I have a theory about our nation's misogyny which may be too simplistic, but keeps coming back up in my mind.

[Mike 03]

7. I wonder if those archetypes had something to do with

the generation of men who fought in WW2. They came back and in the material sense times were good, but they had seen and experienced terrible things, and the message they got from TV and movies was not to talk about it. The two children of WW2 veterans I was fortunate enough to know said their dads didn't talk about the war. I also wonder if there was a lot of alcoholism among that group of men.

So the next question would be about the sons of that generation. What impact on them did it have to have fathers like this?

Fast forward to the 90s. I know there was a lot of discussion about misogyny in early rap music, and then in video games. I can't really draw a connection between the masculine archetypes of the 50s to 70s. I began paying attention to movies in the 70s and the male characters comprised a wide spectrum. I liked the "anti heroes", the good people who did unpopular things---from "All The President's Men" to "And Justice For All." Woody Allen's films and movies like "Kramer vs Kramer" portrayed softer, more intelligent men. The Viet Nam films certainly ran a spectrum too. Spielberg's male characters. William Friedkin, early on, loved the hard-boiled guys (The French Connection, Sorcerer), but then he made "Cruising", in which Al Pacino's character struggles with gender identity and insecurity about his masculinity. And that's barely scratching the surface.

Cinematically, the 70s was an incredibly rich decade.