Is The Inside Cream Filling, or Grit?

The other day, the conversation turned to 'The character of men v. Man's portrayed character; that is to say is the person reflected in the character they portray on the screen and in public This picture reminds me of Charles Bronson's character in 'Hard Times' but I really only hope that Bronson was the stand-up-hard-guy he played in movies; I don't want to know if he wasn't because part of my socialisation, as a boy was based upon such ideals as the gun-fighter in 'The Magnificent Seven', the melon farmer in 'Mr. Majestyk', the sleeper agent in 'Telefon', the fugitive from injustice in 'Death Hunt', the prisoner of conscience who survives in 'The Dirty Dozen' and the indignant father in 'Death Wish'. There are a great many iconic man-figures in literature who represent our best at their worst; in 'Orthodoxy' G.K. Chesterton described the hero of a story in classic literature as "a sane man set in an insane world.." and in modern literature the hero, he perceived as being "an insane man in a sane world.."

The oldest surviving fictional text is 'Beowulf', a tale now being treated by the film industry. In the tale, Beowulf is the hero whose community is beset by a monster named 'Grendl', whom Beowulf overcomes in battle. The original intent of this story was not to reflect an inner struggle in the heart of man with his evil deprecatious nature, but instead was purported to be anecdotal. Beowulf was, in every noble set, a man we would want around when we're wrongly accused of cheating at cards by a bitter cowpoke with a pistol. Yes, I'm talking about Robert Redford's character, 'The Sundance Kid'. Redford likes to play the 'anti-hero', the bad guy who has his flaws but does good things anyway or bad things that can be rationalised. I like 'Jeremiah Johnson' as one of the top films of all time but I am not in the circle of people who would want to sit down with Redford for coffee or beers.

Too many heroic characters being played by real-life scoundrels. When we see someone we like on the big screen, do we transfer our admiration for their character to the actor? If so, we have to step back a pace or two and consider how much we allow this person to influence our public behavior and the way that this characterises us, as Christ followers. You, as a man, could scarcely go wrong with the model of Jimmy Stewart; a Brigadier General in the US Army Air Corps because he let his hiney hang out in B-17 missions over Germany. John Wayne was a dust-up cowboy actor who wanted to fight in WWII but John Ford would convince him that he could accomplish more for America by setting examples for boys and young men instead. John Wayne did what most in his place should do; he supported the military to the extent that he could. In the US Army JFK Special Warfare Museum on Ft Bragg, NC is a check that he wrote to establish the museum and a letter to the soldiers and officers of the US Special Forces that expresses his admiration.

Yeah, well. So I was thinking; our sons will see what we do. They will see what we don't do. Most important is the idea that we ought not allow these little guys to be presented someone elses' concepts of virtue vis-a-vis manliness and all it's facets; Yoda is not Jesus Christ and dad asking his son to hand him wrenches while he fixes the sink will soon find that a wrench is more influential to his son than a lightsaber. Yep. In closing, one final thought; those things that we do, as men that we think our sons do not see us doing are played out in our character every day. The way that he interprets what a man should be has everything to do with how his dad shows him it's done.