I think it is more that people identify with a character that they REALLY should not. Scarface (first remake?) and Taxi Driver are pretty infamous examples of that. It HAS definitely gotten worse as media literacy has dropped to an abysmal level but it is still that fundamental concept of “This is the protagonist. I want to be like them. What they do must be right”
I can’t go too in depth on the harry potter movies since I never watched them. I was the cool kid who instead read about Harry Dresden and… that is a whole different bundle of misogyny, grooming, and copaganda. Yay…
But yeah. I still think so many people would benefit from sitting down and watching Yu Yu Hakusho of all things. That was a show that spent 2-3 major arcs tearing apart (what we would later call) toxic masculinity and pointing out that it is okay to like the cool as fuck thing but that you also need to understand what it actually is and reassess.
I think it is more that people identify with a character that they REALLY should not. Scarface (first remake?) and Taxi Driver are pretty infamous examples of that. It HAS definitely gotten worse as media literacy has dropped to an abysmal level but it is still that fundamental concept of “This is the protagonist. I want to be like them. What they do must be right”
I can’t go too in depth on the harry potter movies since I never watched them. I was the cool kid who instead read about Harry Dresden and… that is a whole different bundle of misogyny, grooming, and copaganda. Yay…
But yeah. I still think so many people would benefit from sitting down and watching Yu Yu Hakusho of all things. That was a show that spent 2-3 major arcs tearing apart (what we would later call) toxic masculinity and pointing out that it is okay to like the cool as fuck thing but that you also need to understand what it actually is and reassess.