Men in Fiction

Hi! Before I start here’s my quick news update. I have secured the domain name (no actual website just yet) costumedfiend.com. It’ll match with my Instagram name and I love costumes and can be fiendish on occasion so it suits me. In the meantime, while it’s true that there are a lot of men and male stories in fiction, there are a few that tend to get left out and it’s just as important to feminism that these stories get told, so without further ado here are the types of men I want to see on my screen:

• Transgender Men: I kid you not I once looked up transgender actors for reference for a character and no actual trans males came up. Not to say that they have it better at all, but in media, trans women do have more visibility and I can think of a few actresses off the top of my head. I’ve seen male trans athletes, but it’s hard for me to believe that there are no trans male actors out there with stories to tell and who could lend themselves to other works.
• Queer Men (particularly of color): Most queer rep good or bad comes in the form of a white gay male, something that I think needs to change/be expanded on. The fact that there are still POC who believe queerness is a white thing says to me that queer men of color need more representation stat. Like with the representation of queer women it has improved and is far less stereotypical now, but there is much work to be done, especially for the sexualities and gender identities that are not always represented.
• MOC in Sci-Fi and Fantasy: Similar to my desire to see more WOC in these genres my future and my fantasy life doesn’t exist without black and brown faces it just doesn’t. We need more non- white guys donning period costumes or commanding star fleets because there’s plenty of dynamic actors out there who need the chance to handle these kinds of roles. Also, I’m just biased because I love these genres and wish they were 100% more inclusive.
• The Genuinely Nice Guy: There are a lot of seemingly nice guys in fiction, but in all honesty, most of them end up being pissbabies or disrespectful to women (in spite of claims to be feminist) and just all around suck. Of course, as with anything, there are exceptions (which is why I like them/latch on to them), but overall the media could use more male characters that drink their “respect women juice” and don’t use queerness as a punchline. That’s not to say that I don’t like characters who are badass or rough around the edges, but considering how society treats women and gender non- conforming folks there’s nothing counter-culture or cool about pure misogyny.

Other than the above I’m up for essentially any male characters who take societies expectations and ideals for manhood and throws em’ in a big ol’ grinder. Also Hollywood needs to stop putting Tom Cruise in movies. There I said it.

In any case, to wrap up I will say that while I mentioned gender non-conforming people I didn’t bring them up as major players on the list because I felt like they deserve their own post rather than being lumped in with men or women. So to complete this (I guess) mini-series I will write up next week about the kinds of gender queer/non- binary characters I think media needs more of (which may be long because they don’t really exist much now). As always stay informed and be good to yourselves. See you later!

**Featured Image: I’m sure I’ve posted this before, but here are some steampunk brothers (the one in red is adopted).