Me too and yet it’s been too ling since last rewatch - can anybody explain why?

Most men in Star Trek would fall into this category. Sisko fills the top spot for me though, for his portrayal as a supportive, affectionate, and masculine father while balancing the responsibilities of wartime leadership.

Riker and Troi were in a big deal relationship before the events of TNG, and there's a scene later in the show where they are talking about their respective relationships and giving each other advice and I find that quite wholesome. It's not always easy or even possible to break up with someone and remain in contact, let alone friends, but it can happen under the right circumstances, and it's nice to see a depiction of a breakup that doesn't have to turn into enmity.

Having "you know what Bandit says, gotta be done" in the toolbox is great.

I feel like it falls to the same problem. They will see Ron Swanson, a tridimensional complex character and just flat it to the "cool macho" stuff and ignore his character growth and confuse aspects that are flaws but maybe charming or colorful to actual qualities.

Love the after scene with Mr. Terrific...

https://youtu.be/tfCrd0ArwG8

IRL? H. Bomberguy

If only he fulfilled the positive role model aspect of being regular and dependable.

I'm suddenly thinking about the relation between Boromir and Faramir, brothers who loved each other, and how Boromir never put his younger brother below him, instead even protecting him from their father, despite being the preferred child.

I'm not entirely sure being in a constant state of panicked contingency planning is necessarily masculine.

Blowing shit up is, though.

(Really though, caring about his fellow crawlers and insisting on always helping as many people as possible is very cool of him, and would qualify as positive masculinity.)

He's not a great guy, even on a high honor playthrough, which I did do. He's not the worst, most of the people the gang kills do definitely deserve it, but I still wouldn't use him as a role model. Thomas Downes certainly didn't deserve it though. Doesn't seem to care much about women or their rights (well, not their suffrage, didn't care about his own either). Wasn't racist though. That was cool. I'd give him a 5.5/10 as a role model.

In videogames, the latest I've seen is the protagonist of Vampire Therapist (and probably other characters too). Give that game a try, you all.

This one I can actually kind of understand because the shift is gradual. Like, if you started watching in season 3, it would be quite obvious that he's a piece of shit, but if you start in season 1, the viewer establishes that he's a sympathetic character and it's hard to really identify a firm moment when he goes from being sympathetic to villain. It's like the old 'boiling water with a frog in it' analogy... The viewer (at least it was true for me) tries to justify his increasingly bad actions because he's been established as a "good guy" in the beginning until at some point they just have to step back and think, "Wow... he's actually an awful person." Then you watch the rest with a re-framed perspective.

That was the entire point of the show. The writers wanted to see if they could get people to root for a villain, if they knew why the villain was bad and if the shift was gradual enough. It’s literally the title; they wanted to break the concept of what people consider “bad”, and see if the audience would go along with it if they felt the reasons were justified.

and he reveals how much more of a piece of shit he really is

That’s the thing though. From many peoples’ perspective, he wasn’t always that piece of shit. It wasn’t “revealing” as much as it was “changing”. He took on aspects of every person he killed, for better or worse. The idolatry was certainly a problem with the fans, but (again) that was the entire point of the show. By the later seasons, even the writers were baffled at how people were still rooting for Walt, because he was inarguably a monster. But because people watched his descent into madness, they were still hoping for him to come out on top.

Walt murders a guy and blackmails a former student into cooking meth for him in first episode and then rapes his wife in like the first or second episode of the second season. It always amazes me that people feel like it was somehow a subtle slide into "maybe this dude isn't a good guy?". The show is NOT subtle in its portrayal of the character.

I honestly think that's part of the appeal for those who idolize Bateman. He's particular and vane and envious. We are led to see his flaws as he sees them: extensions of justified righteous indignation at the world's resistance to his perfection, all. His narcissism fueling disgust for the world and everyone in it.

The jilted pampered white boy is exactly what they identify with.

Evaluate the comparison drawn in the final scene of the film. Bateman confesses again, in-person this time, to his lawyer who blows him off for reasons that could be debated within the narrative. The important bit for our discussion is that, regardless of the reasons for dismissal, the lawyer simply doesn't believe Bateman is capable of the crimes he confesses to.

Not even recognizing Bateman (and mistaking Bateman for someone else) the lawyer says: "Bateman's such a dork, such a boring, spineless lightweight..." "...Oh Christ. He can barely pick up an escort girl, let alone... What was it you said he did to her?"

After some more back and forth Bateman returns to his friend's table and finds his friends discussing Ronald Reagan's address regarding the Iran-Contra scandal. The sentiment is how unbelievable it is that someone so unassuming could do something so vile, brazenly lie about it, and almost get away with it.

To be dismissed as incapable while believing oneself cunning and depraved and wholly underestimated. To act on that depravity and take by brutal force. To confess vile crimes that go unpunished because no believes you capable of them... It's a twisted diamond in the rough story.

That's not the gritty visual masculinity we normally think of, as you say, but Bateman is rape culture personified and adorned in every tropey "high-class" commecialization of masculinity at the time. Couple that with anemoia for the eighties in a generation raised on algorithmically tuned psychological traps which weaponized toxic masculinity for profit and... Tada!

We strike resonance with a certain brand both of internet-raised narcissist and naive, disaffected, emotionally-immature manchild. Especially young men who've been emotionally manipulated into believing alt-right propaganda makes sense of a world they've been stymied from understanding.

Not satirizing metrosexual at all. He is the counterpoint to Gordon Gecko.

Why compare Bateman to Rambo, when Batman is sitting right there? Twice.

Yes!! It might stick out to him cuz subconsciously he knows that's what he'll need to do to grow, but just isn't ready.

Maybe. It does imply a desire to be free if that quote resonates, but his actions don't seem to indicate seeking social freedom from his current set of friends.

There was one point when he got drunk and confided in me that he thought he really had no real friends and had an emotional melt down. But this was a long time ago and as far as I know, nothing has changed for him since then other than a new job.

I do think his defensiveness of Rogan is fraying, if only because Joe Rogan is becoming increasingly bad at managing his own image. He stopped watching Rogan back when he started charging for his show so it was probably inevitable.

He probably wouldn't watch any political or joe rogan deconstruction video I send him though.

I think I know what you mean. He lacks "broad" compassion and is intellectually a coward. If you think those are prerequisites for being a good person, he isn't one.

What I should have said is he is empathetic and inter-personally does what normal good people do in the immediate context of people around him, including helping strangers. Even going out of his way to do so.