No Country for Enchanted Men

I am a male and constantly dealing with it. Sports, chicks, cars. That's basically the perfect summary of my waking hours. Not. I prefer reading, hanging with my BFFs, rocking out gently, and watching copious amounts of movies. And yet, I am still a dude. For the purposes of today's piece, it must be pointed out that those sports/chicks/cars dudes (we'll call them SCCs from here on out) also tend to watch movies. To these fellas, movies aren't totally gay or wussy. Movies are a cool way to chill with your buds in a comfortable plush environment in close proximity, throw back some brewskies, and become mesmerized by gun violence and/or dick jokes. And yet, these dudes also have brains that liked to be stimulated beyond the aforementioned guy tropes (some of them anyway).

So does my maleness, which tends to be largely absent in my life, manifest itself when I do this thing of watching moving pictures like other dudes do? Are un-male tendencies cultivated when the majority male watch intelligent films? Are intelligence and maleness mutually exclusive in the world of film (or in a larger context)? Within these gendernomic questions lie the less all-encompassing answers regarding two recent films anyway: why I found perfection in No Country for Old Men and experienced intermittent enjoyment in Enchanted. A brief explanation for each example will have to do for now - hopefully acting as a microcosm for the larger cultural studies mystery at hand.

As I watched Disney's attempt to capitalize on Shrek's postmodernism-for-kiddies success, I managed for the most part to displace all memories of Scottish Austin Powers and Smash Mouth powwows to give the fairy tale in NYC an honest chance. After all, Amy Adams is a total babe. So I let the opening animated sequence that sets up the whole little princess big city scenario engulf me with its tongue-in-cheek softness (unlike the harsh ADHD tone that muddles the strengths of the DreamWorks green ogre movies). I felt like a kid, but like childhood itself, it didn't last forever. As an underdeveloped Patrick Dempsey (McDreamy? more like McAmbivalent!) squinted his way onto the screen and a generous serving of little kid wonder was smeared over every uber-bright scene, I yearned for darkness.

I felt greedy for wanting so much out of Mickey Mouse, but I couldn't help it. I was already 75% sold on the movie due to its general ability to put an un-ironic smile on my face (despite McDumpsy) and poke at the semi-harmful fantasies the company has perpetuated throughout film history, but that's what frustrated me. It got so close to actually blending the harsh real world with fantasy, but it never really did. Once the fantastical entered the real world, the real world merely became a backdrop for jokes. Cute jokes, but still just jokes. If there was just a little more "the world sucks," I would have liked it more. I can't help it, but when I came to this realization, I felt like it had to do with my maleness. Why couldn't I just enjoy a light diversion? Why did it need to be so real? Why is my version of reality so dark? I'm a happy person, but when I want reality in film, I want it to be firmly rooted in the darkness of man.

Good can come out of the darkness of man while that darkness still surrounds him, and No Country for Old Men proved that. Sure, I didn't smile in awe as Josh Brolin gets hunted by a guy with a bad haircut as he tries to get away with $2 million that isn't his and Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones contemplates his role as enforcer of law and order. But I was entranced in the way this not-so original story was unfolded to me - the way it modestly and expansively forced us into the eyes of these characters, their choices, their blurred pasts, and their (lack of a?) future. Violence hovers above these men, and we're forced to feel haunted by the impending evil along with them. Is this a dude thing?

Movies show us basically three kinds of worlds: the one we know, the one we wish we knew, and the one we never want to know but are intrigued by (and even slightly romanticize) at a distance nonetheless. I often want to see the latter because the extremities of our society exist and feeling under the skin of the worst makes me realize what I have - the best. It's not an aesthetic flash bang of adrenaline - I don't who can still get that from watching a movie, dudes or not. It's a hypnotic suggestion that lures me in as a person, spits me back out, and I have nothing left but to appreciate what I have and what life, history, and our society has often spoiled for so many good men. I want to be enchanted, but I also want to be engulfed. Thankfully, in the world of movies, I can have and appreciate both.

This entry was posted by chris, on Monday, November 26, 2007. You can leave your response.