Alex Schwartz: This is Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Alex Schwartz. I'm Naomi Fry. Vinson Cunningham: I'm Vinson Cunningham. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. The question of today's episode, it's a big one, perennial even, what's going on with men? Are they okay? Men. Okay, what do you guys think, are they? I don't think Naomi Fry: anyone is okay. Yeah, yeah, like, it's not just men, Vinson. Are, are Vinson Cunningham: they okay relative to other categories of being? Naomi Fry: No. Mm. Vinson Cunningham: Uh, we hear all the time about this idea of men being in crisis. I'd love to... What are some of the data points that are floating around in the culture? Naomi Fry: I mean, you know, so much talk about toxic masculinity, that it's almost become a cliche- Mm-hmm ... Alex Schwartz: at this point. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Um, there are many statistics that show that men are falling behind women in grade school, that they enroll in college in lower numbers, that their career prospects are dwindling, that their lifespans are shorter than- Yeah women's lifespans. And on top of the stats, we're seeing a very distinctive cultural moment, that's been going on for a little while, but is really worth highlighting, which is the world of the manosphere, men who traffic in an aggressive misogyny, and the idea that masculinity is directly about suppressing women, um, subjugating women, and maximizing their own sexual worthiness by all kinds of cosmetic interventions, surgical interventions, um, hormonal interventions. This has become a huge part of discourse around masculinity, and I would totally argue, probably not alone, a big part of what is going wrong for men right now. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. The, the, the men, they're, they're not doing great. And as we said, this is a concern that's ongoing. We've even touched on it on more than one of our episodes. We've gone down this road. It comes up a lot. Uh, but we're doing this episode now because discourse about masculinity has hit a sort of fever pitch. There are very different ideas about what is the nature of this crisis, how you might resolve it, and all of these ideas are being kind of modeled, tested, portrayed in the culture. What are we seeing? Naomi Fry: In terms of culture right now, I think what we are seeing is two roads diverge in a wood- Mm ... vibe. situation. Vinson Cunningham: Yes. Naomi Fry: On the one hand, we have cultural texts, for instance, the new HBO show Half Man, created by Richard Gadd, CLIP: Half Man really leaning into violent aggression of the kind of alpha male and, and kind of investigating where that comes from and the consequences of it and so on. And on the other hand, we have the other road, you know, we can talk about heated rivalry, for instance, CLIP: Heated Rivalry Which is kind of like can men get back in touch with their softer side? You know, like what might be available for them- Mm-hmm ... emotionally? You know, do boys cry? Yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. I think this is kind of what we're dealing with in culture right now. Vinson Cunningham: So today, on that note, we're starting with Half Man and then broadening out to talk about how these shifting notions and portrayals of masculinity are taking shape and coming forward through the culture. And one question at least that I have is, you know, how truly new is all of this? Masculinity has been portrayed as being in crisis for as long as I think I've been alive, and I'd love to know what these new portrayals have to do with this long-running discourse. That's today on Critics at Large. Where do men go from here? ________________ All right. Men. Before we get too far, I'd just like to further situate ourselves. We're cycles deep into this conversation in the culture about masculinity. What do you remember, at least in the recent past, as the beginning of discourse about problems with masculinity? Alex Schwartz: I would take it back honestly to the feminist movement. Absolutely. We are still in the midst, not even close to the tail end, of the backlash that came around as a result of the women's liberation movement of the '70s, where men felt, uh, not all men, not all men. This episode should very much be called Not All Men. Vinson Cunningham: It could be. Alex Schwartz: Um, but some men felt- overlooked, felt oppressed, felt very disturbed by this recalibration of gender roles and, um, and gender responsibilities and gender identities really. And then out of this grows a men's rights, men's pride- Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm ... Alex Schwartz: agenda. And when I think about that, I think about a fictional character from the late '90s. I think about Frank T.J. Mackey- Of course ... from Magnolia. Respect the cock. Paul Thomas Anderson's- Mm-hmm ... 1999 movie. Um, and Frank T.J. Mackey is a re- a men's rights advocate who gives seminar performances at which he, um, rises up before a group of frankly, like, lame dudes. Mm-hmm. And enjoins them to, as Naomi said, "Respect the cock." I have a whole clip I can play if we wanna pause for this, but we can also- Please ... keep on moving. Please. Do you guys wanna see the beginning of Frank T.J. Mackey's? So good. It's so good. So this is just Tom Cruise pumping his arms in a kind of gladiatorial/Christ-like gesture- Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm it seems to me. And behind him unfurls a banner that says, "Seduce and destroy." Mm-hmm. CLIP: Magnolia Naomi Fry: really is such a good actor. So this goes on. It's ingenious. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. I'm thinking about another movie from the same year, in fact, Fight Club, David Fincher's Fight Club, which is, treats the crisis in masculinity kind of like less from the positioning of kind of being cucked by women, and more in the sense of kind of the softness that capitalism has begat CLIP: Fight Club Naomi Fry: has, has made men kind of like softened cucks. And the way to confront that is, of course, by Going to the underground fight club Yeah Where like the f- you know, a fist hits the flesh and the blood spurts, and the man feels alive, and, uh, regains, uh, his lost powers- Yeah ... that, you know, the kind of late 20th century has sucked out of him. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, thinking about, like, you know, when did this start for you? At least in my lifetime, I think Fight Club is such a great, um, mention because that same year in 1999, that was the year of the, um, the Columbine shooting. Naomi Fry: Absolutely. Vinson Cunningham: And it's funny because the discourse in my lifetime over mass shootings has now become almost wholly about guns and- Mm-hmm ... uh, and gun control, gun violence, et cetera, rightly so. But at that f- initial moment, it was a lot about young boys and- Yes ... bullying, the sort of cruelty of young boys on one hand, on the vulnerability of them on another. I was part of this group uh, in, in my high school. I got all of my c- community service hours by being a part of this group that was called End Teen Cruelty, and it was in s- it was started by this woman who was a psychologist and wanted to, like, train kids to sort of diffuse bullying. And, and it was, like, almost explicitly about, like, sort of how to combat, like, intra-masculine violence. It was really... It, it was a big discourse in my childhood, and you mentioned this thing that you said up earlier, Nomi, like this kind of two sides thing. you could see it even in media. The- there popped up instead of the sort of relatively sophisticated presentation of men's magazines like Esquire and GQ, all of a sudden there was Maxim. Mm-hmm. And all of a sudden there were these- Yes ... lad mags. Naomi Fry: The lad mags of the aughts, you know, Girls- Joe Francis- Yeah ... and Girls Gone Wild. I think the, the second wave feminism of the '70s since then, this pendulum swing, right, between what is acceptable, um, and not acceptable in terms of, like, the way men are and specifically the way they relate to women, um, has swung from one, uh, kind of side to another. And I think all of this is the prehistory to- The moment we're in today Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Yeah. I would say two huge things happen. One is the internet, and one is MAGA. You get, uh, all this stuff migrating online. You get people posting message boards, people spreading this, the word, the good word about aggressive masculinity. And then you get MAGA, which finds a way to take a bunch of disaffected, angry, upset men and channel them into a political movement. Vinson Cunningham: That's right. So with all that in mind, let's turn to Half Man. Now, this show, uh, is in a lot of ways the occasion for this episode. It's another florid exercise in violence and tortured sexual neurosis by Richard Gadd. It was made for the BBC and HBO. Um, Gadd, as many listeners will know, uh, is the creator of another polarizing show, Baby Reindeer. Um, Nomi, would you like to sort of set this up, uh, give us a sort of synopsis at least of the setup of Half Man? Naomi Fry: Okay. The curtain opens- Vinson Cunningham: Boy, does it ... Naomi Fry: on a, on a group of, of chorus line dreamers. Uh, no, I'm kidding. The- The Vinson Cunningham: cur- Naomi Fry: the... So okay, hwe are. It's the '80s. We are in Scotland. We are in the working class. Mm-hmm. Okay? Uh, we have two boys, two teenage boys. We have Niall, a kind of twitchy, fidgety, probably closeted gay boy of about 16. His rough-and-tumble mother- ... is a lesbian who has a girlfriend, and along with a girlfriend comes the girlfriend's son, Ruben, a hunky hunk of beef, but also a cr- a violent criminal type. CLIP: Half Man Naomi Fry: This is the setup. CLIP: Half Man We have these two boys. CLIP: Half Man As they grow up, Ruben becomes both a tormentor of Niall and a protector of Niall. You know that the hateful- But yearning erotic tension- Mm-hmm ... at least from, from Niall towards Ruben cannot be denied. They are brothers. They are blood brothers, and yet he is a violent monster. The first kind of like traumatic event i guess that we are privy to is Niall is on the verge in uni of exploring his homosexuality with his flatmate Albi, and Ruben loses it and pummels Albi into the ground, almost kills him, goes to jail. There's[a][b] a lot of that happening over the course of the show. Basically, it’s about. Alex Schwartz: gonna, she's... I love it. Tell us what it's about. I'm like, "What is this show about?" So this show- It's so hard to say. It's so hard to say. Naomi Fry: I know I always say this, but every episode is 9,000 hours long. Okay? I mean, they are, like technically speaking, slightly over an hour long each- ... and it's six episodes, but it's glacial. Vincent, you said florid. Mm-hmm. I could not agree more. This is like some like Fringe Festival shit, like- ... like long, long, long scenes, overwrought, just like the trauma, the pain, the completely inexplicable connection between these characters, who in fact are like incredibly thinly drawn. Sounds like you loved it. Once again- Right ... you guys, I'm a hater. There you go. I'm a hater. Uh, the, did I, I'm sorry, I wish I could give a, a better, a- Alex Schwartz: No, no, no ... it's hard to synopsis. The only, the only other- No, I, I wasn't laughing at you. Yeah. I was laughing at the, the fact that the show repeats itself so many times- Yes ... that once you start engaging with it in its plot terms, you are just gonna find yourself in a loop. Yeah. Right. That you keep going up and around, and up around. Right. 'Cause that's the point of the show. Yeah. The point of the show is about cycles that can't be broken. Right. Yes. And, and the cycle that can't be broken is the mutually intensely destructive relationship between these two people. I think the show is set up with a rather simple idea that each can be the other's savior to some extent. Certainly, that's what their mothers want for them. They want the tender one to show the, the mean one some feelings, and they want the mean one to kinda help the tender one stand up for himself- Mm-hmm ... and walk through life a little bit taller, you know? Walk like a man, talk like a man. That's, that's, that's- Yeah. And instead, they just end up in a kind of prolonged lifelong wrestling match where they can't quit each other. Vinson Cunningham: That's right. Alex Schwartz: Vincent, you're a man. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, I am a man. I am a man. And I'm probably- What did you make of this? You know, I don't, I, I don't, I don't think of myself as a, as a, as a Niall or a Ruben. I'm somewhere in between. But I liked it slightly better than you have described. I definitely, there is a kind of patina to the Richard Gadd verse- ... of, it's like, it's, it's, it's like a, it's, it's high polish menace. Mm-hmm. You know, in a way that it doesn't, even though many of the situations are very gritty and dark, it does still have this kind of sparkle in its eye toward the viewer. Mm. It's very self-conscious of, of the way it's being watched. It's the- it's theatrical, I would say. And it is, it has a, maybe a theatricality is the way- Mm-hmm ... to talk about that. Um- But I did like the extent to which these characters become on, on, in some way, your, to your point, the, the moms want them to help each other. They do become in some way co- co- codependent- Mm-hmm ... or, and, and, and in, and maybe even parasitic- Mm-hmm ... on one another. Mm-hmm. If we talk about, you know, this idea of two roads, as we mentioned. You know, are you gonna toughen up and be the right-wing psycho, or are you gonna be, you know, whatever, a pathetic nice guy or something like that? I don't know. Mm-hmm. Um, here it says, what if you actually, you know, two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler. This show's like, "I am gonna be one traveler." Mm. "I don't have to choose. What if I could be the nice guy but also have a psycho, uh, alter ego every once in a-" Well, it's very Fight Club, right? It is ver- That's, this is why- Mm-hmm ... it's very Fight Club. Yeah. Um, at some point, kind of, again, unsubtly, a character says, "What do you mean you're like him?" To, to Nile. He says, "You guys are about as much alike as Jekyll and Hyde." And that's kind of the thesis statement of the show. Mm-hmm. It's somebody trying, two people on some level, trying to have it both ways. And so it's not a, it's not, for example, it's not a mistake that, um... And this is what I think is kind of interesting psychologically about the show. It's not a mistake that Reuben shows up. You know, Nile has sort of escaped the home situation, and he, at, at a moment of panic when he's worried about the developing relationship with this Albie, that's when he calls Reuben and says, "I need you, man." And then he comes, and Nile realizes this might be irreversible, the violence that is about to be visited upon everybody that I live with. But he's the one that made the decision because of his uncertainty about masculinity. So he's sort of deploying this, this dark corner of his own psyche in the person of his brother from another lover, as they're always saying. Yes. So that aspect of the show I did really kind of think was psychologically acute and interesting as a, as a sort of paradigm- Yeah ... of how these two ideas about masculinity or choose one can actually be a, a kind of end run around a, you know, total loop. Critics at Large from The New Yorker will be right back. MIDROLL 1 Vinson Cunningham: So Half Man is this very dark portrait of masculinity, but like we've said, these depictions are kinda going everywhere and maybe pointing out two different lanes. So what's the other side? If Half Man is the dark side of this yin and yang, what can we point to as the, the polar opposite? Naomi Fry: I mean, okay, well, we, we've talked about our beloved heated rivalry already, which also takes place in a highly masculinist world of professional sports. And, um, the sports, professional sports sphere in which it, it takes place allows for a kind of like old school closetedness that- Yeah that, you know, creates kind of plot possibilities and, and tonal possibilities. And these two characters, Eli and Shane, um, should by all rights be expected to be Reuben, right? To be these killers who cannot kind of accept any sign of kind of like softness or, or weakness or anything that diverts from kind of alpha masculinity- Mm-hmm hyper straight and so on. And yet, as we know, the show shows them exploring exactly that, and shows the joy that they find CLIP: Heated Rivalry Um, and are able to create a version of masculinity that is not Reuben-esque. Reuben-esque. Alex Schwartz: Reuben-esque. Vinson Cunningham: Little angels, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Alex Schwartz: Or more to the point, not Niall-esque, I think. The, the th- the thesis of Heated Rivalry is that you need to let the sun shine in. The, the, that you need to expose things, you need to be living in the open, let the world catch up with you, take the risk. It's worth it not to feel the degrading shame that comes with living in the shadow, in the closet. Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, yeah. And then also we had Adolescence, um- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ... a, a couple of years ago- Mm-hmm ... also from the UK, um, about a young, uh, a young man who has, spoiler alert, under the sign of bullying again, has cr- committed a heinous crime of killing his female classmate, his, a, a little girl. CLIP: Adolescence Adolescence is another o- one of these things that, uh, it maybe isn't as, it's not light, it's not the opposite of Half Man, but it was, by situating the problem among children, um, I felt that it k- kind of had this ray of, uh, possibility that it could be otherwise if only we would all change or something like that. I Alex Schwartz: think that was very much the point of Adolescence. Um, Adolescence, which was created by Jack Thorne, uh, s- has been shown in schools in France, in the Netherlands, in the UK I believe, as a kind of educational text, and as a way to make the youth aware of toxic masculinity, so to speak. I'd be very curious to know how that's worked out. Mm. I would not recommend making art in the service of educating- Basically anyone, and certainly not the youth. I respect the youth too much for that. Um, i- it's a very ... Adolescence was riveting, and it also is didactic, and the same is true about, about Half Man. You could, I ... There was actually a, a columnist, a female columnist in, in England who said she thought this should be shown anywhere men are gathered. Strong disagree. Like, that, what's that gonna do here? This, this doesn't make any sense to me. No. You're, you're gonna see the result of your actions and feel so horrified that you change your ways, and who are you even ... I, I find this, uh, to be such an irritating approach, both to men and to art. Yeah. Like, both deserve better- Mm-hmm than that. Um, in terms of the, like, other ways to be a man that we're being shown right now, another show we've talked about, Is DTF St. Louis. We didn't talk about this aspect of DTF St. Louis when we did our episode, but I could not stop thinking about its depiction of masculinity after we wrapped, to the extent that I wrote a piece about it. A wonderful piece. Yeah. Because- Naomi Fry: Check it out, listeners ... Alex Schwartz: I, I've just never seen a relationship between men quite like the one depicted on DTF St. Louis, which to me is almost science fictional in how it posits a future for men. If we're talking about this kind of realism taken to a macho extreme, taken to an almost, like, steroidal extreme in something like Half Man, DTF St. Louis posits a world where there kind of is no shame around things that traditionally men would find shame in, like homosexuality. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: This is a show in which two straight middle-aged men who are both, are at, in a total rut in their lives and in their marriages form an intense bond with one another, to the point where they act like lovers and look like lovers but aren't. CLIP: DTF St Louis Alex Schwartz: it totally fascinating and, um, beautiful and also totally tragic because the show of course does not, it, none of this works out well for the men in any of these shows. Right. Right. Naomi Fry: So, uh, right, I wanna ask you, Alex, like, but these men, they're also kind of presented as losers, are they not? Right? But no Alex Schwartz: one is presented as the cool alternative. There's something very, uh, uh, are they losers? They're kind of average, I think- They're, they, they- ... is the idea. The show, the show, the whole thing about the show is there is no such thing as a loser. Like, the, the kind of, the phrase that keeps getting tossed around from the show is, "No one is normal, just looks that way from across the street." And again, the problem for these guys is that, uh, particularly for the Floyd Serminage character, the one played by, um, David Harbour, is that he cannot find a degree of self-acceptance, which has very much to do with the body. It has to do with feeling too fat, too old, and having a weird, crooked penis. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Alex Schwartz: And he just thinks those things, he can't surmount those things. Vinson Cunningham: And they're, uh, uh, they're not, they're not losers, but they are very lonely and very desperate. And so I think they are brought to the threshold of some of these questions e- about sexuality, about intimacy. They're brought there by their desperation. So I, it's not like, it is, I understand what you mean, this sort of science fictional openness, but it's almost like the portal into this other world does have to be some amount of suffering. Yes. You know? That's right. And there, and, and I did think that DTF was, if there was something very open about it, it was about an open portrayal of deep suffering. Yeah. I, I'm, I'm still thinking about it. I thought it was really w- really well done. Alex Schwartz: And maybe the, maybe the issue at the heart of that, which is kind of at the heart of all of these things we're talking about with, with, that are about- These texts, these TV shows, whatever, that are about men and boys, is there a sense- there's a sense of being profoundly misunderstood- Mm-hmm by the wider world- Mm-hmm ... going on in all of these, and I think that ha- that stems from the very idea of archetypes, that if you don't subscribe to a clear archetype and make yourself very legible to the world at large, you won't actually be seen. But if you do subscribe to one of those archetypes, you're not gonna be seen anyway because your individuality is gonna be completely scrubbed. Vinson Cunningham: Right. Alex Schwartz: That, I think, is the kind of rub of m- masculinity that keeps coming back and back and back in these different things. You can turn yourself into a character and into a s- you know, into a superhero or into the exact opposite, but the individuality part gets lost in the wash. Nobody sees it. Yeah. Nobody sees it. Naomi Fry: Yeah. But Vincent, you watched another show, right? Another recent show, a n- a new adaptation of Lord of the Flies on Netflix. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so it's, um, it is a mini-series based on the 1954 novel by Wi- William Golding, um, Lord of the Flies, also b- a BBC product, not brought to HBO this time, but to Netflix, and I really like this show. First of all, it tempts us to be, strangely, it, you know, the story is a bunch of schoolboys have survived, survived a plane crash and are lost on an island. They don't know, uh, where they are, and they s- very quickly, speaking of archetypes, fall into roles- Mm ... um, and try to build a kind of society. The first, almost the first thing that happens is we need a chief. CLIP: Lord of the Flies And it goes from there, all the skirmishes that are sort of maybe proto-political in nature is the real- Grain of the show. But in the meantime, though, there's a lot of quiet walking through this maybe initially pre-lapsarian jungle. Um, lots of shots of birds overhead, as if to show the kind of impassiveness of nature as all this human drama plays about. I, I think it's really well shot. It makes really good use of the fish-eye lens, which I usually don't like. and each of the episodes sort of is focalized through, um, the point of view of, of, of one of the boys, and it's made by Jack Thorne, who is also the creator, director, visionary behind Adolescence. Um, did e- either of you guys watch any of this? Alex Schwartz: I didn't. No. But I have a, I have a question about it. The thing I'm curious to know is Lord of the Flies, of course, as you said, came out in 1954 as a novel, and it's since become just a byword for a Hobbesian environment in which boys cobble each other to the death. I mean- Sure ... the, the end, the demise of Piggy- Ugh ... I can't even tell you when I read it- I'm still traumatized ... 30 years ago. Traumatic. Yeah. Traumatic. Absolutely traumatic. Traumatic. Little Piggy, they sh- they smash his glasses, you know, horrifying. Not the glasses. So is this version of Lord of the Flies, do you think it's been updated in some way to speak to the issues we have today, or is it trying to take a very classic adaptation of the text, or w- what's going on there? I- Why now for Lord of the Flies? I Vinson Cunningham: do think that there is, using, from my mem- from my memory, which is, you know, uh, not sterling anymore, I guess, but it seemed to be very, there are lots of very close kinships with the or- original text. But there did to see- seem to be an emphasis on the society from which the boys come. R- Ralph, who is the one who is named chief, he's always talking about, and we get this from the beginning, "My father's in the Navy. He, he's an admirable, admiral first class." Um, his kind of leadership rival, who is the, the head of the, he, he, he's come with his, like, school choir and becomes the head of the, the hunters who become this, like, sort of rogue, fascist paramilitary. Um, he talks about, "My father is a spy." And so a lot of their ideas about government, it's interesting. Like- Mm ... when I was younger, I'd, I did think, "Okay, this is about how human society develops without the, the sort of civilizing hand of the law, government institutions." But today, though, this time around, I, I would say in this adaptation, it's much more about what we- What young people, what the young glean from the political structures in which they are raised. What is the father like? How does a man behave? What is leadership? What is, uh, toughness? ,these are ideas that were traveling in that plane and although the plane crashed, the plane did not survive, but ideology did survive. Mm. And so I do think that there is a dimension of, um, received ideas and how early perhaps is the thesis of this adaptation these ideas are transmitted and how fatally they are. Naomi Fry: Oof. I was thinking about another, I mean, to, to go to a different genre altogether, about another example of kind of like the roads diverging for men and how the pendulum moves from one side to another. Um, I recently wrote about the newest season of Vanderpump Rules. Oh, man. The, the Bravo- What are those Vinson Cunningham: kids getting into? ... Naomi Fry: reality show. So, okay, so here's- ... here's what happened. The, the show ran for 11 seasons, and, uh, it got tired. There was nowhere, uh, else to go. The storylines weren't storying anymore, et cetera, et cetera- ... especially after Scandoval, which if you know, you know. Vinson Cunningham: Oh, yeah. Naomi Fry: Um- Thick Vinson Cunningham: stuff ... Naomi Fry: and so then they went on hiatus and repopulated the show. So it's a new cast. It's the same gambit of like, we have barkeeps, bartenders and- ... and waitresses at the sexy, unique restaurant, Lisa Vanderpump's West Hollywood establishment. And so we have a new group of kinda 20-somethings, right? Mm-hmm. And I was struck by how much more, at least on the sur- on the face of it, that's how they present themselves on the show, in touch with their feelings the men are. Vinson Cunningham: Ah. Naomi Fry: There's, you know, probably gonna be like cheating and things like that. Sure. How else could you have a Vinson Cunningham: TV show? Naomi Fry: Exactly. And yet the way they speak about things and their, their relative openness- Mm-hmm ... about their own possible failings, you know, maybe their sexual shortcomings. One of them like needs to use Viagra- Oh, no ... because he has like pro- And he talks about this openly. I was thinking about how- The, you know, the show, the first iteration that started in 2013, I, I don't think that would've been possible- Right ... with the guys, you know, who grew up in the 2000s, you know, who reached their masculine prime in the days- ... of Joe Francis. And yet, for this new generation, I was really struck by how much that was the case. Yeah. And I thought that was a really interesting example of kind of like the roads diverging and, you know, going in that direction, not the manosphere direction. Right. At least not in this group of people. Vinson Cunningham: Not yet. Not yet. It's a long season. Naomi Fry: It's a... You know what? It's a long season. You're right. You're right. Vinson Cunningham: So we've talked about these two paths for men. In a minute, we move from cultural depictions to real life. Critics at Large from The New Yorker will be right back. MIDROLL 2 So we've been talking about these depictions in largely popular art, but of course, it's also happening in real life as portrayed to us, um, by the media, these ideas about, uh, masculinity in the broader culture. Um, Alex, maybe to start to tease that out, I know that you watched an interview with a certain man whose name is Clavicular. Mm-hmm. And I would love to hear your- What your analysis of, um, Clavicular and his fellow travelers and, and- ... in the minds of looksmaxxing. Alex Schwartz: So Clavicular is a name that I would say I had never heard before, mm, I wanna say, like, March 20th, 2026. Mm. And since roughly that date- ... I've heard it between three and 400 times. Clavicular's real name is Brayden Peters. He's 20 years old. He's from Hoboken, New Jersey. These are some facts about Clavicular. Just like Vinson Cunningham: Frank Sinatra. Alex Schwartz: I didn't realize he was a Hoboken boy. See, I knew I'd be dropping things that you had not yet known. There we go. Hoboken, indeed. You probably don't know he's from Hoboken because his whole brand is Miami. Right. Everything about him- Right ... is, "I now live in Miami." It's Florida to the max. It's Florida to the max. So he has come to prominence through TikTok and Kick, a platform, again, that I was not aware of before Clavicular brought it to my attention, for looksmaxxing. And for some people who listen to this show will know exactly what that is. I, I suspect others won't. Basically, it means for men, improving your physical appearance to a point of perfection through s- cosmetic surgery, through taking things like peptides, which are amino acids that you can inject- Mm. Yeah um, and are readily available on what some people call the gray web. Very. Where, where it's- Very nice It's gonna turn you gray. Yeah. It, it- Of a gray you. It's like, it's not like, it's not like getting bricks of heroin from Silk Road, but nor is it like ordering Tylenol from Amazon. You know, it's somewhere in between- Yeah the peptide business You gotta cross a border, yes. Yeah. Um, Clavicular has, as I learned from listening to his interview on Impaulsive, Logan Paul's podcast- Wow ... um, has been on testosterone since he was 14 in an effort to, as he says, puberty max. Because clearly this young man wanted to make himself into the most m- to his mind, masculine person he could. He is all over the internet tapping on his face with various hard objects, including hammers, but also I've seen a kind of like, it almost looks like a little league trophy, a baseball thing that he's just smashing on his cheekbone with so that he can create micro breakages and regrow his jaw in a more masculine way. Mm. He's called Clavicular because of the breadth of his collarbone. I have not yet seen any reporter actually measure this thing, but his own measurements are out. You can choose to trust them or not. And I- Yeah. He's... You know how I was saying earlier- Long collarbone. That's what it is ... I mean, he has a, he has a nice clavicle, I guess So Clavicular was doing this interview with Logan Paul and his co-host of his show. They asked to be rated by him on his personal scale of sexual attractiveness. One of them is rated a 3.75, a devastating sexual attractiveness rating. CLIP: Clavicular The seriousness with which Clavicular approaches this task, it is as if he's, you know, a jeweler examining them under a microscope to tell them about the flaws in the diamond, and it's just a fact. Physical perfection is of the utmost importance, and I find that interesting for a few reasons. One is that I do think in, like, traditional ideas of masculinity, that stuff was not supposed to matter. That was girly stuff. Vinson Cunningham: Right. Like, " Alex Schwartz: Oh, you're gonna spend all this time. Like, I just rubbed some Irish Spring on my face, and I'm out the door being a lumberjack." That was, that was a version of, of masculinity that was around for a very long time. Yes. What are you doing with your ointments and your potions? How feminine to pursue physical beauty through all of these cosmetic and surgical means. Now men are there. So, like, women didn't climb out of that freaking hole. Men just, like, dove right down into it. Dumbed back in. Welcome. Naomi Fry: Welcome, boys. Alex Schwartz: Welcome. It's hell in here. This is a fascinating thing to be reckoned with, like, this kind of world of ratings and scales that used to be applied by men to women and now are applied by men to themselves. And to women. And to women, of course. Of course. Goes without saying. Naomi Fry: Well, I think it's interesting, the, the thing about, like, the violence that is being g- turned inward, you know. Oh. Um, we, we can't also forget the violence turned out- outward in this kind of man-o-sphere, um, environment. You know, someone like Andrew Tate- Mm-hmm who is being investigated in the UK for rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking and in Romania on a host of similar charges. Right, and we should say that he has denied all of these allegations. Of course. But you know, the respect the cock thing. Respect the cock and tame the cunt, which was obviously- Yeah ... kind of a sa- you know, a satirical, over-the-top depiction in, in P.T. Anderson's Magnolia. This is, like, the tip of the iceberg- Yeah ... of what, what we're hearing right now. Vinson Cunningham: Well, it does seem... Yeah, it does seem that there is this resurgent, um, reactionary notions just of, of what gender is. I mean, you see it. There's always these two sides of the coin where this focus on the m- the male body, I at least, and it's probably 'cause all of my apps know that I'm a man, I'm inundated by ads f- especially when I watch sports but not just then, for- You know, dick pills, hair supplements, the company Hims- Mm-hmm which already is talking about these things in the construct of gender, his and they have hers. Mm-hmm. Um, there seems to be just a total, uh, upswing in the number of these things. And of course, you know, then you look on Hollywood runways, and you see that there's, it seems to me, an increasingly violent and punishing return to ideas about the female body. Mm-hmm. You know? I mean, we can talk about all the reasons for it, b- Ozempic might be one, but it's not just that. These aesthetics of extreme skinniness are back. Yeah. And so the body starts to write these, these scripts that we've- Mm-hmm ... we've seen again. But I'm wondering, it's interesting because yeah, there are the Andrew Tates of the world and the Claviculars of the world. As we mentioned, we've been talking about this kind of two roads thing. I'm wondering if in, we see the, the other side of it in culture, but I'm not sure if we see another road in real life. Alex Schwartz: Oh my God, it's like Pedro Pascal and that's it. It's like, Pedro, carry us on your shoulders. Pedro Vinson Cunningham: Pascal, uh, Common Domingo, these are real guys who say, "Okay-" we can kind of queer our, our, our, uh, notions of clothes and how we present ourselves and not be, like, super macho." But are there, And this is the other thing, on Instagram, they're always telling me how to be jacked. There's a g- there's a, a guy named Body by Mark who goes up to people. I don't know if you've seen this Instagram account. I haven't. He goes up- Who is Alex Schwartz: Body by Mark? Vinson Cunningham: He goes up to people- Fantastic. Me too ... and he always says is, all he says is, "You look jacked. Tell me how you work out." CLIP: Body by Mark montage We're back in this moment of, like, you gotta be a he-man or you gotta be, like, a waifit. It, it- Something has happened where, like, the comic book almost- Alex Schwartz: Yes ... Vinson Cunningham: uh, is back. Alex Schwartz: Vincent, I think you're totally right. I read a really fascinating article this week in The New York Times called Why So Many Men Are Obsessed With Testosterone. Mm-hmm. And I really recommend that people read this. It is totally fascinating. It makes the point, which is very interesting, that the Trump administration is super pro testosterone, pro making testosterone supplements very widely accessible after a long period of time in which you had to be prescribed these supplements by doctors because you had a low testosterone count. Now it's gonna be easier than ever for people to access extra testosterone. It's really fascinating because it gets to the heart of this contemporary idea of what it is to be a man, that you've gotta be jacked, you gotta be ripped. Look at Heated Rivalry. We love these soft men. They're hot as hell. Like- Mm. They're, they're, they're hot as hell. They're peptide'd up. They're... I can't say that for sure, but they might as well be. So- Mm-hmm ... I don't think we have a ton of viable alternatives. I watched that documentary that you guys might have heard about, Louis Theroux's Inside the Manosphere- Yeah ... on Netflix. This has not gotten a ton of praise, this documentary. I think the general consensus is too little too late. Louis Theroux goes around with a bunch of these guys who have made fame and fortune by selling these same ideas to young men. The main point I got from it was that these guys are salesmen. Hmm. And they talk about themselves that way, and they very much identify that way. And you're selling the idea to men that if they wanna be viable in the sexual marketplace, but also very much the economic marketplace, they need to do these things. They need to become a certain type of person. And there's a scene where one influencer, He runs into two young guys who say, "You have shown me the way. You..." Because we are born without value. CLIP: Inside the Manosphere Alex Schwartz: Of course my heart breaks when I see this, because every person has value. So everyone has value. Let's start with that, you know? Yeah. What a, what a brilliant idea I just had. No, Naomi Fry: I mean, I think a ret- a return to the values of humanism is- We love those. Vinson Cunningham: But really, what is to be done in the political, cultural, or even just the personal realm? Are there any solutions that you see as sort of- Shooting up green shoots of, of promise in this area Alex Schwartz: Yeah, I think Vinson to your point of are we seeing solutions in the culture, I don’t think culture is necessarily there to provide solutions and I know you don’t necessarily think that either. I do think we're getting very interested damaged men being shown to us. Mm-hmm. And not damaged in the stereotypical toxic masculinity way. I have mixed feelings about Half Man, um, and, and one of those mixed feelings is that I think the show's somewhat didactic point is, like, a strong he-man is hurting, too, and I get it. Uh, something that I think a lot of people love is The Pit. We've talked about The Pit on this show before. Mm-hmm. And you have Dr. Robbie right there aching and hurting, a man who's absolutely falling apart, not a he-man at all. A very competent carer who has a really broken life, and we're seeing a portrait of male trauma, of someone who has taken and taken and taken more than he can hold and has no outlet for it and is breaking. It's a very sad portrait of a person, and it's, um, I think it's also helpful in this discourse. Naomi Fry: I think really, you know, I, in my younger years I feel like I was much more combative, and I see it in my teen daughter as well, and I think it's important, and I totally appreciate it. For instance, like, going nuts about manspreading. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like, stuff like that. Yeah. Which is small, obviously. It's not, we're not talking, like, anything. But I, this is, uh, obviously just a small example, but I'm tr- I'm trying, and I know this is a funny thing to say as, like, the chief hater of this podcast. I'm trying to, like, advance with love. Like, I don't know if, like, just saying, "I don't wanna have anything to do with these assholes," is gonna totally help. And I think, you know, there has been discussion about, like, is the term toxic masculinity, like, doing more harm than good at this point, right? Mm-hmm. You know, giving these young men who feel like they have no alternatives but to be, you know, hateful and dominating and et cetera, et cetera, because they feel they have no value otherwise. Expressing our own anger and frustration as women which is completely earned, I mean it’s certainly justified and more satisfying, and does much in the way of consciousness raising, oppositionally, but in terms of kind of moving forward, I wonder if there’s another alternative. Alex Schwartz: I want Vinson to tell us how to be a man. I know. Oh, yeah, let's ask Vinson. Vinson? Vinson, can you, as the man in our midst, a wonderful man in our midst- Vinson Cunningham: Thank you very much. I appreciate that ... Naomi Fry: could you tell us what the secret is? How does one be a man? Vinson Cunningham: You know, I'm, I'm, much like Dante, I'm halfway down life's journey. Still trying to figure it out. Don't know. But I will say this. If I'm ever asking, "What would a man do in this situation?" I'm usually thinking the wrong thoughts. Like, usually if I'm thinking about being a man, it is in a, uh, self-reproving or self-indicting way that is not helpful to the situation. I can still remember every time a teacher when I was a kid, like, put their face in my face and told me to be a man. Ugh. It hap- it happened a lot. Um, I think most men of my acquaintance in my generation maybe I should say, have a voice like that in their head, and it, and it has to do with messages that have been directed at us for, for a long time. And so when you're asking how to be a man, often the real answer is just how to be a person. This has been Critics at Large. Alex Barasch is our consulting editor, and Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Alexis Cuadrado composed our theme music, and we had engineering help today from Fran Bandy, with mixing by Mike Kutchman. Remember, we're working on a new edition of our advice series, I Need a Critic. If you need some cultural advice, just record a voicemail on your phone and send it to us at themail@newyorker.com. That's themail@newyorker.com, subject line, critics. And as always, you can find each and every one of our episodes at newyorker.com/critics.​