I have eight grandchildren, six boys and two girls, and I spend time watching movies with them. I am stunned by the lack of powerful male role models. My sons, who raise the boys, don't see it. But I just watched Moana, and it seems to be getting more obvious: every Disney movie since Lion King is focused on developing strong, independent princesses who save the world, with the help of a bumbling male sidekick. And if a strong male role model does take the lead, it is always necessary to put a woman into the script who demonstrates she is just as capable as the man. Now, I can't see how this is affecting my grandsons per se, they continue to play their role model games - they are Spiderman, the Flash, Batman, Mutant Turtles, so it's all good, I suppose. Boys will be boys, and they will find their role models. But the culture really seems to want to put them in their place, and exhalt the female hero. Propaganda is propaganda, whether the point is to exalt male dominance or female equality-dominance. And the Burkean conservative in me says beware of unintendted consequences when you go about remaking the world.
Anyway, I find the female princesses far more compelling and multidimensional than the male heroes. And they often make for great movies: Tangled (Rapunzel) is the best in my mind, and the male secondary character is a hoot and does save the day. Moana is a combination of Rapunzel and Frodo and the movie combines Tangled with Lord of the Rings, except that you have to imagine the Frodo character as pretty much the only person who knows how to make things work and what the stakes are. When Rapfrodo stumbles, her Wizard is her dead grandmother. The male hero is a bumbling fool, but I haven't seen the end of the movie, but I am certain he will redeem himself. It's not a bad movie, really, except for the songs, But....
It does seem that for a movie to offer a fully male world and role models, it has to be a historical depiction of an actual war: and the young boys aren't really ready to watch the limbs and heads get blown off on a moment's notice. Well, maybe they are: I met an eight year old while coaching baseball this week who has apparently seen every horror movie out there. But Disney's Davy Crockett (sanitized war hero of the Alamo) is dead. That may be for the better, actually. Glamorizing war has its own problems. And I got to say, the boys we sent to Iraq and Afghanistan were as awesome as any soldiers who wore our country's uniform. I am truly in awe with how they performed their duties over there.
I do agree with Jonezie and Doc: Complementary. Absolutely. Hopefully, the pendalum will swing back.
On an unrelated note, I want to give a shout out to a hero of mine: Doc (Jemanji, Jeff). He is my role model and mentor. Most of my stuff these days is on Facebook, and I don't have a tremendously large audience, but I often get people out of the blue following the threads who thank me and tell me I have the most interesting discussions on my posts. That they do so is largely due to the influence of Jeff, who taught me how to have strong opinions, and how to keep it civil and respectful, and use humor, especially self deprecating humor when necessary. "I could be wrong" is a phrase I use often. It's OK to be wrong. It's important to know when we are because it's how we learn.