The Death of the White Male Hero Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Robin Ince takes a look at if you really do need to be a black, one legged lesbian to get anywhere these days...

While scrolling Instagram into the night, I came across a snippet of a Tim Minchin interview on Channel 4 news (from some months ago I believe). He was expressing his worry that there is now a division of the sexes between left and right in USA.

Young women are moving to the left, young men to the right. The breakdown shows that 61% of women between the age of 18 and 29 voted Democrat in the recent election, while (for the purpose of this piece will we say that Democrats are left wing) only 47% of men in the same age bracket. In no age group were there more men voting democrat than women, and only the 45 to 64 age group saw more women voting Republican than Democrat (50% to 49%).

Tim expressed his worry that the move to the right for the boys comes from a lack of positive stories about boys and a lack of visible role models. It was a brief clip and I hope I am not misrepresenting him. The intention here is in no way to have a go at Tim, but to look at this argument as it comes up frequently, and it worries me.

The story of boys lost due to lack of role models and positive stories may be popular because the mass media has not evolved to deliver complex stories. The average output makes The Little Mermaid look like Finnegan’s Wake. They are keen on the binary - who are the goodies? who are the baddies? See how Piers Morgan relentlessly bullies his guests with those simple moral questions that usually begin, “do you condemn (place name of group or individual here)?”

Yes or no is demanded. Yes or no plays well because it gives you no further information or education, just a brief emotional spike.

The answer to “Why are young men maybe moving to the right and toxic misogyny?” Because they are bereft of role models and stories is easy to swallow before the indigestion of outrage.

It also means that this can be seen to point the blame at those who are supposedly getting all the positive stories - women.

My belief is that white males believe they are not getting a fair amount of the stories and role models because they keep being told just that by people fuelling this narrative. As we know from TV and politicians, the game is just to make people believe a truth, even if their experience does not reflect that, tell them often enough and they’ll find a pattern that secures that belief.

I think it is now more than 35 years ago since I first read that “nowadays you have to be a one legged black Lesbian” to get any rewards and promotions. Despite that, I still don’t see that many one legged black lesbians running the Bank of England or the BBC.

Similarly, it was over thirty years ago that I first started reading in columns by the likes of Richard Littlejohn and Robin Page that the worst thing to be nowadays (always always NOWADAYS), was a straight white middle class man. Write and publish this enough time and it becomes common knowledge whatever the evidence (similarly, see the BBC’s famous “left wing bias”).

At a recent event, a concerned man told me that it seemed everyone on the BBC was gay. This will be news to Professor Brian Cox, Clive Myrie, Charlie Stayt, Naga Munchetty, Claudia Winkleman, Gary Lineker, Matt Allwright, Fiona Bruce, Jim Al-Khalili and and and ….

The Geena Davis Institute has researched representation of women in the movies, found that there is a habit of wildly overestimating the representation of women - a group that has been underrepresented in the past seems wildly overrepresented just by making an appearance.

Geena Davis with John Gallin, a doctor at the National Institute of Health, at a meeting to discuss the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media

This leads us on to “Where are the progressive versions of Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson?” Firstly, progressiveness is underrepresented in the media, perhaps because it is owned and run by those who benefit most from the system as it is. Secondly, it is far easier to create a passionate argument if you have no interest on evidence. Simple bigotry is an easy sell. You tell someone who is unhappy that it is the fault of that group of people who don’t look like them and that makes a quick emotional connection.

Tate is a simple bigot. Jordan Peterson is a convoluted one, but it boils down to simple bigotry despite the thorny maze of words he draws us through. Nothing is simple with Peterson, except what it all boils down to in the end.

We also have the problem that there is an obsession with bad news and negative angry people. We are told that is what sells, but frequently there is not much effort in offering something different or better. Have a raging bigot and you should have clickbait. Kindness doesn’t make the fireworks that someone hateful can create, though when well used, empathy makes a light that lasts far longer.

“There just aren’t any white guy heroes anymore because of DIVERSITY!”

You will have cries of despair and “so unfair!” When a franchise puts in too many leading female characters (one) or leading black characters (one also). There is a narrative that the white male hero story is gone and that’s why the boys are lost.

Here are the major movies of 2024. I have ignored cartoons, much as I love good animation, deciding that role models are best when flesh, even if heavily CGIed.

Deadpool and Wolverine - two white male mutants.

Wicked - Two female lead witches.

Promotional Image from Wicked with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande

Dune: Part Two - Six male characters on the poster , four female

King Kong vs Godzilla - Lead actor and hero of the film who saves Kong is white male

Venom - main star and poster figure - white male

Gladiator - 5 men to one woman on the poster - star and hero is a white man

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - stars a man BUT poster has three women with major parts in it and one person with a shrunken head.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die - two male heroes only characters on the poster

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes - one woman hero , central on the poster, two male apes either side.

Twisters - one male hero wind chaser centre of the poster, one major role woman to his left and a young man to his right.

And so it goes on (I just went through the first fifteen major films of 2024, but could go on). For a world where the white male hero has been erased, they still seem to be doing okay. I think lizards and apes get almost as much top billing as women.

Look at Forbes highest paid sports stars and you will see it illustrated by five sport stars, a boxer, a baseball player, footballer, basketball player, and a golfer, all men. According to the figures for the Top 100 highest paid in 2024, none of them are women.

Caitlin Clark, one of the most recognisable female athletes in the world in the past couple of years, does not crack the overall top earners list

Nine out ten of the highest paid comedians in the UK are men, and that is true in the US too.

Can we not start making heroes out of any of these people?

If this is lack of role models is what makes men rudderless then are we saying only a world where every hero is a man is workable?

I think this is more about the effectiveness of propaganda.

Look at Trump demanding the Tate brothers are allowed to roam.

Look at the sexual predators who have gained power.

Look at the archaic ideology that true men are bullies who are served by their obedient wives.

Many men no longer have the security they once had, but that’s not because there is a woman hero in Star Wars, it is because the very men who gain by pushing them to the point of profitable misogyny are also the ones who have played the system of putting personal profit over community needs. They have rinsed every penny and dime out of the system, and having destroyed the possibilities of job security and union comradeship, now tell the people they broke that it is the fault of women or refugees.

I worry that the argument of no role models feeds very easily into the anti Diversity Equity Inclusion argument. The media has all the power and possibility to change the narrative, just by reporting the reality and giving more space those that believe in positive progress rather than the easy score of platforming those who desire a wretched world for anyone who is not them.