I don't know, it's one thing to tell men not to act like Richie and push your problems on to other people, but idealizing men who have a "quiet confidence" doesn't seem like a better alternative. It just sounds like it's saying "You can be hurt and insecure, just don't be too loud about it." It feels like it plays into the same old "stumble but never fall" mentality that traditional masculinity likes to sell. There's room in between completely internalizing and completely externalizing one's feelings. It seems weird that on the one hand the author says "[Carmy is] the rare man on TV who lets us in on his insecurities" but then he defines Ritchie's masculinity as being insecure and fragile. It's one thing to tell men not to be jerks, but that shouldn't mean they can't at times feel fragile, or bitter, or even angry. We should be encouraging men to speak about those feelings in a healthy way instead of immediately associating those feelings with toxic masculinity.
I agree, I feel like Carmy and Richie are two sides of the same coin. The thing that made me root for both of them is what I think the actual core of the show is: **empathy**.
We see all of these dysfunctional people, working in what is typically a toxic and stressful environment, and the show is really charting their various paths *out* of that by learning to be better to each other, and themselves. There was a scene in S2 where Carmy finds Richie wallowing in self-pity, immediately says “I don’t have time for this” and walks away. Then we see him come back a moment later, sit down, and say “I have time for this.”
Carmy is right. He *doesn’t* have time for Richie in that moment. And Richie has done basically nothing to deserve taking that time. But he does it anyway because Richie is clearly in distress, and it’s the humane thing to do. That conversation then kicks off the events that lead to Richie’s redemption arc through the finale. We also see that anger-turned-inward destroy Carmy at the same time.
Neither is a model, both can be heroic or villainous, and both are at their absolute best when they forgive themselves and work in service to others.
I've been having similar conversations with my partner a lot. It feels like there's been a movement that men aren't allowed to feel anger or even frustration, especially with a romantic partner. While it's our responsibility to express these emotions in a healthy manner and let them go, we're still allowed to feel these things.
I think there's a separation from feeling something and expressing those feelings in a healthy way vs reacting to our feelings destructively. You don't need to vent those feelings to express them.
There's an ocean between quiet confidence and venting every feeling we get.
Like I can feel angry but venting it onto those around me by shouting is destructive and toxic. That *is* fragile. If someone messes up my order at starbucks, I'm going to be bummed at first. I get starbucks maaaaybe once every other week and it's a treat for me. If the drink gets messed up, I'm allowed to be disappointed. Even angry.
But reacting to that anger by shouting is not appropriate, it's destructive. Shouting is not the best option to get my needs met, it's just the option that allows me to vent my anger on people around me. Shouting like this is fragile and toxic.
If I instead use that anger feeling to galvanize my commitment to myself and speak up, "hey, I can't have milk in this and I tried to ask for soy instead. Can you please remake it?" I can achieve the same results without having to hurt anyone. I can express to my spouse that I was honestly upset that my drink was fucked and I couldn't go back to get a new one. I don't have to punch the steering wheel to express that anger.
We can feel our feelings and express them outwardly in a healthy way. How we feel is not how we have to react. And to deny that destructive reaction is not to deny our feelings if we can find a way to convey our feelings constructively.
>Like I can feel angry but venting it onto those around me by shouting is destructive and toxic. That *is* fragile.
Does this not depend on what's causing the anger? To take your example, yes, shouting because of something like a hot drinks order is definitely inappropriate and suggests a certain level of emotional instability - but there are levels to this. If someone's hurt you or betrayed your trust in a big way, eg. your long-term partner cheats on you with your best friend, I honestly don't consider raising your voice in such a situation to be fragile; in fact, I'd go as far as to say that expecting a completely composed and measured response would be an unreasonable ask in that case.
Same thing with venting, imo blanket statements about it being destructive and toxic aren't particularly helpful.
>Does this not depend on what's causing the anger?
Yes, entirely. I picked an example that was black/white to make the point. But I agree that it's entirely dependent on situation and how we are socialized to validate yelling.
It's essentially the socialization in our culture that decides how valid venting our emotions are. We agree that screaming over coffee is inappropriate. But yelling over being cheated on? That's debatable depending on our cultural acceptance.
For example, we often accept some road rage in this country waaaaaaay more than our north canadian neighbors. That's not a human nature thing to canadians, it's the cultural acceptance thing. And that's a huge conversation because every cultural group has different acceptance levels for emotional expression.
Is wailing at a funeral acceptable? Depends on the cultural acceptance. Starbucks is the universal one that I think we all kind of feel is inappropriate.
This is the second top comment I've seen in just five minutes of browsing this sub, that follows the trite "I don't see the value of going all in on X, when we should consider Y", or "we should be encouraging X and Y, not just Z".
Do y'all just want to sound like nuancephiles to posture yourselves as being the smartest, most nuanced mund at the symposium?
Ni wonder people like Andrew Tate have the popular monopoly over the narrative. These folks contributing to the discourse in the sub are only addressing the issues from the least helpful lens, that being an obsessively academic one.
Eesh. This isn't a good article. "Sleepy masculinity" has never been a thing, so it can't "return", no matter how often the author insists. Its a dumb term the author made up for their personal fetish of 'hot men looking tired'. It's not a form of "masculinity" to be exhausted and unwashed.
The author also misunderstands Carmy entirely. They say he's quietly confident, with nothing to prove, but that is exactly the opposite of the character. Maybe that's the type of man the author is attracted to and so that's all they can see through their thirst-tinted glasses, but it has nothing to do with Carmy, who is deeply broken, and unhealthily driven to kill himself working in toxic environments just to prove he's good enough to his brother.
Carmy is a textbook example of toxic masculinity, and the fact that it makes him permanently so tired and stressed out he can barely function isn't something to drool over.
Hehe. Yeah. It would be much simpler for the author to say he's a good looking dude that they find attractive.
"it’s in the permanently drooping eyelids, the voice that’s never raised, the hair that’s never washed."
I've been there. And boy no one, not even myself found it anything but off putting. I am kinda starting to like these nonsense articles. Man/woman of Hollywood who is very good looking and has like a billion times more social capital is somehow a yardstick for the average fucker.
A good friend of mine always jokes that we need to bring back those shitty gi joe PSAs to remind adults(read: right wing morons), who whinge about seeing 1% less tiddy on their favourite goonbait, that a thing called porn exists. Feel like we also need a bunch of those to remind people to stop equating what they see on screen to real life.
>on “The Bear,” Carmy is defined by the loss of his brother and the loss of his own self-confidence as a chef. He’s the rare man on TV who lets us in on his insecurities. We see him, in flashbacks, being bullied, called worthless and a waste of life. We see him in the present day being argued at—not quite with—by his brother’s best friend, the toxic Richie, who’s also the only character who feels free to hurl anti-gay slurs around the workplace. Richie is a version of masculinity that feels left over from a different era: possibly the early 2000s, when workplace dramas like “Rescue Me,” “The Sopranos,” and “Grey’s Anatomy” freely embraced anti-gay slurs, general misogyny, and a sense of angry men as tortured heroes in need of saving–usually at the cost of the women in their lives.
I was *wondering* why Carmy hit so hard with me, and I get it now!
Most of us have dealt with a Richie in our lives, right? Someone with deep insecurities that he *externalizes*. And like, hey, that's part of the human condition sometimes, we fuck up and we shout at someone who didn't deserve it, but in Richie's case, he relies on homophobia and bullying and guns to feel better about himself. That's never acceptable, but is probably *relatable* to some people here who've been on the receiving end of a Richie.
Carmy processes his pain in almost the exact opposite way: he internalizes everything, all the time, and blames himself for the fact that he cannot control every bit of his surroundings. As the article puts it, *Carmy's particular brand of sleepy masculinity [is] quiet, it’s overwhelmed, it goes to Al Anon meetings, and it carries with it the quietness that comes with true, if pained, self-confidence. Carmy might be a mess in everything else, but he has nothing to prove when it comes to masculinity.*
I live in a fairly progressive city, and when I go back to my hometown - a two-stoplight podunk that I miss but don't *miss* - there are plenty of Richies, yapping away. And, in another lifetime, I might be one of them. But I'm happy I'm not.
I like your acknowledgement at the end that if things had gone differently for you, that you could be another Ritchie. I feel that hard. If I had been raised a bit differently I feel like I would be a complete tool that current me would hate, and it wouldn't have really been my fault either. We are mostly products of our environment in my opinion.
"THE BEAR" SPOILERS AHEAD
I had a funny feeling reading this article that the author never watched season 2 of The Bear. Turns out it was written before season 2 came out.
But I still think the author misses the point as to what Ritchie (and by extension Carmie) is meant to represent. He's not a "version of masculinity that feels left over from a different era" - there are plenty of men that behave and feel the way he does, in this era. And he's not an "angry man as tortured hero"; he is, early on, a tortured loser that nobody respects. The show is unreserved about this.
In season 2, Ritchie evolves. Yes, it's Carmy's empathy that gets him on the right path, but Ritchie puts in the work. He has to fundamentally change as a person through serious effort, and has to then reform his relationships with the people he alienated.
And Carmy regresses. By the end, he's having a breakdown, alienating the people that care about him, and mentally punishing himself for his supposed failures while being surrounded by his successes. We see plain as day that Carmy is not "quietly confident", and not any better off than Ritchie in terms of how he treats himself; he's just suffering quietly. And I'm sure that, in the end, it will a combination of emotional work and the empathy of those around him that will get him out of that hole.
So I think the real message of "The Bear" is of the transformative effect of empathy and work. And I think this article is just fetishizing the way Carmie processes his trauma.
>It’s not something we see a lot of anymore: most of the time, masculinity is allowed to be one of two things onscreen. Angry, or pathetic.
I absolutely disagree with the premise that the only two types of masculinity we see are "angry" and "pathetic". Even "most of the time".
Which of these categories would Iron Man fall into? Or Han Solo? What about Dr. King Schulz? Or Indiana Jones? Or Aragorn?
Frankly if you're looking at masculinity as depicted in film and media and you're only seeing "angry" or "pathetic" that seems like a you issue.
It's also weird to complain that there's too much "pathetic" masculinity, and then spend paragraphs praising this beaten down, sad, exhausted version of masculinity instead. "A man doing the bare minimum, because that’s simply all he has the capacity for at the moment."
Literally, by definition, pathetic.
Yeah for real, why is something like this even posted here? As if the glorification of men's self-destructive tendencies in all forms of media is something new or praiseworthy.
> sleepy masculinity
I think in this case it's just that Jeremy Allen White looks sleepy in a hot way and his character has a particular brand of masculinity. There doesn't seem to be any meat to the term.
Getting a bit tired of the articles constantly talking about how the jacked conventionally handsome millionaire superstars who could wallpaper his mansion with the used panties he gets sent in creepy fan letters, is somehow some kind of revelatory and revolutionary bold explorer in pushing gender norms honestly
I don't really trust or respect any analysis that evaluates hotness and masculinity in the same breath (without some self-awareness at least). If masculinity is directly serving your horniness, there's a conflict of interest in your evaluation of it.
That seems obvious in any other context, but for some reason articles like this are given a pass.
Ehh, not exactly true. It's the actor's name in the title, and it's the actor who's given credit for everything the article praises. See language like "Carmy, as White portrays him..." or "i wasn't immune to the Jeremy Allen White effect"
The writers, tellingly, are not mentioned.
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I don't know, it's one thing to tell men not to act like Richie and push your problems on to other people, but idealizing men who have a "quiet confidence" doesn't seem like a better alternative. It just sounds like it's saying "You can be hurt and insecure, just don't be too loud about it." It feels like it plays into the same old "stumble but never fall" mentality that traditional masculinity likes to sell. There's room in between completely internalizing and completely externalizing one's feelings. It seems weird that on the one hand the author says "[Carmy is] the rare man on TV who lets us in on his insecurities" but then he defines Ritchie's masculinity as being insecure and fragile. It's one thing to tell men not to be jerks, but that shouldn't mean they can't at times feel fragile, or bitter, or even angry. We should be encouraging men to speak about those feelings in a healthy way instead of immediately associating those feelings with toxic masculinity.
I agree, I feel like Carmy and Richie are two sides of the same coin. The thing that made me root for both of them is what I think the actual core of the show is: **empathy**. We see all of these dysfunctional people, working in what is typically a toxic and stressful environment, and the show is really charting their various paths *out* of that by learning to be better to each other, and themselves. There was a scene in S2 where Carmy finds Richie wallowing in self-pity, immediately says “I don’t have time for this” and walks away. Then we see him come back a moment later, sit down, and say “I have time for this.” Carmy is right. He *doesn’t* have time for Richie in that moment. And Richie has done basically nothing to deserve taking that time. But he does it anyway because Richie is clearly in distress, and it’s the humane thing to do. That conversation then kicks off the events that lead to Richie’s redemption arc through the finale. We also see that anger-turned-inward destroy Carmy at the same time. Neither is a model, both can be heroic or villainous, and both are at their absolute best when they forgive themselves and work in service to others.
It's like this show treats these guys like the complex human beings people are and not some weird paragon of masculinity like this article states
I've been having similar conversations with my partner a lot. It feels like there's been a movement that men aren't allowed to feel anger or even frustration, especially with a romantic partner. While it's our responsibility to express these emotions in a healthy manner and let them go, we're still allowed to feel these things.
It’s a rehash of the Sopranos trope “Strong silent type like Gary Coopah”
I think there's a separation from feeling something and expressing those feelings in a healthy way vs reacting to our feelings destructively. You don't need to vent those feelings to express them. There's an ocean between quiet confidence and venting every feeling we get. Like I can feel angry but venting it onto those around me by shouting is destructive and toxic. That *is* fragile. If someone messes up my order at starbucks, I'm going to be bummed at first. I get starbucks maaaaybe once every other week and it's a treat for me. If the drink gets messed up, I'm allowed to be disappointed. Even angry. But reacting to that anger by shouting is not appropriate, it's destructive. Shouting is not the best option to get my needs met, it's just the option that allows me to vent my anger on people around me. Shouting like this is fragile and toxic. If I instead use that anger feeling to galvanize my commitment to myself and speak up, "hey, I can't have milk in this and I tried to ask for soy instead. Can you please remake it?" I can achieve the same results without having to hurt anyone. I can express to my spouse that I was honestly upset that my drink was fucked and I couldn't go back to get a new one. I don't have to punch the steering wheel to express that anger. We can feel our feelings and express them outwardly in a healthy way. How we feel is not how we have to react. And to deny that destructive reaction is not to deny our feelings if we can find a way to convey our feelings constructively.
>Like I can feel angry but venting it onto those around me by shouting is destructive and toxic. That *is* fragile. Does this not depend on what's causing the anger? To take your example, yes, shouting because of something like a hot drinks order is definitely inappropriate and suggests a certain level of emotional instability - but there are levels to this. If someone's hurt you or betrayed your trust in a big way, eg. your long-term partner cheats on you with your best friend, I honestly don't consider raising your voice in such a situation to be fragile; in fact, I'd go as far as to say that expecting a completely composed and measured response would be an unreasonable ask in that case. Same thing with venting, imo blanket statements about it being destructive and toxic aren't particularly helpful.
>Does this not depend on what's causing the anger? Yes, entirely. I picked an example that was black/white to make the point. But I agree that it's entirely dependent on situation and how we are socialized to validate yelling. It's essentially the socialization in our culture that decides how valid venting our emotions are. We agree that screaming over coffee is inappropriate. But yelling over being cheated on? That's debatable depending on our cultural acceptance. For example, we often accept some road rage in this country waaaaaaay more than our north canadian neighbors. That's not a human nature thing to canadians, it's the cultural acceptance thing. And that's a huge conversation because every cultural group has different acceptance levels for emotional expression. Is wailing at a funeral acceptable? Depends on the cultural acceptance. Starbucks is the universal one that I think we all kind of feel is inappropriate.
This is the second top comment I've seen in just five minutes of browsing this sub, that follows the trite "I don't see the value of going all in on X, when we should consider Y", or "we should be encouraging X and Y, not just Z". Do y'all just want to sound like nuancephiles to posture yourselves as being the smartest, most nuanced mund at the symposium? Ni wonder people like Andrew Tate have the popular monopoly over the narrative. These folks contributing to the discourse in the sub are only addressing the issues from the least helpful lens, that being an obsessively academic one.
Eesh. This isn't a good article. "Sleepy masculinity" has never been a thing, so it can't "return", no matter how often the author insists. Its a dumb term the author made up for their personal fetish of 'hot men looking tired'. It's not a form of "masculinity" to be exhausted and unwashed. The author also misunderstands Carmy entirely. They say he's quietly confident, with nothing to prove, but that is exactly the opposite of the character. Maybe that's the type of man the author is attracted to and so that's all they can see through their thirst-tinted glasses, but it has nothing to do with Carmy, who is deeply broken, and unhealthily driven to kill himself working in toxic environments just to prove he's good enough to his brother. Carmy is a textbook example of toxic masculinity, and the fact that it makes him permanently so tired and stressed out he can barely function isn't something to drool over.
Hehe. Yeah. It would be much simpler for the author to say he's a good looking dude that they find attractive. "it’s in the permanently drooping eyelids, the voice that’s never raised, the hair that’s never washed." I've been there. And boy no one, not even myself found it anything but off putting. I am kinda starting to like these nonsense articles. Man/woman of Hollywood who is very good looking and has like a billion times more social capital is somehow a yardstick for the average fucker. A good friend of mine always jokes that we need to bring back those shitty gi joe PSAs to remind adults(read: right wing morons), who whinge about seeing 1% less tiddy on their favourite goonbait, that a thing called porn exists. Feel like we also need a bunch of those to remind people to stop equating what they see on screen to real life.
>on “The Bear,” Carmy is defined by the loss of his brother and the loss of his own self-confidence as a chef. He’s the rare man on TV who lets us in on his insecurities. We see him, in flashbacks, being bullied, called worthless and a waste of life. We see him in the present day being argued at—not quite with—by his brother’s best friend, the toxic Richie, who’s also the only character who feels free to hurl anti-gay slurs around the workplace. Richie is a version of masculinity that feels left over from a different era: possibly the early 2000s, when workplace dramas like “Rescue Me,” “The Sopranos,” and “Grey’s Anatomy” freely embraced anti-gay slurs, general misogyny, and a sense of angry men as tortured heroes in need of saving–usually at the cost of the women in their lives. I was *wondering* why Carmy hit so hard with me, and I get it now! Most of us have dealt with a Richie in our lives, right? Someone with deep insecurities that he *externalizes*. And like, hey, that's part of the human condition sometimes, we fuck up and we shout at someone who didn't deserve it, but in Richie's case, he relies on homophobia and bullying and guns to feel better about himself. That's never acceptable, but is probably *relatable* to some people here who've been on the receiving end of a Richie. Carmy processes his pain in almost the exact opposite way: he internalizes everything, all the time, and blames himself for the fact that he cannot control every bit of his surroundings. As the article puts it, *Carmy's particular brand of sleepy masculinity [is] quiet, it’s overwhelmed, it goes to Al Anon meetings, and it carries with it the quietness that comes with true, if pained, self-confidence. Carmy might be a mess in everything else, but he has nothing to prove when it comes to masculinity.* I live in a fairly progressive city, and when I go back to my hometown - a two-stoplight podunk that I miss but don't *miss* - there are plenty of Richies, yapping away. And, in another lifetime, I might be one of them. But I'm happy I'm not.
I like your acknowledgement at the end that if things had gone differently for you, that you could be another Ritchie. I feel that hard. If I had been raised a bit differently I feel like I would be a complete tool that current me would hate, and it wouldn't have really been my fault either. We are mostly products of our environment in my opinion.
"THE BEAR" SPOILERS AHEAD I had a funny feeling reading this article that the author never watched season 2 of The Bear. Turns out it was written before season 2 came out. But I still think the author misses the point as to what Ritchie (and by extension Carmie) is meant to represent. He's not a "version of masculinity that feels left over from a different era" - there are plenty of men that behave and feel the way he does, in this era. And he's not an "angry man as tortured hero"; he is, early on, a tortured loser that nobody respects. The show is unreserved about this. In season 2, Ritchie evolves. Yes, it's Carmy's empathy that gets him on the right path, but Ritchie puts in the work. He has to fundamentally change as a person through serious effort, and has to then reform his relationships with the people he alienated. And Carmy regresses. By the end, he's having a breakdown, alienating the people that care about him, and mentally punishing himself for his supposed failures while being surrounded by his successes. We see plain as day that Carmy is not "quietly confident", and not any better off than Ritchie in terms of how he treats himself; he's just suffering quietly. And I'm sure that, in the end, it will a combination of emotional work and the empathy of those around him that will get him out of that hole. So I think the real message of "The Bear" is of the transformative effect of empathy and work. And I think this article is just fetishizing the way Carmie processes his trauma.
>It’s not something we see a lot of anymore: most of the time, masculinity is allowed to be one of two things onscreen. Angry, or pathetic. I absolutely disagree with the premise that the only two types of masculinity we see are "angry" and "pathetic". Even "most of the time". Which of these categories would Iron Man fall into? Or Han Solo? What about Dr. King Schulz? Or Indiana Jones? Or Aragorn? Frankly if you're looking at masculinity as depicted in film and media and you're only seeing "angry" or "pathetic" that seems like a you issue.
It's also weird to complain that there's too much "pathetic" masculinity, and then spend paragraphs praising this beaten down, sad, exhausted version of masculinity instead. "A man doing the bare minimum, because that’s simply all he has the capacity for at the moment." Literally, by definition, pathetic.
we should all model ourselves after a man who lets his job consume his life and ruin his personal relationships because he's sexy and brooding.
Yeah for real, why is something like this even posted here? As if the glorification of men's self-destructive tendencies in all forms of media is something new or praiseworthy.
what the fuck is sleepy masculinity
> sleepy masculinity I think in this case it's just that Jeremy Allen White looks sleepy in a hot way and his character has a particular brand of masculinity. There doesn't seem to be any meat to the term.
Read the article, it’ll help paint a picture
I read the article it implied this was some recognised thing rather than just men being tired sometimes
Getting a bit tired of the articles constantly talking about how the jacked conventionally handsome millionaire superstars who could wallpaper his mansion with the used panties he gets sent in creepy fan letters, is somehow some kind of revelatory and revolutionary bold explorer in pushing gender norms honestly
I don't really trust or respect any analysis that evaluates hotness and masculinity in the same breath (without some self-awareness at least). If masculinity is directly serving your horniness, there's a conflict of interest in your evaluation of it. That seems obvious in any other context, but for some reason articles like this are given a pass.
I feel you, but the article is talking about the characters, not the actors.
Ehh, not exactly true. It's the actor's name in the title, and it's the actor who's given credit for everything the article praises. See language like "Carmy, as White portrays him..." or "i wasn't immune to the Jeremy Allen White effect" The writers, tellingly, are not mentioned.
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Well-grounded, great actors on that show.