Doan 1
Masculinity
Masculinity is defined as a quality appropriated for men. For centuries, human portrays men to be strong and emotionless human beings, however, rolls have turned. The movie Drive directed by Nicolas Winding Refn shows mixed messages of masculinity to the viewers by having a main character who is caring for his loved ones, yet is a psychopath.
Drive starts off by portraying the Driver as a calm, cool, and collected man. He is involved with robberies and it shows that he isn’t scared of what he was doing. He then meets a strong, independent woman and her son, Irene and Benicio. When the Driver met Irene, he was awkward. He tried sharing his emotions to her but it was not smooth. Eventually, he showed that he cared about Irene and Benicio by different ways. This shows the audience mixed messages about masculinity because the Driver is impersonating an emotionless man, but once meeting Irene and Benicio, he becomes more caring because he wants to have his own family. The Driver stuck through every day to spend time with Irene and Benicio indicating that he was interested in having a family. He wanted to be the one who cares for Irene.
Towards the ending of the movie, Irene finds out that Driver is a psychopath. The Driver hold anger against people who harms his loved ones. The Driver shows the he cares for Benicio when the Driver found him with his beat-up dad in the parking lot. Benicio was given a bullet and the Driver kept it for his safety. After the killing of Irene’s husband, Driver went to the only person he has, which is Shannon. He tells him the problem, and Shannon talks to other people about it. Nino and his workers, now plan on killing Shannon because he knows too much. The Driver offers Irene the money so she can leave the area, but Irene ended up slapping him. This was a sign of the Driver caring because he didn’t want Irene and Benicio to be in danger. Then, Driver and Irene were having a romantic kissing moment in the elevator as a man who was hired to kill Irene and Benicio. After the kiss, the Driver attacks the killer in order to protect Irene, however, he had no limit to how much he should attack the killer. This is another example of the Driver showing mixed messages about masculinity because he shows Irene and Benicio the love and he has for them, but once he leaves off the the streets, he has no limitations to how much pain he’s giving people.
In the book, The Professor in the Cage, Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch, Jonathan Gottschall shares his knowledge about what he sees during his training in MMA fighting. Gottschall then talks about “sex/gender system” (68). He talks about how women look for muscular men in order to protect her and her family. Men dislike showing emotions other than anger and being muscular because crying is a sign of weakness. However, in the movie Drive, the Driver tries showing his emotions to Irene, and eventually showed his aggression to her. When Irene showed up to...
