Lin Manuel Miranda; Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; Terry Crews; Fred Rogers
Taika Waititi: Powerfully creative, Knows himself, Good humored, Takes his work and his relationships with other people seriously, Intentional as a creator
John Mulaney: Publicly supportive of his wife and other women in his life, Crafts humor without taking cheap shots at people, Supportive friend, Willing to laugh at himself yet confident
Andy Samberg: Uses platform and humor to publicly call out toxic masculinity and white privilege, Self-aware, Willing to cede the floor to others, Good friend
Will Smith: Very intentional about what type of actions he takes as a husband and father (if you haven’t watched him on The Red Table, you should), Good humored and professional, Dedicated to his craft putting in the hours and energy, Generous with his emotions and vulnerability, Responsive to others emotions and vulnerability
I read somewhere that one aspect of Toxic Masculinity is believing that being part of a “We” will erase the “I”; that selfhood is threatened by relationships with other people. It reads then that Healthy Masculinity (indeed, healthy people in general) create a “We” that enhances the “I”; that we can become more powerfully ourselves through relationships with other people.
All these men listed (and many more unlisted) live this type of energy, the one that builds connections without fear of losing the self - and in fact builds the self more with the building of connections.
This version of this post is important
replace shitty role models with better role models
so that the next generation doesnt see either assholes being glorified or a suspicious absense of positive figures
even in fiction we must balance our figures of warning and figures of hope- for every deadbeat dad we mock as an example of how not to do it we should also point to an uncle iroh as an example of what to strive for
To add to this list of wholesome men:
Keanu Reeves
Jason Moma, Mark Ruffalo
Chris Hemsworth
Chris Evans
Daniel Radcliffe
Tom Hanks
Robin Williams
Steve Irwin
LeVar Burton
and Jackie Chan
Old school here, but James Garner is probably the best old school example of positive masculinity there is. In fact, I’m going to do a huge ass love letter to him and his positive masculinity in due time.
