SPOILERS FOR GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 AHEAD!!
When the original Guardians Of The Galaxy motion picture came out, multiple articles on The Dissolve surrounding the movie had comment sections that quickly turned into extended discussions on the film's virtues and what specific elements of the film really stood out to people. Plenty of memorable lines ('That was my favorite knife!") got brought up of course but one notable compliment has stuck out to me regarding the film in three years since its release. Disqus user Persia mentioned how Guardians Of The Galaxy really went all out in depicting the individuals characters vulnerabilities, particularly in a final scene depicting Rocket mourning the loss of his buddy Groot by sobbing over such an event. As Persia rightly pointed out, how many recent blockbusters depicted male protagonists outright bawling over tragic events?
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 carries over its predecessor's knack of zeroing in on the individual vulnerabilities of its characters to excellent effect, culminating in a climactic funeral for Yondu (Michael Rooker) wherein individual character dynamics and struggles are resolved in a nicely subdued manner that really hits like a gut-punch. The final image of the movie itself is Rocket shedding a tear over the sight of a colorful glorious funeral for Yondu, closing a 200 million dollar blockbuster on the sight of a raccoon psychologically coming to terms with the complexities of emotional attachments. It's an absolutely beautiful moment in a climax chock full of such moments, one that actually brought me to tears in my second viewing of this beautiful motion picture.
These James Gunn movies are far from the only entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to depict male vulnerability as a key component of their stories, particularly in the likes of Iron Man 3 and Doctor Strange. In a franchise that does leave plenty of room for improvement in certain areas of representation (how, through 15 films, have we had more talking raccoons than LGBTQA people in this universe?), the fact that the MCU is one of the few major blockbusters to fully embrace the concept of men shedding tears and getting in touch with their emotions is a super nice touch that I seriously believe is one of the key reasons this franchise has resonated with so many people across the world.
It's particularly nice that one of the biggest movie franchises on the planet is doing that kind of representation because the concept of men sharing their emotions is tragically still considered a taboo thing in many parts of America and the world. Why is that? Like all gender-related issues in the world, it comes down to how people treat women (hence why striving for equality for genders is called feminism). Women are conventionally and unfairly treated as citizens of lesser worth by many people and the idea of men exhibiting traits typically associated with women (such as sharing emotions) is thought of as degrading to any real man, whatever that even means.
I remember being exposed to such a concept at a young age when a couch on my youth baseball team tried to verbally coerce me and my teammates to do better by telling us we "threw like girls", a phrase my mother made sure to chew him out for! Typical American cinema has a bad habit of reinforcing the idea that there's only one way to be a man on a psychological level, not to mention that the disproportionate amount of movies starring men compared to movies starring women subliminally furthers the idea that women are the inferior gender in the grand scheme of things. Think of all the stoic leading men of classic cinema that movies today are still trying to emulate, your Humphrey Bogart's, your John Wayne's, all those guys who had chiseled chins and would never be caught shedding a tear in even the most tragic circumstances lest they resemble the worst thing a man could ever emulate....a woman! (GASP!)
None of those actors are inherently bad on their own (Humphery Bogart is one of my favorite actors of all-time in fact!) but there's no denying actors like those two spawned imitators emulating their cold emotionless stature that soon made that specific type of male protagonist the de facto persona for male leads in many corners of American cinema. That idea that that was the only way to be someone of the male gender was a ridiculous notion then and it's even moreso now, as we still have plenty of male leads in movies of all stripes that inhabit a narrow definition of what it means to be a man. Just to limit ourselves to blockbusters released in the last twelve months, can you even comprehend Charlie Hunnam's King Arthur or Matt Damon's protagonist in The Great Wall or Alexander Skarsgard's Tarzan shedding a tear over emotional circumstances?
By contrast, look at someone like John Wick, the ultimate bad-ass who can make a pencil the ultimate weapon of death! That guy isn't afraid to shed tears or express outright sorrow over his personal losses nor is he afraid to love doggos! Why, you can have a character be an intimidating presence and also be more than a blank slate, how about that! To return to the initial example, Rocket can cry over Groot and also be totally awesome in combat when he's shooting laser guns at baddies! Just because a male character expresses emotions tied to vulnerability or sheds tears doesn't mean an audience member loses sympathy for that character. On the other hand, when that trait is compared to a well-written character, it increases their empathy for that individual! Fully showcasing that kind of vulnerability helped make Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 one of my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe movies yet and not letting arcane gender stereotypes limit your characters should be a goal more movies strive for in the future. After all, there's absolutely nothing wrong with throwing like a girl, men crying or raccoons sobbing over dead tree friends, those are all natural parts of life!
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