Men in Fiction

Everyone rags on the over sexualization of women in …. Well everything. Especially comic books or Sci Fi & Fantasy works. It’s not hard to find an incredibly well endowed, super tiny waisted, skimpy outfitted woman when looking through even the Geek page on Pinterest. In fact, it’s harder to avoid finding those women. People can go on and on about how it objectifies women, how we’re represented as useless without a man, how physically impossible those women’s measurements are, or how unrealistic it is to fly with a strapless shirt on. That one should be obvious, I mean just ask a woman who has dived into a pool with a bikini top on. It’s a desperate scramble of fixing the girls before you come up for air. Then to drive the point home, they say: “What does this teach our little girls?”

I completely agree with them. But that’s not what got me writing today.

We’re so caught up in the fight for equality for the future generations of women that we forget the little boys out there seeing all these fantastic super heroes.

Now I’m sure you’re saying: “What?”

I’m serious though. Especially with the success of the Avengers on film, we’re not realizing that just like showing skinny women to little girls—showing strong, gorgeous men to little boys affects them just as much. They look up to these heroes and want to be them, just like so many little girls wanting to be the models on the front of Vogue.

But as it is with the girls not being able to come close to the photo shopped perfection on a glossy cover, not all these little boys will be able to come close to the computer helped testosterone packed fake god on the big screen.

And on top of that, these characters are also teaching the little boys what a man should be like. A man needs to be strong, incredibly smart or athletic, must be able to make every woman swoon when you flex your arms or smile. You must be rich, you must have an important career, and major failures aren’t allowed.

You can see in real life and in the sci fi world that those men tend to go through women faster than a fifth of expensive vodka. They become narcissistic, egotistic, and frankly douchebags.

So while you’re letting your son or your brother watch these amazing men do amazing things in the movies, remind them there is more to being a man than being able to kick ass. Teach them that they don’t have to be the strongest, they don’t need to be extremely wealthy, and it’s okay to fail at something.

We need an average hero for our boys. Someone who doesn’t always get the girl and doesn't always win the game, but he always tries his hardest and gets up to do it again when he fails.  

That is manlier than throwing money at a problem until it goes away. 

My slice of humble pie.

I know this isn't literature related, but I felt I needed to share the experience I had this morning.

I work as an early morning baker in downtown Portland, in an area that is constantly full of homeless people. I hate confrontation, so if I leave them alone they usually leave me alone. This is always tested when they’re sleeping in the doorway that I walk through every morning. I usually quickly back-peddle and go through one of the main entrances. 

This morning was different though. I’d been working on my muffins for about 30 minutes when I happened to notice a homeless lady putting her stuff down in the doorway. We briefly made eye contact through the windows before I slid my eyes right over here, trying to avoid showing too much attention to her. She quickly settled down on her cardboard and went to sleep. I honestly don’t mind when they sleep in my doorway. Their lives are hard enough without me chasing them off. Plus that would require confrontation.

Fast forward two hours, and she’s waking up. I continue to avoid looking at her, redoubling my efforts when I notice she’s trying to get my attention. Great, I thought, she wants free food. She even tried the door handle. I’m texting my husband the whole time, saying if she isn't gone by 5:30 A.M. I would call the non-emergency hotline and have her shoo’ed off.

Then, I noticed she taped a note to the window. For awhile, it was the opposite of a staring contest: how long could I go before I read it. Finally walking by, I sped read it and it brought me to a stop.

It said: Thank you for not chasing me off. I was so tired I was seeing things and here was the only place I came close to seeing safe enough to rest. Ty x100.

I’m so glad I didn't call the police.

I grabbed a bag of day old muffins and a bottle of water, and took it out to her. A bit out of pity, but mostly because she looked like she really needed it.

Before I could even offer it, she was thanking me profusely for letting her rest and telling me about her night’s experience. It turned out she had tried to sleep earlier in the night but was woken up when someone tried to steal what little she had, and she almost got stabbed in the process. She’d been running the rest of the night until she finally saw my work’s door stop.  

She didn't look “cracked out”, she was better-spoken than some non-homeless people I know, and she was grateful. Now, I know personally that not all homeless people out there are as seemingly clean and sane as she was.

At the same time, I was reminded that she is a person.

She had a family at one point, she had friends. Not many people are born into the life she was living now. But our society has turned her invisible to most of us.

But I saw her this morning, and through seeing her—I saw myself.

It’s humbling how such an act of paranoid kindness could affect her day. But I think I got more out of the experience. She showed me how even though she was invisible, she was still a person.

And by showing me that, she made me a better person. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

I’m sad to say that Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane is my first experience with the author; besides the movie Stardust and the Doctor Who episodes he’s written. However, that being so—The Ocean at the End of the Lane was a fantastic start to my new found love of Gaiman. How have I been reading this long without having picked up a work by him before?

Gaiman pulls you in immediately in his latest adult novel, thrusting you directly into the heartbreak of the narrator’s funeral of a never mentioned family member. The narrator experiences what we all have: the awkward meet and greet of old family friends and long distance relatives that you can’t remember the names of. You never learn the name of the narrator himself, which sets your soul into the character’s slot. Before the dreaded reception, the narrator takes a literal drive down memory lane to a childhood friend’s house. Reminiscing about the adventure he’d forgotten, Gaiman opens up a portal into a magical side of the world that confronts the realities of abuse, infidelity, and the bravery of a child.  

The narrator is the outcast child; no one shows up to his seventh birthday, nor does he get along with his older sister. He does what many children in that situation do, and retreats into himself and into books. The ageless matriarchal Hempstock family is introduced after a conflict with a minor character and the youngest, Lettie Hempstock, takes responsibility of the narrator as well as offering him friendship. She brings him into a part of the world he’d only ever imagined lived in story books or in the imagination of other children. But she doesn't take him in to the beautiful, happy-ever-after side; she, instead, shows him the dangers of the creatures that are from the other side of her Ocean. Together they must fight to return a creature back to the safety of the magical world after the narrator unwittingly helps it travel into the human world.

Gaiman’s prose is so simplistically beautiful that it draws you in without you noticing. Before you know it, you’re running down the lane with the narrator, terrified of the darkness behind you. Your heart aches as you see things that the narrator is still too young to properly understand. You question the nature of the creature the narrator has brought to his world: is it truly evil, or is it simply a creature that is struggling to fulfill its natural calling?

Gaiman blends reality with just enough mysticism to create a fascinating reality. His narrator’s struggles are so relatable that the reader will find plenty in common the young child. The reader’s heart will ache with him, their stomach will clench in fear, and finally the bittersweet ending will have the reader slowly closing the book and holding on the words for a little bit longer.

You can find Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane at any major book retailer, and probably your local independently owned bookstore. I highly suggest buying this book, as it’s one you’re going to want to keep on your shelves to revisit later.  

The image is copyright to HarperCollins Publishers and Neil Gaiman.