Today, women around the globe strive for a life of equality. Within the United States, our feminist struggle often stems from a conflicting duality—the domestic complacency of a 1950s ideal, versus a more nuanced, honest reflection of an individual with sexual, social, and personal aspirations. Yet, while American women are often locked in a double-bind concerning their maternal, professional, and physical identities, the American male—particularly the teenage boy—has also fallen victim to a hyper-idealized archetype touted by those who romanticize a fictional past.
…And it’s killing all who do not dare fall into the most narrow of white, male, cis templates.They are not worthy of pity, they are not worthy of empathy, and when destruction falls on their homes and families, too many of the template-definers hesitate to speak words of grief and comfort, as they cannot see the human within the victim.
During a Writers’ Guild Foundation podcast, Screenwriter Glen Mazzara discussed the growing trend of antihero television and film characterizations: a fetishized male identity drawn from centuries of Western American male gunslinger fantasy. In this trope, heroes are loners who work outside the rules of the known world—rare “chosen ones” blessed with the skills to defeat a formidable enemy. They are hyper-seductive, sexual… and they utilize violence under the guise of “defense” and “protection.” These heroes walk into the unknown and do the dirty work common folk are incapable of doing.
They defeat monsters by becoming monstrous themselves.
I hail from rural Iowa where generations were raised farming and hunting the land. Yet, many simply passed across the surface of the natural world like an awkward colonizing force, not symbiotic, despite claims of being one with nature. American gun culture, and conservative politicians in particular, have transposed this historic use of firearms to our contemporary urban world as a way to romanticize—and excuse away—the destruction rained on our communities after mass shootings. Guns may bring death at the hand of the enemy, but only the ever-vigilant gunslinger can protect us all.
Our society has become a zero-sum game of American male power and identity.
But with Orlando’s victims of last night, I am in awe of the linguistic gymnastics that our conservative political leaders use. It’s almost as if they dare not validate grief given the community that was struck. They focus on the perpetrator, his beliefs and cultural identifiers, but never the firepower behind his act.
Last year I was working on The Mess of Boys, a supernatural-laced drama based on Euripides’ The Bacchae— a small town, a school shooting, and a disillusioned god wishing humans treasured those around them.
At a micro level, that screenplay is about a school shooting. However, this tale is not here to lay blame or to analyze causality. It simply gives permission to a collective of women to lose their shit—and for us to grieve the loss of a healthy emotional life for our boys. It’s the shin-kicking, hair-tearing rage we are no longer allowed to do in a polite society.
Don is a supernatural spirit of the land; one who has walked among small town folk for eons. He craves a connection, a sense of humanity. Elderly teacher Abbie believes she never needed anyone—but realizes too late that she did. A shooting brings them together, but a community’s response pits them against one another.
In the wake of mass-shooting punditry, we’re told to package-away our dead, speak reverently of those snuffed out, and move forward. No storm is allowed to rage before calm descends. We are told to re-arm, prepare; for only the brave can protect us from the boogeyman ready to strike.
But in this tale, the storm is brought by an antihero let loose: an ambiguously divine, devilish pro/antagonist who seeks to destroy the destroyers… Only to realize he has become what he was fighting against.
For us, we’ve been here too long already.
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