Let's Talk About Manpain and Masculinity

[eilowyn]

I had a new idea for my grad school writing sample.

MANPAIN.

It's a fan-coined term for "when a main character in a story (always male, generally white) is written with a particular kind of psychologically painful history that causes him to behave in specific ways

Comments

[sunclouds33]

I need to ground this thing in some sort of theory, so I'm positing that manpain is a trope that allows "real" men to show vulnerability. If they're crying over a dead woman, it's totally legit. And I want to talk about masculinity from a gender studies point of view,but I'm having trouble trying to figure out what sources I need/can use

Maybe it could help if you contrasted with male characters showing vulnerability in other ways outside of the cliched manpain definition. Are these male characters less popular? Are they typically in different genres aside from the sci fi/fantasy? On different networks?

I don't think you want to get into the serious business of polling or looking up polls to see which type of male character is more popular for a writing sample rather than a full-on study. However having a contrast could indicate why do writers keep going to that man pain well- perhaps because they are gearing these male characters for a particular role compared to the more vulnerable ones.

Or perhaps, better to not go in so many tangents for a writing sample ;-)

[eilowyn]

With pocochina's recommendation of Difficult Men (above), I might argue that manpain is a mode of behavior seen in SF/F, while other masculinities are seen in prestige shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men (I just started that book and I think you'd enjoy it, btw). The interesting thing is these SF/F characters are usually slashed by women, while you don't see that much Walter White/Jesse Pinkman or Don Draper/Roger Sterling slash out there (I'm not saying it doesn't exist though . . .), so there's something to be said for that.

[sunclouds33]

Put simply, the SF/F protagonists seem to get man pain because they "require" that kind of excessive OTT tragedy in order to be excitably and adrenaline filed violent but remain heroic. Definitely the case in Angel/The X-Files/True Blood/Law and Order: SVU and NYPD Blue (if that counts which is should because BOOO!!! Elliot Stabler) which I watch. It seems to be a similar case from accounts I read/hear from Supernatural/Battlestar Galactica/Dr. Who which I don't watch.

However, Tony Soprano/Don Draper/Frank Underwood/Walter White are emphatically *not* the heroes. They're the bad guys, even though we may root for them in a skirmish from time to time when they have to deal with an even bigger asshole than them and even though I find Tony and Don charming and pitiabale and Frank quite fun. They all get tragedies of some kind or another to *explain* why they are what they are ranging Don Draper's genuine and total childhood horror to Frank Underwood's Lindsey McDonaldesque whining about being redneck American Southern poor and thus, wanting power badly.

However, they really don't need those tragedies to fit a certain kind of role to mark their violence as *heroic*. It's an explanation, not an excuse. Meanwhile, for some of the sci fi/fantasy characters especially Angel, the man pain feels like an *excuse*. I haven't really heard of a sci-fi/fantasy show that is demonstrably about an anti-hero and it says so right on the label on the tin like in The Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

Perhaps an interesting middle-ground is how does man pain work for non-supernatural fantasy shows but also non-prestige anti-hero shows. Aaron Sorkin seems to have a *modified* man pain for a few of his male characters to excuse their romantic incompetency and fun but assholically sarcastic tongue because he writes about good guys, not anti-heroes. (Mainly West Wing's Josh Lyman and Sports Night's Dan Rydell....) But these are white collar guys- they don't need the full "My girlfriend was killed and then raped and then set on fire and then she insulted me bitterly through her pain. Disregard the illogical order. I'm singin' a sad song to a violin here!" treatment.