. Okay. Yeah. That's okay. That works too. But no, I'm picturing. I'm so very clearly picturing like Owen Wilson doing like, oh, wow, man. You know, like that really looked like it hurt.

Did you mean to hit him like that? Right. So that's called fool's luck. Okay. Also at third level, a reaction, you can use one of your inspiration dice to roll a D6. And then she puts up a chart because my daughter is a young guy, gags. Number one, you double the range of the spell. If it's a touch spell, it goes 10 foot radius. Number two, you increase the die code. So, the D6, it does a D8, you run it on. Number three, the type of damage gets switched, and then she

says you have to roll a D12. And there's another chart for that because there's 13 kinds of damage gets switched and then she says you have to roll a D12 and there's another chart for that because there's 13 kinds of damage. Okay, so it switches from your kind to one of the 12. One of the others, okay. Which I really love because oh yes, and it's piercing. And it's like, bro, that's a totemic barbarian. Like you just made it so this, this, this was going to do psychic damage. God damn it. Like, yeah. Or for it imposes disadvantaged the target for the spell of the spell for the save required, which is kind of cool.

Okay. On a five, it now only, the spell actually only requires a bonus action to cast. And if it's a bonus action that turns into reaction Wow, and on a six it doesn't cost you a slot. So it's pretty cool like it's good Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, also at third level you get how would you know that? Because the requirement is that your your your intelligence can be no higher than a nine Okay, yeah your your your intelligence can be no higher than a nine.

Okay. Yeah. So starting at third level, once per long rest, you can activate this feature. You choose one intelligence based skill role and you swap out your your charisma modifier for it. Um, okay. At six level, you do it twice per long rest at 14th level, you do it. Thrice per long rest. Um, however, uh, you can never make it on the same skill twice in that long rest. So you did a history check this morning. You can't do one later tonight.

You're gonna have to choose our canna or something else. Like so it's just, and then. It's that random, wait. What? Yeah. Like, and then there's also, I absolutely know what I'm doing, which is once per short rest, you, you can cast one of the following spells. And it's like a lot of your, your divination spells. Okay. And you can just, you can just do that. And then there's finally there's who me, which you gain more spells that don't count against your spell usage, but you can only cast them once prolonged rest Right so confusion and compel duel

He's an angry This is the 14 level one, right? I'm sorry, I'm just I'm picturing the the the effect of the confusion being is is he really that dumb? Right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Like, make a hole. And then you get the feature called in rage.

The target opponent must make an intelligence save versus your spell save DC. If they succeed, nothing happens. If they fail, your buffoonery has so befuddled them that they're disadvantaged for all attacks, saves and skill checks until your next turn. You can do this charisma modifier per long rest. Shut up. Will you shut up? Okay, but like I just wanted to tell you that Velcro is actually just little miniature hooks.

That's it. That's and then there it is advantage to hit you. You started with it. So anyway, so so the is this is this hand written or is this in a format that you can that you can shoot this off to me. Oh, she saved this is a Google doc for me. So I will I will send it. college buddy Nick, I have to send this to him because like we didn't realize what you were aiming for all these years. I think I think this is who rules. You could do. Yeah. And also the thought that's occurred to me throughout the whole time you've been describing this is tell me your father is a standup comic without telling me your father is a standup comic. This is as self-insert as Tom Bombadill is. Oh yeah. So anyway, so that's what I'm

going on. So if you all you all need a guest star to get you from here to there in the most hilarious way. I hold up my hand, which is somehow covered in jelly. And step two with a bucket in my foot. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. All right. So we talked about masculinity last time. Yeah.

Speaking of buffoonery. Yes. We were talking about hyper-masculonized buffoons, essentially. And so, of course, the thesis at the end was that all of this was a response to the feeling of traditional masculinity being attacked and the feeling of diminution associated with the late 70s. And the early 80s, this showing up as a reaction to that. So now we're going to move ahead about 15 years in the timeline. Oh, okay. So the tail end of the fantasy bubble is like 84.

So Reagan's second. 485. Yeah. Yeah. So the beginning of Reagan's second term. And we kind of, we touched on the idea that what we start seeing at that point is the fantasy bubble of pops, but then we start seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, kind of picking up that mantle in either sci-fi or in straight up action movies.

Right. Yeah. So fantasy dries up, but the masculinity does. Yeah, the masculinity thing continues on, but it's not being presented in this particular kind of escapism. Mm-hmm. Okay. Because I mean, action movies obviously are escapist, but it's a different, it's a different kind of thing. And... And... And... And...

And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And...

And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... And... going to a specific spot in the world than Tony Pooza. You're getting your ass to moths, yeah, or like, you know, it's it's sci-fi, but it's still. It's a world of familiar place. Yeah, it's a recognizable place in the physical world that we live in. Yeah. So we have about 15 years that go by. And we don't really have any major traditional fantasy films that make a huge

dent in the zitgeist. There's Dragonheart, which lots of people love, but was not, didn't blow up. No, it was, honestly, it was a bit of a disappointment, a box office wise, which is a shame because you had, oh, God, what's the guy's name? David Toulies, is that his name? Who played the Prince? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You had kind of his debut and he had this like, yeah, I mean, you had, okay, so you had Sean Connery with the, just the voice made for a fucking dragon, like it was a out time. Yeah. Um, and then you had a Dennis quade. Um, yeah. Okay. Yeah. That was Dennis quade. Not Randy quade. Would have been a friend. No, it's so good.

At our food and a picture song given. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm picturing that and, and I need to drink. But yeah, as, as a dragon slayer, as a dragon, as a, yeah, wow. But, um, and you had Pete Posta wait in that, um, and you had, uh, yeah, you had all of them kind of bringing, um, David Tuley's kind of to the four who plays this like ski V, I mean, he's a red head. So of course he is, but like this kind of ski V, Guinea, but also like weirdly, dangerously sexy. Yeah. Slime bars, there are kind of sensual edge going on there.

Yeah, there was like, it was like, hey, hey, Siri, can you personify Averis for me? Yeah, that's exactly. Oh, my phone just said, it should not have had my phone nearby for that. But but yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was odd the way that they put all these pieces together. And yet this for some reason did not work. And it did feel like it was a return to, what do you call it? It did feel like a return to fantasy movies. Yeah, and then it didn't go anywhere.

Well, and maybe, let me ask you this. So you had, and if I'm stepping on your toes here, please stop me. No, but you had in that movie, you had three male characters, one who is the last of his time. I am the last one. Yeah. You who, so he, he's grief. You had one who is burnt out. So he's not, he is, he is grumpy masculinity, you know, Dennis Quay. Yeah. Burnt out. So he's not. He is, he is grumpy masculinity, you know, Dennis Quay. Yeah.

Yet Pete possibly who was, who was a buffoon, you know, an academic, who's, I honestly, I would love to pattern in character after him. Um, but, yeah, you know, just, you know, somebody who brings a donkey with him in the battle, you know. Yeah. But. And then you had David Tuley's who he's not macho masculinity. He is, he is that dangerous sinister masculinity. He is human jafar in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a good, that's, I like that analogy. Yeah. And so you're comparison. All these guys and not a single one of them is, you know, that's a good that's I like that analogy. Yeah, and so you're comparison all these guys and not a single one of them is You know that Bear chest masculinity. Yeah, oiled up. Yeah none of that. Yeah, none of it You don't see I mean he's two leaves is the least rest of them all and is hanging off of him because he's so goddamn scrawny Yeah, and and it's a little bit in the and I think I think that's an

interesting thing to point out. I wouldn't even going to go into that. But now that you've brought that up, that's an interesting thing to point out because that look is much more aligned with the 70s Mick Jagger, Led Zeppelin, kind of androgynous, skinny jeans and the shirt open or the blousey shirt open almost to the navel, that isn't traditionally masculine, but you look at it and you're like, well, but it ain't really feminine either. Right. You hit it on the head. It's the Androgyny. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, Dean and Meyer was the most masculine character in there as far as Macho goes. Yeah. And by the way, like, it's kind of her coming out party too, like, look how awesome my hair is. Yeah. And also look at how bad ass I am, you know? Yeah, totally. So you have a bit of inversion going on there with it.

That's interesting that you brought to that movie specifically because of how non-hyper masculine it is. And how many reminders we have because there were different aspects. Like each of them is archetypically different. I mean, hell, shout out like a different avatar of the seven only aspects of masculinity. Yes. You know, and and they're all failures. Every single one of them. Every single one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that's why it did

so poorly? Or was 1990? Oh, you know, 1996, you had so much more sci-fi going on. Oh, yeah. That's what it was. Yeah, I think the popular imagination just was not in a place for swords and wizards and dragons and that kind of stuff. Yeah, it was Independence Day, right? Like that was the booting. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. Okay. So that's kind of the only one at that time, right? Well, yeah. But we also I have a couple of other titles to mention. There's also first night with again, John Connery and Richard Geer, who is known for his sensuality. Yes. But not there. Just in the show. Yeah, he plays Lancelot, but he's scummy Lancelot. Yeah. And then, yeah. Okay. So Richard Geer it's I'm probably gonna interrupt on all of these because I guess I saw them all. Yeah, I'm just yeah, but Richard gear is like that that sexy that I never understood.

Okay, I don't get people's attraction to him. There's nothing outstanding about him and there's nothing particularly sweet about him Or charming well yet people lost their shit over him like they well I mean America was his his you know name making move right But like at this point he's silver foxed too Yeah, which is which is interesting which is interesting for what they're doing in that movie. But yeah. And everybody's hyper dressed up too. Oh yeah, yeah.

I really think first night is an interesting example of a movie that caters far more to the female gaze. Oh. a movie that caters far more to the female gaze. Oh, okay. That's why I didn't find it attractive, because I'm a, yeah, that makes that 100% tracks. Yeah. Who was that one and that one? Was that Julia Ormond?

Was she? Yes. I remember right, it was Julia Ormond. And so, and then the third title that I have to mention is an adaptation of Bay of Wolf with Christopher Lambert in the title role, which did not do well because I like, I'm a huge Highlander fan.

It's a shame they only made one movie. You know, I love that film to death. If they, if they could have made a sequel, that would have been awesome. But, but, but Christopher Lambert, playing essentially a dain, I mean, he's not a dain, he's a geek. But like, you know, putting him in the role of playing a Proto's Candidavian Warriors, like, right. It just doesn't sell. So.

Okay. So you're bouncing around a little bit in the timeline here. A little bit in the time. I'm gonna bring it back just a little bit then. So first night comes out first. It's 95. Yeah. Well, I'm actually gonna go back a little bit further because I also mentioned Robinhood Prince of Thieves. I was going to say are we talking in 91? In 91. Robinhood, yeah.

And the thing is Robinhood was a pretty good, was a pretty big hit. It was. But it falls far more into the category of period drama than fantasy. It's, I mean, of course, it's entirely fictional because you know, the figure of Robin Hood never existed, but it is set in a specific time period, in a specific place. And they did a very good job of not succumbing to the temptation of, well, you know, but is there a little magic, you know, that, that, that hand-leaving kind of trick. Yeah. That, that screenwriters like to try to pull, you know, they didn't do any of that. It was all very, you know, it was, it was, I mean, you know, nobody could actually ever survive being flung by a catapult like that.

But other than a couple of seriously unbelievable things, it was grounded in. Yeah. unbelievable things, it was grounded in the the era and place and time in which it was in which it was set. Okay, so let's let's look at that one first then because you got that one. We got first night, then you got Dragon Heart, which I think we already talked about. And then you got a bandwelf, but honestly, right after Baywolf, I will point out to you, there was in fact a sequel to Highlander. It's called Highlander Endgame. And that one is where he passed the torch to Adrian Paul. Why did you turn off your computer? Um, no. No.

No. You're dead to me. Uh, no, okay, Joe, you're right. You're right. I forgot about in game. I forgot about you're right. I forgot about that happens the year after bail. So yeah, both of which and there's some okay, so so you got Nebraska Robin Hood, which I'm sorry. What the more had an English accent had had a better English that there are a couple of times there are a couple of times where you can hear Kevin Costa trying. No, at no point did he have an English accent? Oh, no, I'm not saying he had one. I'm saying you can hear him trying. No, no, I disagree.

He threw away. He's like, no, fuck this. Unless you're talking about a point where he smothered himself and shit and then pretended to be the blind old man. Yeah. Okay. That I'll give you. And and and even then yes Morgan Freeman did better job. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, okay. So Freeman. So likeusker Robin. Robin the Corn Husker. So God damn it. So, so at no point, I mean, we see his backside once because it's Kevin

Kostner and he's famous for showing his butt. I thought that was a stunt butt. Didn't didn't we all find out that it was a stunt, but might have been, but like he and Mel Gibson were like tied. Cheek. Oh, yeah. For like, thank you for that. Yeah.

The late 80s ass. Yeah. For the ladies. Right. Speaking of female gaze. Yes. Right. Um, so, okay.

So he's in there, uh, Mary Elizabeth,, Masteryano. Did I say her name right? Master Antonio. Not Dammit. You were close. You were close. Yeah. So anyway, she, she's again, with the curly hair. Yeah. It's interesting. We're starting to see. Cause her to Dean of Meyer to. Yeah. But anyway, so, so that was the thing. There's no macho with him, though.

There's no, I bested you with my strength. It's I outthought you at every step. He's out thinking Yeah, so that's that one and the only person who's strong in that is Not cut. He's little John. Mm-hmm. He's not he's not strong him and He's not strong to him and father, fire talk. They both are the only two who do any like physical, like hard damage, like where they're the bludgeoners. Yeah. And neither of them is cut in any way. They're both like. No, no, they're big.

Yeah. Big head fellas. Big heavy dudes. Yeah, heavy set. And and I will forever love a friar tuck in that movie. Oh, God. He does. I just do. Did you did you recognize him as soon as you saw him as the guy who is in whose line is it anyway? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Damn, I loved him. Yeah, and I thought it was really funny when I saw the movie in 91. You know, at the age of 16, when I saw it, it only got better when I got older, but the line,

now this here is grain. It's right. Which any idiot can turn into bread, but for which the good lord had a much higher purpose intended. Let me tell you all about the miracle of beer. Oh, yeah. Like, and as a 60 year old, it was like, oh my God, the priest is a drunk. That's a sterical. As an adult who is now a beer snob, like, yes, that's, that's, yes, yeah, reach Hallelujah. You know, but yeah. Um, so, okay. So that's, that's Robin Hood. For first night, do you think that if Mel Gibson had actually not done Braveheart and instead

had done first night? Because he was tapped for first night. Yeah. And then he fucked off to do Braveheart, which again, period piece. Yeah. If he had done that, do you think there would have been more machoness? Or would it have still been? I think I guess here's the thing. I don't think I don't think the script would have been very much different, but I think the choices Gibson would have made as an actor would have been very different. Yeah.

I bet you're right. Because if you look at the script, it's about betrayal, loyalty, romance. It's not. It's leading on those. None of those watch over values. Yeah. It's, again, leaning on the female gaze, and it's a romance movie, really, is what it is.

And I think, given that it's a romance movie, I think gear was actually probably a better fit for it. I agree. I'm going to editorialize there. But I think there would have been the character of Lancelot would have wound up coming across with more bravado. Mm. Okay.

For lack of a better word because I don't think Mel Gibson would have, Mel Gibson would not have made the same choice as Geer did. And Mel Gibson has that level of, he carries himself with that level of cockiness and run, you know, that very, Whereas Geer's a little more like he, he's depending more on the other actors in their relationships. Yeah, I get you that. So, okay. So definitely not masculine. Okay. No, I don't think that could have happened in that film. And everybody, yeah. Yeah. You know, because as much as Richard Gear is, you know, therefore that for the female gaze, I think still Gibson wouldn't been in that case.

Right. Well, again, the female gaze doesn't lead to the nudity nearly as much. To the same, yeah, not to the same extent, because to a significant extent, and I wish I could point to specific studies about this, because I don't remember the details beyond the practical upshot of them, but there have been multiple psychological psychosexual studies done that essentially show that, generally speaking, and again, we're speaking in generalities because every one of us monkeys is different. But speaking in generalities, male identifying people tend to be more visually aroused. Yes.

And female identifying people tend to be more orally, like, a-u, oral, and tend to work more with other senses. Yeah, that's. And so, I mean, you can look, you can look at how movies aimed at men are made. And they're about spectacle, they're about that kind of thing. When people complain that movies are too feminized, it's because there's too much fucking dialogue or there's too much relationships or whatever.

So yeah, a hundred percent. Okay, so that's first night. We already talked about Dragonheart. You talked about bail wolf. Rona Mitchras in that. I want to say it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's yeah, because I always confused her with Sandra Bullock.

Um, I can kind of see that. Yeah. And then yeah. And it's, I mean, it's, it's basically it's, it's an attempt at a retelling of bail wolf, right? And like as somebody who is an early English literature nerd, like I'm going to sit down and watch it just because it's Bayowulf. Right.

But it's, and again, Christopher Lambert does not like in my opinion, a retelling of Bayowulf is a place for, no, no, let's go with a cartoonish masculinity because it's Baal Wolf. And that's what we're talking about. Like it is, it is a saga. And the stuff that happens, I mean, even before the encounter with Grandel and Haioro, you know, the stuff they talk about as part of bail wolf's, you know, legendary accomplishments before getting there is enough that it's like this, this is a

cartoon. Like this, this, this is the place to have bail wolf, you know, throw off his mail shirt and dive into the ocean. Oh, yeah. You know, in all of his, you know, yeah, rotoscanonavian muscled glory. Like here we go. And those those weren't the choices they made because that's not the kind of leading man that that Christopher Lambert is. No, you know, and I personally can't stand Christopher Lambert. I thought I got to tell you, I thought the Highlander movie sucked. Okay. Shouldn't have a guy fighting with a samurai sword.

If he doesn't know how to use one, you also shouldn't have a guy fighting with samurai sword with a a long beige trench coat. Um, it was all about the aesthetic. I mean, the movie, the movie was all about the, like you're not wrong. I mean, understand as a sword nerd, that movie was like kind of a gateway drug to becoming a sword nerd or or or to leveling up as a sword nerd, just because, oh my God, rule of cool, right? Right. Right. Right. Now that I know something about everything, I'd be like, okay, they're all idiots. Yeah. Like all of them. They're Right. Right. And now that I know something about everything, I'd be like, okay, they're all idiots.

Yeah. Like all of them. They're all morons because in a modern setting, no, that's not what you're going to do. What you're going to do is you're going to, you're going to carry a blade about 24 inches long. You're going to be carrying a modernized gladiast, basically. Right. Right. You know, I need something with enough cutting authority that I can finish the job.

But before that, I also wanted to have a good strong point because the way I'm actually going to incapacitate my opponent isn't taking a set off. I'm going to stab the fuck out of him first. Yeah, got shot. Got you. Then I'm going to finish it off like, you know, but anyway, you know, rule of cool. So, you know, I will say, you know, the upside of Highlander, even though we're not talking about Islander, the upside of that first one was it did

start with the free birds fighting against some jobbers, which was interesting because I believe that was the only time they were in the WWE WF, unless NWA is running it at a different spot at the time. Okay. But yeah, it was kind of interesting. And you even see Michael PS Hayes, PS stands for Purely Sexy, doing a little bit of the hip wiggle and then the NWWGL. But okay, so Christopher Lambert is in Bale Wolf.

It flops. Oh, yeah. Pretty hard. Oh, yeah. And then you have then you have Highlander endgame, the following year, I think I want to say in your 2000 or 1999. Well, you're one of those two. Yeah, right.

Um, and the reason I bring that up is because it is a fantasy one, but it's, it's pulling on what USA Network was doing with fantasy. And they cast into Adrian Paul as the high alert. And that series went for a good seven years. And I want to say it started in like 96 or something. And I think Every goddamn hit of it. Yeah. But Adrian, I am the huge fan of that show. Adrian Paul is a dancer. Yeah. Again, not your hyper masculine.

It's more of a pursuance build. It's more of a, again, sexy for the ladies. Yeah. And I mean, he's got shoulders like a barn door. Yeah. But he knows, but he's, but he's, but he's you know, but he's but he's lies. Yeah, he moves and he keeps taking on. That's the other thing about that, that particular thing

is he kept taking on guys that were bigger than him. It was very often David and Goliath kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. And so it was a way of passing the torch from Old Man, Lambert to Adrian Paul. Yeah. And so that one, the masculinity was there, but it was actually some of the healthiest masculinity that we see.

Oh my God. Yeah. They're helping some of the story. Yeah, they love each other and they're allies and, you know, uh, what's his McLeod sacrifices himself for, I guess, McLeod again. Yeah. Um, but he sacrifices him and, and there's that really sad moment, you know, when he realizes what he's done, you know, and she'll like, and it's

but the movie itself is is very, it keeps very true to the TV show. Mm-hmm. And then they did nothing with it, um, which is fine, which is really fine. But like like that was clearly trying to cash in on that sweet, sweet USA network money. Oh, yeah, clearly, yeah, very much. Okay, so, so that's, that's the 90s, right? That's, that's what, those, everything we just talked about were the most notable examples. Right. And, and we've mentioned, you know, a total of like five films over the course of the entire decade, right? Whereas, you know, 81 to 83 there were triple that. Yeah, triple that number.

And again, the other thing was 81 to 83 everybody got their shirt off, right? And they were and they were muscularized, although I I still can't get over Lee Majors in the sword and the sword server, like that's not the guy what it thought would spend more than half the movie, oiled up with his shirt off, but there you go. Right. You know, but, but again, they were all playing on those tropes of hyper-masculineized everything. Well, then in 2001, Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring, made $897 million. Also a production cost of 93. That's a lot of fucking money to sing into it. Yeah,

no, you did a good job. Yeah, I'm gonna call foul here because there's one fantasy movie you failed to mention. Okay, between Highlander and Game, which I had to bring up and Lord of the Rings. Okay. Dungeons and Dragons. Oh no, we don't speak of that. No, no. No. Yes, they, yes, they made one. Yes. And, and it went nowhere. I, I understand I am, it is a fantasy movie it yeah, but but the idea I'm trying to get get around here is is you know the the level of impact That they showed in the zitgeist and to a certain extent the dnd movie kind of kind of proves my point in that they made one and It did nothing. It's okay fair and it did nothing. Okay, fair.

Ziggoggles say do nothing. I mean, like, it was a horrendous flop because it was bad. Yeah, bad. Well, that was trying to catch it on the 3-0 start. Like, I mean, it, yeah. And the thing is, number one, the script just sucked. Mm-hmm. Number one, for a whole variety of reasons that like probably deserves its own

episode later on. You know what? Not a bad idea. But, but with 303O was something that Dean Deenards were really, really excited about at the time. Right. But the rest of the culture didn't yet know even what Dungeons and Dragons was yet to the extent that we do now. Like we are now living in a world where critical role and to hold a whole slew of other media have introduced mainstream cult to the idea of Dungeons and Dragons being like a thing. People knew about Dungeons and Dragons, of course, when that movie came out, but it had not reached the level of awareness in the general population. Right.

For that to ever be, well, for that movie to get the kind of funding that would have potentially made the effects better and for that movie to get the kind of funding that would have gotten them a script doctor who could have looked at it and gone. Okay, well, there are some flaws. The first the first two acts of this film are flawed, but okay, the denomal of this film is Batchit crazy crazy and it's ass.

It's like five tons of whale shit. No. It's means to do a four-ton bag. Like, yeah, squish that. Like, it's not even organized whale shit. Like, no, it's just awful. No, we need to cut out the last 20 minutes of this movie and completely rewrite it because, oh my god, that's bad, right?

So, do you know the director of this, so I, I've done a bit of a dive on this movie a few times because of how bad it is. You know, the director of this movie, it was his first film ever that he directed. Poor man. And the thing was he had gotten the rights from TSR back when TSR existed. And he'd held on to them for like 10 years or he'd been shopping it around for 10 years. And and his plan was an and and he was like, I want to say he was 21 when he got them or some low ass number like that. He might have even been still been a teenager. Like, and so, well, I mean, at the NTSR was desperately trying to throw trying to get money from anybody. And they did. And, and so, and I

wish I remembered the number that he paid for it. But anyway, he shops it around looking for a way to raise the funds, but he'd only ever intended to be the publisher. No, it's the word producer of it. And he wanted to bring in Coppola for it. Okay, that's ambitious. Yeah. And then I want to say somebody from TSR, and I don't know how rights work exactly. And so somebody from TSR still had a hand on it and they were like, no, you're the only one who's gonna do it

because we're not gonna pay other people for it. Which sounds very, very, very, very TSR. That, well, what that doesn't sound like TSR, that sounds like somebody in, very, very T.S.R. That, well, what that, that doesn't sound like T.S.R. that sounds like somebody in the guy gags state. It really does. I, I don't think it, because I would have remembered if it was a guy gags, but, no, get well, but it, it's somebody in that, in that, yeah. But, um, it's, the, the other thing that I remember was that Jeremy

Irons took the movie because he was overmortgaged on his head. No, it's even funnier. He said something to the effect of I had just bought a castle and I had to find some way to pay for it. Because I remember, yeah, D&D, he's so castle, right? As long as he's overmortgaged. No, he needed the money to buy a castle. Oh, yeah Which yeah, oh my god, you know, there's there. There is there is actually I want to say it's money dear boy is the is the trope name Yes, you've said it a number of times. Yeah, yeah, you know

Which which I think was also Yeah, you know, which I think was also Sir Alan Guinness's reason for doing Obi-Wan Kenobi. You know, like, he had, he even after the film became a huge success, he was embarrassed by it, very famously. But yeah, yeah. So anyway, yeah, that movie was, we've spent more time on that movie was we've we've spent More time on that movie that it deserves

And yet less time than it deserves Well, there is there is that yes in the way that like one needs to dissect Yeah, the corpse for an autopsy Like let's can we can we find the single cause of death he fell out of forced or a window was hit by an arrow on the way down and Shot accidentally before he hit the ground what actually killed him right That reminds me that reminds me of my favorite. You know, remember the Darwin Awards back when he was first a thing Yeah, my favorite was the anti-Darwin award where a man Was going to hang himself, but he also swallowed some poison and he was gonna shoot himself in the head

and I was fucking bad day and his legs on fire Because he was gonna burn himself too, okay, wow jumps and Because he's jumping off of a cliff near the ocean, he gets yanked by the rope earlier than he thought. So he pulls the trigger, shoots the rope, breaks the rope, falls into the ocean, which of course extinguishes the fire. It's like that. And the impact causes him to vomit up the poison.

He gets picked up by a fisherman and he dies three days later because it was so cold. Wow. Wow. Yeah. That's that's called rolling a one and feeling forward. Yeah. Pretty much. Damn. Okay. All right. So on to movies that you've actually talked about. Yeah, that I've actually done, done meaningful research on. So in 2001, again, fellowship of the ring opens and it made $897 million off of production cost of 93. That's a good return on investment. It's, it's, it's an amazing return on investment.

The two towers in return to the king followed in O2 and O3 and similarly made huge big money, okay? The truth? With those, Star Wars was made and then it made enough money that he's like, okay, now I'll go back and make the other two. Love how George Lucas just equals Kermit somehow. It's our mind.

It's like because you immediately, you used that voice. I immediately I pictured it coming out of George Lucas's life. Right. I know. Okay. Anyway. It's funny because I was in imitating George Lucas earlier today. Yeah.

And it's like, why is Kermit talking? Well. Yeah. It's totally possible that Jim Henson based Kermit's voice, often Lucas. I kind of want to look at that. Jim Henson has the same voice. Yeah, well, it's true. Like apparently being bearded in the 70s means you ended up talking. I kind of went up talking a little bit. You end up talking out of the top of your throat and off a lot.

Right. I'm genuinely curious if there's like Certain vocal effects like you know, we saw in the last five years or so vocal fry became a big thing Oh, yeah, I became yeah, and you know in the 1990s laughing like Was a big thing in the hip-hop community. Yeah, anyway, yeah, so George Lucas made the first one then was able to bankroll the second two wasn't this one Always going to be the trilogy. Yes They they filmed them they filmed all once part of part of the agreement to the cast signed on for was no No, we're filming all three of them. You're gonna be in New Zealand

For two years or however long it was that they were filming. And so it was a big commitment for everybody involved. So yeah, it started out and that was actually part of the reason prior to the film, like starting to be marketed in the Lord of the Rings fan community. Everybody was really, really, really excited about the making of the film because, you know, from the very beginning it was, no, they're doing all three films. And they're doing it like, they're felt like they're doing it right. Yes.

They really did feel like a, oh, this one's going to get it right. Yeah. I had a therapist whose monitor in the background had the Lord of the Rings as a screensaver. Mm-hmm back in 1999. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was a big deal.

Yeah, so people within the fan community were wiped for this. Mm-hmm. And I was one of them. But then, but then the movie opened. The movie started being. But then the movie started being marketed, and then the movie opened, and it turned into this thing within the popular imagination. It took off within broader culture.

I think in very important ways, the Lord of the Rings trilogy mainstreamed nerd culture. We're accelerated to mainstreaming of nerd culture. Okay. You know, because being a fan of Lord of the Rings made sense. Made sense. Yeah. Like you could be a fan of Lord of the Rings and be on the basketball team, right?

Like, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't just this niche thing. Maybe the baseball team. Okay. Baseball team still got weirdos on it. Like, okay, I get you. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. But, but it still is, because I'm thinking about clerks too, where they are, you know, where he's making

fun of the Lord of the Rings fans. Okay. Right. And so there's still a, this is, it's at hot topic now. Yeah. But the people, the people who are actively making fun of Lord of the Rings fans are mostly edge lords who most everybody else recognizes as being assholes. I don't know if anybody recognized them as being assholes back then though.

All right. Not at that time. Okay. So, but it is still giant steps forward. Don't get you wrong. Just saying track team, baseball team, yes. Okay. Yeah.

Football team, maybe not yet. Yeah, a few, probably. A few, a few, but yeah. So now, obviously, I love these movies unabashedly with my whole heart. For a jerk or like a whole host of reasons, like we've had a whole episode of me getting drunk and ranting about this.

Yes. But for the purposes of this episode, of course, I wanna focus mostly on issues of a masculine identity. Okay. Also for the sake of brevity and consistency, I'm going to try really hard to stick to the movies without any mention of the books that isn't unavoidable. Okay. Okay. Fair. Okay. Fair. Aru Iluvatar give me strength because that's going to be hard, but here we go. All right, first of all, yeah. Okay. Okay, so I just want to make sure, though, that like,

yeah, we're talking about masculinity. Yeah. And you've got a movie that is almost entirely males. Yes. And this is really the first time that you see the gloriousness of beards, like you have a dwarf with a glorious beard. You have, and it's funny, you like the shorter they get the more glorious the beard. And then you've got wizards with these amazing beards. And so like you got this, like signs of old masculinity. And even the trees had beard.

There's one called tree beard. Literally tree beard. Yeah. So does is it that the masculinity goes from the pecs to the chin? You know, I hadn't thought of that. Okay. Um, I think I think there's a layer of analysis there that might bear bear bear fruit. Okay, speaking of tree beard, but that's not where I was going. Okay. Well, then we'll take your way. Um, your way.

No, okay. All right. All right. So the first thing I wanted to note, and maybe it's because of the beards, but none of the protagonists ever get shirtless. It's good point. Never. None of them.

You're not one. You're right. Three whole movies. Do you read the whole movies? The orcs do. Do they really? Yeah, I'm gonna get to that in a minute. Okay, okay.

Go for it. Go for it. That's because, do your math. Because, and actually it's right here in my notes I thought it was going to take longer but second and relatedly the only heavily muscled beef cakes we see are uru kai. That's right. Lerts in the first movie is a terrifying wall of fangy royd rage. Right. I mean, is this is like holy shit.

Right. I mean, he's this is like holy shit. Right. Like you didn't have a neck. Like just all the muscles. Yeah, traps up. Bear arms. Bear arms. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Trapse. Yeah. Pretty damn close. Yeah. You know, the the the the face palm, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the the the the face palm, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And and and you know, uh, whole Kogan talks about his every many inch by thoughts 24 inch by thons 24 inch by thons, uh, larts has got to have 36's. I mean, just huge god damn arms, right? And then during the siege of Helm's deep, um, Saramon's forces include these nigh unkillable berserker urokai who are completely shirtless. And they act as suicide bombers. They're grotesque, like

they don't count, do they? Well, okay. Here's the thing. Okay, let's let's talk about the rest of masculinity as presented and then talk about what statements were kind of subconsciously being seen made. All right. Okay. The works, the works and goblins in word of the rings all embody the dark sake of cruelty. And there's always, because of the way Tolkien and Jackson, because he was sticking to Tolkien's take, there is always a background level of desperate insecurity and fear involved. Anytime, anytime you see the orcs interacting with each other, anytime there is any level of characterization with the orcs, there is always this deep-nying fear and insecurity. That's true. and insecurity. And everything is hyper hierarchical and hierarchy is always based on terrorism

and physical force. Yeah, like within the ranks. Like I was going to say it's like what people imagine alpha is. Like imagine alpha wolfing is, even though we know that that's bullshit. If you took that fake template and put it on the Urukha that's what you would have. That's precisely. Yeah. Now by contrast, the Hobbits are genial, joyful, peaceful boys. Basically, there's not a hard edge or a sharp corner on any of them. They all have fairly either delicate or rounded features. Yeah. Like, yeah, they're all softies. Yeah.

Then there's more ways. These are different ways, I would point out. Yeah. You know, Mary, which one is the guy who was in lost? Mary. I'm going to get the Dominic Monaghan. Is that Mary or Pippin? That's Mary. Okay. Okay. So Pippin has the girliest face. Really does. Yeah. Yeah.

And Sam has the chubbiest cutest face. Yeah. And and Pippin, that's Dominic monoghen. No, Mary is Dominic monoghen. I will never get it. You know why? Because Pippin ain't easy. Fuck you. But anyway, damn it. But he has like the like the, the honestly he has the Wally. Wally's friend,

Eddie Haskell kind of face. He has like the, the troublemaker. Wally, Wally's friend, Eddie Haskell kind of face. He has like the troublemaker, boyish face. And then you get Elijah Wood who has like the biggest goddamn to eyes, which in fantasy is like a fucking alien. Yeah, even though like he actually like it looks like he'd been working out because his neck thickened up. But like he has like really big eyes,

like each one of them in a different way is like running away from the hypermasculine. Yeah, very much. You know, very much. Like and I don't know if that was casted on purpose that way or you just picked your best four and they had the best chemistry. But it is interesting how each one of them is a repudiation of 19a's masculinity in a different thing. So yeah.

So, so yeah, they're all, they're all all these, you know, soft kind of kind of figures. Yeah. Throughout the series, they're terrified. Like they spend an awful lot of time to scare it out of their god damn minds because it's totally reasonable that they are. Even in their respective moments of bad assery, their bad assery is rooted in the fact that they're standing up when they when they can tell that they want to run away and their fear is shown openly and is not shown as being shameful. You're right. Right. Their fear is the thing that defines their courage. They are courageous because they're scared and they are and they are doing it anyway, right? Yeah. In every one of their respective cases.

Even if they fail. And they, in each one of them fails except for Sam, each one of them fails pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. They weep openly at loss, and they express joy and affection

effusively at emotional high points. Yep. Okay. Jumping on the bed like little boys. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And within the context of the films, none of this is ever questioned or ridiculed as shown

as less than compared to any of the other members of the fellowship who are all veteran warriors in the fight against Sauron. In fact, the only people who do spurn them aren't spurning them directly and because I'm thinking it's Boromir who spurns them at one point. And it's almost yeah, that's a symbol or that's a symptom of him being poisoned by the proximity to the ring or like him only having the martial focus and he's immediately talked out of it or talked down in a lot of ways or or or just like

I used the word repudiated already, but like in many ways he's like he is the straw man for for showing how kind and chill. Oh, what's his favorite? Error is, yeah. Yes. So yeah, the only time you do see them showing, he winds up, yeah.

And if he very much gets used as a foil for Error. Yeah, go ahead, sorry. Well gets, gets used as a foil for Erdogan. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Well, yeah, I was just going to say the only time you do see anybody being negative toward the hobbits for being the hobbits is at that moment that I can think of. And yeah, that's it. That's literally it. Like, yeah.

And it's, they shut that shit right down. So yeah And so uh, Candelth is benevolent and knowledgeable. Mm-hmm. He's also fallible. I have no memory of this place. Oh, yeah. He spends way too much time overthinking the riddle to get into Moria and the one who figures it out is one of the naive little hobbits. It's like what's the elvish word for friend. Right. Fuck me.

Right. You're gonna go ahead and eat any, any he has that moment. Deep friend and enter. Yeah. Deep friend and enter. Well, God damn it. You know, like,

oh. All right. Yeah, that works too. Leave it to the summer children to figure that one out. Good job, you know, and he's capable of Erassability and Tetshi and patients. Okay. Oh, love it. Even even you know straight up getting pissed off. You know, full of a talk. You know, right.

Um, and and despite being literally an angel in the lore, he still has the body of an old man, and usually shows that age. Like there are the moments where it's like, all right, no, I gotta bust out the inner is tarry and whip some ass. But most of the time, like, okay, no, I gotta, sorry, I gotta sit the fuck down. Right.

You know, I can, it is part of the fact that I am an angel inside of this old man's body that I can keep up with all of you. But now I'm sorry, I gotta sit down and smoke a pipe. Right. I'm right. Thank you. It reminds me of Jordan, when he was on the wizards, he's clearly well past his prime. Yeah. But he didn't let that stop him from schooling and owning anybody who stepped up to him.

Oh, yeah. It just meant that he had to ice his knees for hours afterwards. Yeah, precisely. Like, okay. That kind of shit. This is really going to hurt later, but right now I have to teach you some respect. Right. Like, yeah, that's, that's, that's an analogy I never would have thought of,

but that's brilliant. Yeah. Um, now after dying and being reborn, mm-hmm. Both of these factors subside a little bit. He's a bit more angelic and a bit less limited by his mortal form. True. Kind of like you got a factory refurbishing, uh, but, but they are still there.

Like you, you still, you know, you know, it's still present. And this is really important. This is so critically fucking important. He has been working through indirect means for literal millennia to fight against Sauron. He has not ever walked straight up to the black gate of Barra door and said, all right, come on, bitch.

Right. Catch these hands. Right. You know, none of that he's been working indirectly to strengthen others to be the ones to defeat the darkness. He's been working to foster alliance and cooperation. This is not much ismo, right? Right, yeah. This is John Adams. Yeah, shit. This is totally John Adams type shit. Yeah.

All right. So now the biggest, the hardest, steeliest, eyed, coldest killer in the entire group. This is, I'm moving on to the next character. I should point out. Move on to the next character. I'm going to talk about in the fellowship. Coldest motherfucker, just absolutely, possibly the biggest killer badass in the fellowship is legless. Yes. He's a steely eyed orcs layer. Yes. Yeah. Bad ass Ranger rogue archetype. 100% stoniest guy. Yeah. Cannot overstate his level of badassness. And he's also the most androgynous member of the fucking group. Yeah,

he is the prettiest. He's literally two goddamn pretty. Yeah, I would spoon him. Yep, yes. Yeah. Like I'd have a hard time not. Like, yeah. Interestingly, I worked a stint for Games Workshop around the time that the trilogy was coming out in theaters.

And Games Workshop got the license to do the tabletop skirmish game for the Lord of the Rings. Okay, so we were doing a Miniatures game and they are still doing a Miniatures game that has evolved since then. It's now a bigger kind of thing as in more models on the table bigger. But we were we were selling the Lord of the Rings tabletop war game and we had we had uh two different standees at at the front of the store while i was working there um for the first year it was legolas uh for the second year it was Karl urban's character and i feel terrible that i don't remember but but the blonde writer of Rohan guy. Oh, right. We got, we got so many teenage girls and early 20 something women who came into the shot because of that standee asking about if they could just buy a model of the pretty elf guy.

Oh, yeah, Orlando Bloom, like, I mean, his career blew up for that. Oh yeah, you know, I mean he has he has the cheekbones of a godling like there's no even now not God God God God you're absolutely right. And and you know even now 20 years later, you know, you look at him now and it's like, okay, yeah, he's age, he's got some gray hair. He's, you know, I think very consciously grown some facial hair. Yeah. But he like to learn from the the pirates of the Caribbean movies, which, which also, like, we're around that time.

And but the, you know what, those were very pieces. You're right. Never mind. Yeah. movies, which also like were around that time. But you know what, those were period pieces. You're right. Never mind. Yeah. Yep. Well, okay, they're period pieces, but you have literally the the trident of Poseidon and you know, you get even a jar and but I still don't think that that's

particularly fantasies. It's, well, here's the deal. It is fantasy, but it's a very particular kind of fantasy that is the same archetype. Okay. So that's my, that's my dodge for not bringing them up. Sure, sure. Um, so, but yeah, he, he's just so goddamn pretty, right?

So physically, he's not, I'm sure if Orlando Bloom were to take off his shirt during the time that they were filming these movies, he would have been very fit. You don't fire a bow, even kind of faking it for effects the way he was. You don't do that that much without developing some musculature. You don't do that much hiking without being and, you know, some level of being in shape. Right. But he's, he was never buffed. He's, yeah, I was going to say, he's still perseus fit. He's not a police fit. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so is, is Jason fit? He's not a work at least fit. Like, you don't have hercules fit. You You have Percy's fit. Yeah. So yeah. And so in the story, he learns to make friends with Gimli, who's traditionally an anime of his people.

Mm hmm. He is visibly moved by sites of beauty. Yep. Um, and and this is, this is really important. He consistently defers to and sticks up for Erigord. He unconditionally, like he's the one member of the, you know, badass, veteran warrior cadre within the fellowship. He's the one member of that group that is always 100% like, nope, I'm sorry, you don't understand. He's the heir. We're going to do what the fuck he says. Like, he is the legitimate king. And also he's, he's my bro. Like we

go back. This is my dude. I'm back in his play. Like period, I stopped. He's the leader. He is, there's, uh, darn it. He the Lancer of the group in many ways. Okay. He's the guy who potentially could be the leader if the leader wasn't the leader. Okay. Okay. And so, you know, but he but in his case frequently the Lancer is also a character who could kind of be a rival of the leader.

But Legolas is like, no, no, that's the dude. Mm-hmm. Like, if he asks me for my opinion, I'm gonna tell him what I think we ought to do, but he's the one making the decision. He's got this. He's got this. Which again, is not the 80s action hero archetype.

Right. Like at all. It's not the 80s fancy action. It's not Conan the fucking barbarian. It's no, no, you're the he's the leader. I'm doing what he says. Sure. You know, it's about loyalty. It's not about my my macho individuality. Yes. Yeah. The one time he notably disagrees with Erogorn is right before the siege of Helm's deep Where he's telling him we can't afford to lose you You're too important to be dying here. We need to leave and Aragorn says no, no

These are my people right and then switches from Elvish to To comment in an unfortunate moment because of emotional mess and says, you know, then I will die with them. And everybody's like, I'm sorry. What? What we're going to, I'm sorry. What? Yeah. I was here because I was told the muster for a picnic. Yeah. Having guests. What? Yeah. We brought bridge mix. What are you talking?

What are you talking about? Yeah. All right. Okay. So, so. Yeah, I guess I'm just trying to think of any time where he didn't do anything. Like, he never even really antagonized Gimli other than playfully. Yeah. Except, uh, no, no. He, yeah, there's the barbs, but I was like, oh, wait, no, he, but no, he was sticking up for Gimli.

He says in sessions, that should happen before your blade fell or something. Yeah. Oh, that's when he talks to Carl Urban's character, right? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, where amir's brother? No, there's cousin. No, he's, no, I want to say, Dernernhelm. I've got I feel like a bad token fan. No

Carl Irman's character is one of the writers of Rohan. He's the nephew of the king who winds up becoming the king after Theodin dies Okay, and yeah, and he It's not a Theo name. I got it. I'll have to look it up. But anyway So it's interesting that you then mentioned Gimli because that's the next one I'm gonna talk about. Gomer Pyle. No. Okay. I would just love for Carl Arbond to show up with the writers of surprise.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. Yeah. No. Okay. So Gimli, go back to Gimli. Yeah, I'm surprised. Yeah, no. Okay, so Gimli go back to Gimli. Amar characters. Amar curls are Carl Lawrence characters. Amar was close. I said, ale. So yeah, yeah. So, um, so, so Gimli of the fellowship, Gimli is the one who comes, I think closest to being traditionally macho. He is a tough guy.

Yes. He is the carnivore, a beer drinker. He's hot-headed, aggressive. Yes. Magnificent. I wish I could get anywhere near matching that beard. He's hot-headed. He's consistently aggressive. He's eager for a fight. John Reese Davies described one of the traits as being a certain bloody mindedness. Yeah. He fights with an axe. Yep. And so I mean, there are there are he's the most visibly heavily armored of all of them.

Which goes always wearing a helmet. Which goes against the, uh, the thing though, because macho is bare-chested in all this. And he is the, the most covered up character in the whole fucking thing. Oh, yeah, like all you see is eyes and a little bit of cheeks. And then it's just, it's, it's all beard and it's all armor, like the whole time. Yeah, he's just an angry's all beard and it's all armor, like the whole time. Yeah. He's just an angry fucking beard. Yeah.

Like, yeah, he's just a beard of rage elongated. Kind of. Yeah, I like that. Like, that's a really good, that's a great comparison. Um, and so he is, he is this, this, you know, macho tough guy character. Sure. But he plays a comic role very frequently. you know, macho tough guy character. Sure.

But he plays a comic role very frequently. Yeah, his machoness is never the goal. It never solves anything. No. No. The only time that like his toughness and machoness really comes in is where he gets himself thrown. That's exactly where it was going to.

His machismo makes it the punchline. Don't tell the elf. Right, right? Yeah. And even as mach. Right, right? Yeah. And even as macho as he is, he's still intensely protective of the hobbits. Yes. You know, there's that wonderful.

It's a wonderful. You're not excited as I at them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one, and the other thing I was thinking of was in the first movie in Moria When they hear the goblins coming

There's this there's this wonderful. There's that wonderful shot of Of the whole the whole fellowship as the as the camera comes back as the goblins are pounding down the door and he and legolas and aragorn and Boramir all move to protect the hobbits. Oh, interesting. Okay. And, and obviously they're moving to protect Frodo because he's the ring bearer, but there's this instinctive protectiveness. Right.

And, and Gimli is, is one of one of the figures who at other times we see him being actively protective of the hobbits, right? Also, like Legolas, he's a team player. Yes, he's not he is not quite as rigorously loyal to Erragorn as an individual, but he is very much a team player. He's loyal to the fellowship. He's loyal to the fellowship. And he, like anybody who actually studies armed combat, he knows that the guy who runs off on his own is the guy who gets killed ignominiously and gets made fun of after he's dead, right? Yep, you know

like they they all work as a as a team in in the fight scenes they get involved in they are looking out for each other they are working to cooperate and And it's a sign of him and Legolas becoming platonic life mates that they are working, they are consistently working as a team together a lot over the course of the trilogy. Now, I want to drill a little bit more into the teamworkness too, because and the protective, because the teamwork part in the 80s, all of your movies were a team formed behind the hero and he was always going off on a zone.

He was always doing his own thing and cool that y'all are with me, but I don't really need you. Yeah, and you could tell because when there was a sequel, nobody would follow. Yeah, because as my dad, you code in. Yeah, as my dad said, when you follow the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Yeah, wrong. But, uh, and that is fucked up. Um, but I don't super tie. Yeah, exactly.

Um, okay, so, so that, but also I would point out there is a world of difference between protecting and rescuing. And in the 80s It was always rescuing Yes, and now it's protecting it's keeping safe to me This is the difference between Batman and cap as well cap is a protector. Yeah, yeah Batman is 100% of rescuer He yeah, yeah, yeah, he activates once there's a transgression. Cap activates and he solves. Cap activates to prevent the trans at transgression. So he's never fully off. Yeah, he's never fully

off, but he's also never fully on. And same thing with Gimli here, he, I mean, yes, they do need to rescue a few of the hobbits and stuff like that. That's it. That's a thing. But by and large, his mission is to protect the ring bearer. So you're absolutely right. Oh, yeah. All right. So now, Boraner, the tragic figure has his tragedy tied in with traditionally masculine

downsides. Oh, because he's competitive. He's deeply competitive. He's competitive. He's deeply competitive. He struggles with being a follower rather than the leader of the group. Right. It bugs him. The air going into one in charge. Right.

Godore has no king. Godore needs no king. There is this. There is this deep level of insecurity involved there. Mm hmm. Um, his agenda. Don't tell me what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Like, okay, there was for you. Right. No, you don't tell me what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Like, okay, there was for

you. Right. Man, whatever. His agenda is we have, this is a gift. We have to use, why not use this thing against its maker. That's a very classically macho approach. I've been handed a weapon. I'm going to use the weapon. Yeah, let's take the fight to them too. Yes. The other thing the weapon. Yeah, it's take the fight to them too. Yes. That's the other thing. Yes. What? In two towers, we learn how much he loved his brother and how much he values his brother

far more than their father does. The scenes in the two towers between him and Faramir are wonderful and heart breaking. I'm going to have to watch this again, but okay. Because Sean Bean is like his amazing actor. He really is. And he shows, you know, their father, when we see Denithor talking to pharmaer, Denethor is always talking to pharmaer about, you know, I, I, why can't you be more like your brother, your brother

is always, you know, a winner or your brother does that? No, that's the other thing. But when Boramir, when, when we see the scenes with Boramir and pharmaer, Boramir's interaction with pharmaer is always look at what we have done brother. Right, right. And he does not, when he's not busy being made insecure by aregor and being around, he is a really good leader because he's not being an arrogant prick. You know, like he, he, he's the shit and he knows it, but he's, he's giving, he gives credit to his brother. He, he speaks in we kind of terms. He's trying to bring people up around him.

Yeah, because the understands that's how you're successful as a leader. because of the understands that's how you're successful as a leader. And we see him because there is, there is the moment you talked about where he's kind of, he denigrates the hobbits a little bit indirectly. But we also see him teaching them to fight in camp during the first film too. Yeah, and they're laughing and he's pointing out to him, you know, okay, that was good. Let's do that again. Yeah. He's and he's not being an asshole coach.

He's being a good coach, right? Yep. When he when he talks about his home and his people, he lights up. Okay. He talks about the white city and you can see how much he loves his people and he loves his home Yeah And and in the end and this is really important he owns his mistake And he dies worrying about the little ones right

And he says farewell to Erragorn with honor and respect. And he ultimately winds up getting over his insecurity in his final moments. And so is and so has a really meaningful moment of redemption when the traits that got him to the point where he needed to be redeemed were the ones I just talked about, which are the traditional kind of dark sides of masculinity, right? Right. Right.

Okay. That brings us to Aragorn. You know, just, okay. Do you think anybody besides Sean Bean could have done that? No, no, no, I genuinely don't. I think I think he's an under sung actor. Like he, you know, what I would love to see him do. I would love to see him play Richard Sharp. I think he could really bring a lot to that character. Really? Oh, have I got good news for you? Oh, what's that? Well, you know, despite the fact that I think he was, I think he was, I think he was a really poor choice because he looks

nothing like the character was described as being right. I'm talking at my ass. No, he's fucking brilliant. And like and Cornwell and the author actually said, no, I kind of want to go back and rewrite the first couple of books to make him blonde just because that's him. Like, you know, well played sir. Well played., well played you know and and I have you seen Jupiter rising? I've not. Okay, most of here's the deal. Most of that movie is just it's it's bad like it's it's it's a kind of bad that the Wachowskis are the only ones who could do which is there are so many big fucking ideas and they clearly swung for the fence. Like they flung the bat over the left field wall, but they whiffed. Okay. But it's amazing. It's amazing to see the effort that went into that. And Sean Bean, in the scenes that Sean Bean is in, he elevates a shit movie into

being remarkably watchable. Okay. Um, so like that, I kind of want to say that's that's almost the highest praise you can give an actor is like this is a, this movie stinks on ice, but he makes the parts that he's in worth watching. Okay, yeah, I can see that. So, yeah. Um, and that brings us to Vigo Mortensen and Erigorne, the rightful king.

Um, Erigorne never asserts his dominion, literally, despite literally having entitlement. Yep. That's true. He treats literally everyone he encounters with compassion, respect, and humor when appropriate. He leads through service. He's almost, I mean, honestly, and I got, I'm going to have to watch it again.

Yeah. But he's almost so good that he is apart from everyone, like. Yeah, and I think that's a bit of a vibe. It is a little bit of a vibe and I think that's a vibe that is, I think that's a vibe that's borrowed from the books. Okay. Because I think that's rooted in the ideal of kingship that Tolkien was working from. Okay. Fair enough.

So, but... Treats everybody with humor. Treats everybody with compassion, respect, and humor. He leads through service. So like the first example I have is the fight at weather top. Before they've even gotten to Rivendell He throws himself At at the Nazgul

That's the one the Frodo gets stabbed, right? Yeah. Yeah, we're Frodo get stabbed. He Immediately right like lunges at at the Nazgul with a with a torch in one hand There's that great moment where he winds up, you know flinging torch and sticking it in the towel of one of the one of the Nazgul with a with a torch in one hand. There's that great moment where he winds up, you know, flinging torch and sticking it in the towel of one of the one of the Nazgul. And I mean, he he literally puts himself. Mm-hmm between the Nazgul and the Hobbits. Because because that's his job. Like, yes, I'm the air of his older, doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, that's not, I'm the air of his older, doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah.

I got to get these guys. That's not what I'm here for. Right. I got to get, I got to get these, these guys to, to Riven, tell sure. And then his moment that I mentioned at Helm's deep where he says, then I will die with them. Mm-hmm. Is no, no, I'm their leader. That means I'm with them. Right. If I'm their king, then my job is to be here. Right. He shows open sorrow at Gandalf's and Borimir's deaths. Mm-hmm. In the two towers, he realizes that A.O.

when I dealize with him, he very clearly knows that she is crushing hard on it. A.O.N. is the sister of A.O.R.? A.O.R. Mayor. Yeah. A.O.R. Who winds up putting on mail drag and going off to fight as a man. Yeah, I'm no man. That's right. He totally lets her down in the sweetest kindest way. Yeah, and he never looks down on her. No he never ever looks down on her and

When we see him interacting with our when he is glowing With his with his love for her sure. Yeah. And he he absolutely embodies faithfulness in that. There's that whole long kind of weird sequence in two towers. It feels almost like a dream sequence between the two of them. Is that one? Yeah. Well, I'm what I'm thinking of is not is in the two towers. You know, she gives him the the amulet talisman that he has around his neck, the pendant that he's wearing. And that that winds up being the thing he clings to when he's nearly killed when the warguriders attack in the second movie. And there is there is there's something that Jackson is trying to say in that whole sequence with all

of that. And I'm not 100% like I've never been able to quite figure out exactly what it is, but very clearly there is, there is something there that is about his love for our one being something that keeps him alive and keeps him going. And he starts the story with very, very deep seated self doubt. Yes. And he grows into confidence in his role over the course of the three movies. He is a phenomenal warrior. We see him, we see him just being a complete badass. Yeah, repeatedly in fight after fight after fight But he doesn't revel in combat. Gimli is the one who's like all right fight. All right, let's go mother fuck

Gimli's death and dice While they're doing other things. Yeah, well while the party is role-playing Gimli is sitting there, you know, building the dice. Yeah, that's, yeah, I've never done that. I don't know what you're talking about. But, but, you know, his, but Erie Gorn is really good at it, but he's not looking for a fight. You know, and so just a side note here that by all accounts, Vigo Mortensen basically is this guy in real life. Yeah, every every story you hear about him is how he's this humble,

collegial, kind, sensitive animal lover. Yeah, you know, who like everybody who's ever worked with him is like, oh, he had a Vigo is one of the nicest people I've ever met in my entire life. Mm-hmm. You know, just so like being that kind sounds exhausting to me. Yeah, you know. I totally get what you mean. Yeah.

Um, and so in all of these cases, mm-hmm, even the most macho men in the fellowship are reflective, mm-hmm, they are openly emotive. Yeah, he looks like there's that scene where he broke his toe in the scene. Yeah, we yeah, everybody has that story. But the scene still made it into the movie. Yeah, and it's a scene where they lost, I think a couple of the hobbits. Yeah.

And he dispa hobbits. Yeah. And he dispairs allowed. Yeah. And it's crushing him. Like even in his failure, he is, he's doing it the right way. Because then he gets up. And okay, I guess we got to run after them now, you know, like it's it's but there's like this He feels the pain. He's not I ain't got time to bleed, you know, it's not that Yeah, he's not he's not a

He's not a parody of masculinity. He's not, you know, but much as most the punchline. Yeah, yeah He's 100% feels that in that moment and then he moves forward. Yeah. And yeah, you're absolutely right. Okay. So you're saying. So yeah. No, just like you just said, they show real vulnerability and fear. Mm-hmm. And and visually, I still can't stress this enough, they're not superlative examples of masculine power fantasy. Right. Their bad acts is, but it's not rooted in them looking physically powerful. Yeah. Okay. And just before, you know, moving on in supporting roles, Thayoden is a grizzled warrior king who, again, leads by service and self-sacrifice. He is, he is, he definitely embodies a certain traditional manly archetype, but he has clear moments of doubt that do not ever

unman him. Right. Denithor is an egocentric narcissist who favors his more macho son and whose strength shatters into madness when he faces defeat, which is a living indictment of the harsh father archetype. So in every way the characterizations in the Lord of the Rings directly refute the tropes that show up in the 80s movies. Yeah, yeah. But the question is like, why from a from a historical standpoint, what are we looking at, right? Because that's what we do here. Yeah. So Clarence Thomas got confirmed to the could go into the details of the allegations,

but it's gross. And that showed how far feminism still needed to go, which catalyzed the third wave the third wave of feminism, which... And so the third wave of feminism was called for by Rebecca Walker, in an essay in Ms. Magazine, I am not a post-feminism feminist, I am the third wave. And the cultural changes that were called for by the third wave, by, by third wave feminism, I believe had a very powerful impact on the, the way that a new generation of people, men and women viewed both women's roles in society and men's. And so that's one of the points that I think I'm going to bring up in our next episode when I talk about the historical context of this.

Because this is a good place for us to pause. Sure. And so that's kind of where we're going to go with that. This is a good place for us to pause. And so that's kind of where we're going to go with that. And then I'm also then going to move the timeline forward after that to talk about the other big fantasy juggernaut since the 80s boom, which has to be game of throwns. Oh, wow. So.

Okay. has to be game of thrones. Oh, wow. So, okay. And when you do, I'm going to be a siguous about that early 2000s thing, because you know what happened in the early 2000s. I do. I do. I'm counting on you to be. So, yeah. Good.

Yeah, because Dana Carvey still has to answer for that fucking movie. But. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to disagree with you. I'm sure there's other stuff that happened in the news too, but there you go. But no, I look forward to that quite a bit because I want to see the interplay of third-wave feminism and the gasping, reaching grasp that it was unfortunately successful of the second bush and the chained patrol.

So where you see a, I mean, I do not mean this is any way to body shame, anybody or ability shame, anybody who suffers from erectile dysfunction, but it is interesting to me that most of the cabinet were guys who defined masculinity in the Reagan era And bought into that bullshit and most of them were the types of guys that the Viagra commercials were aimed at Yes, and most of them killed a shit ton of people worldwide. So just kind of a thing. So yeah. So so based on what we've talked about so far. Yeah. Before we get into all of that, what's your take away? Yes. What is this leave you thinking about? On a man. It honestly like it reminds me a bit of what we talked about with punk with a friend of the show Jason, uh, Bridget, um, which is, um, that there's this, this secondary current or wave of post clintonian success for white people because we are still talking about largely white movies

here. Oh, yeah. Um, you know, I think, yeah, I think that's maybe why I said, hey, maybe the baseball team, not the basketball team still because these movies were not aimed at black audiences and basketball. By this point, uh, is, is, uh, getting, um, more, more blackified. Um, there's fewer white people going into basketball. And so, you know, the prosperity seems to have loose in the strings and the tendrils of the masculinity and the negativity of it. Because what we're seeing is like, as we come out of the 90s or come come through the 90s masculinity is no longer

one iconic thing. Mm-hmm. Fantasy movies. So the escapism can be different. You should be shitty to women. Yeah. Yeah. This doesn't have to be like a constant rape fantasy. Yeah, exactly. And a rescue fantasy. Like you don't have to be like a constant rape fantasy. Yeah, exactly. And a rescue fantasy like you don't have to. Yeah. Uh, yeah, force a kiss on the damsel and rescue her. Yeah. You know, so.

Yeah, I, I, I see that positivity and having just actually recently finished watching Game of Thrones, Like watch the whole thing. Well, okay, it gets dark. Oh, which I look forward to seeing what you do with that and adding a little bit in. So that's what I've glint is that once again, the 90s seem to be a really good time to be a white guy. And in popular culture.

Yeah. And there was a lot of flexibility allowed toward the definitions of masculinity at that point. Well, certainly a lot more than their had been. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, as we've said before, you know, don't ask, don't tell, was a huge step forward? Looking back, it's shit. Just looking back, it's a massive half measure, but it was tell a big step forward. Yeah, really was. So anyway, what's your reading? Or tell people to read? I think what I'm going to tell people to read is I'm actually going to recommend that people pick up the fellowship of the ring. Most of the movies. Both. Okay. Because, and I actually, I'm going to say, I kind of very strongly recommend reading the book

at like finding a way to kind of watch the movie, as like start reading the book, get a few chapters in, then watch the movie, then finish the book. Okay. Because I am consistent every time I revisit the movies, because I've read the book way too many times. So every time I revisit the films, it is fascinating to me to see how all of the choices that Jackson made.

When he had to deviate from the book, he found a way to deviate that was the letter is different, but the spirit is entirely there. And I think it's an amazing, it's an amazing example of a really, really loving and well thought out adaptation. Okay. So that's my recommendation. How about you? I'm going to recommend. So what I got my master's degree in 100 years ago was gender history specifically. I looked at the concepts of femininity as they were portrayed and interpreted by two different socialists groups in England surrounding the issue of suffrage. Okay. That's what I focused on.

And as a result, I, I, a lot of, a lot of early century issues of gender and stuff like that were kind of the backdrop of what I studied and things like that. And I got to know several gender historians. So as with that as context, I'm going to recommend the male body at war, American masculinity during World War II by Christina Jarvis. So there's a whole study that was happening in the early 2000s about masculinity

and how it shaped history. There's a wonderful book about World War I, and I'll probably recommend it in the next one about the male body in that one as well. Yeah, I'm gonna save that one for next time, but it was a fascinating look at World War I. Concepts of affection, concept of disability and fitness and things like that. But this one is World War II,

and specifically because you really see this more masculine kind of propaganda, you see corded muscles in the propaganda posters and things like that. And so given what we're talking about and given where St. Reagan came from and what he pretended at, you know, that's that era. And so if you want to get into a little bit of the mindset that kind of set set a tone or at least gave them a visual vocabulary Okay, or the 1980s movies. I think that would be a good place to go. So the male body at war America's Matt American

Masculinity during World War II. So. All right. Cool. Well, where can folks find you if you want to be found, tomorrow from the show Gabriel Cruz, because I've stopped wanting to be found places. Yeah, I'm available to be found at Cat Fetchter on Twitter. That's where I go by that handle now. And on TikTok, I am Mr. underscore Blaylock.

And then of course, we can be found at Geek History of Time on Twitter. And www.geekhistoryoftime.com is where you can find our website. Obviously, you're listening to us. So you have found us on one of the podcast services through which we can be found there. If you have found us there, I beg of you to take a moment to subscribe and plus the five star reading that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir? Well, you could find me at the harmony in the pool of turds that is Twitter. of turds that is Twitter. And honestly, the best place to find me is, let's see, by the time this airs, we might be doing the March show back at Luna's March 3rd at 8 p.m.

Bring proof of vaccination. We encourage masking because we don't want you to get sick, just because you want to come out and see some amazing puns. But capital punishment will be at Luna's on March 3rd at 8 p.m. and it will be back at Henry's bar on April 7th at 8 p.m. So those are the two shows that I'm doing locally in Sacramento. So yeah, that's where you can find me for now. Come on down, bring some money from merch, bring some money to eat, make a date of it, bring your friends, make sure you're all safe, vaccinated, and get yourself tested.

So yeah, well, for Geek History of Time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s. I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time, keep rolling 20s.