Jonathan McIntosh

> “It’s not my fault his voice is like the worst thing in existence” - Wolf
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**Jonathan McIntosh**, also know as **Pop Culture Detective,** is the diviner, the indeceiveable. He knows your heart. He knows your mind. He knows your intentions and your deepest desires. There is no running from his sacred justice. There is no hiding from his all-seeing eye. Face his judgement and repent, or be destroyed.

## How The Last Jedi Defies Expectations About Male Heroes

> *“despite what the reactionary conspiracy theorist claim, this is not an agenda of masculine inferiority”*
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McIntosh had strong praise for *The Last Jedi*'s subversion of expectations, particularly noting the genders of the people involved. He cited Finn's attempt to sacrifice himself to stop a miniature Death Star laser from firing at his friends, which was of course thwarted by Rose, as being foolish on account of sacrifice being a masculine stereotype, and yet had no criticism of Admiral Holdo (a woman) sacrificing herself mere minutes earlier, or Luke Skywalker (a man) sacrificing himself to stall the villains for a few minutes.

Poe, fin and Luke look like they should fit neatly in roles of men in action-adventure films, but last Jedi doesn’t deliver with these expectations (not immediately, he says) instead ryan throws fans “series of curveballs”. these character “twists” made some fans leave in state of shock, which rapidly ”mutated into fits of rage”. I’m not talking about people that just didn’t like about the movie, but the subset of mostly male superfans that felt betrayed, personally disrespected by the movie. their complaints are vide ranging, but mostly involve scrutiny when it comes to female characters. “fan complaints have tendency to devolve into wild conspiracy theories about the Disney corporation pushing agenda of forced diversity or feminist propaganda (as he theorizes that the males felt personally disrespected and as if leia slapped them and how they hate the 3 females in the movie, also the creators are open about how they are pushing diversity), but there is a common thread running through much of the backlash that speaks to an underlying anxiety, anxiety rooted in deep-seated insecurities about masculinity. let me briefly explain what I mean by that. leading men in action-adventure movies are expected to be decisive, righteous, respected and to take charge in most situations. men are expected to achieve success by becoming progressively more and more powerful as the story unfolds” its so entrenched to our culture that fans aggressively want that manhood to be reproduce in the big screen, but last jedi isn’t intending to cater to simple vicarious power fantasy (like how han was frozen in carbonite and luke lost his hand)

Poe is hotshot pilot that should be celebrated for blowing up the bad guys, but his reckless and arrogant

Fin is noble defector, Detective sees fin as self-centered and has defeatist attitude

Luke is wise warrior who wields tremendous power in the name of fighting evil, luke is consumed by paralyzing guilt that he denounced the jedi and became hermit

‘thinks rey inspired luke to be best version of himself again and ultimately do the exact thing that he mocked her for earlier in the film

## Trivia

* Like Just Write, McIntosh has mastered the soft sounding "Essayist Voice."
* Women only matter if they're ugly.
* Macintosh speaks from his heart about other people’s hearts.
* Most Action-Adventure films character archetypes evolved from Independence day, Avatar (the blue one) and Lord of the Rings.
* Sacrificing yourself to save your friends is bad and wouldn't work.
* Luke fell into a trap, so he's not a great Jedi warrior.
* The theme is that this isn't supposed to happen to space wizards. He even wrote a book about it, "Epitome of Masculinity: What Should And Should not Happen To Space Cowboys And Space Wizards, I Guess". They have harems of female servants that obey them.
* *The Room* has a Space Vampire.
* Needs patreon money because he researches thoroughly (supposedly)
* His angle, “how do I make this a gender issue?”
* He doesn’t think Wolf is a real wolf.
* He doesn’t want characters to sacrifice themselves or suffer violent deaths. EFAP suggests that those characters should have heart attacks to appease this.
* Rags doesn’t find him conventionally or unconventionally attractive and "Wolf thinks his weight gain made Anita leave him and he has a extremely punchable face."
* Even Anita Sarkeesian didn’t want to deal with him.

## Quotes

*“All three male heroes are presented as vulnerable in their fallibility, with each displaying their own set of rather significant character flaws and inadequacies“*

*“now flawed heroes, in of themselves, aren’t all that unusual in speculative fiction, in fact failure and learning to overcome that failure is just the standard recipe for structuring basic character arc”*

*“I’d argue that intense fan hate surrounding the last jedi has lot more to do with the fact that the male heroes in this movie are directly challenged on their failure by women, this is not something that’s supposed to happen to space cowboys or space wizards, in Hollywood blockbusters, women aren’t supposed to interfere with man’s heroic journey”*

*“theme of women challenging male provado” is most evident in the character arch of poe (which he before called conspiracy theory), poe is a hotshot fighter pilot, his impulsive, his arrogant and he cares more about being a big damn hero than does about lives of his compatriots, the gung-ho rebel pilot is familiar archetype in Star Wars media and as a result we think we know how it’s going to play out. audiences expect the good guys to bring down the enemy death machine in a giant ball of fire and we expect to revel in the joyful spectacle of impossible explosions in outer space. but instead of framing Poes daring raid on the dreadnought as a cause for celebration, movie suddenly pulls the rug out from under us*

*“Poe is rebuked for his apparent victory, and by extension the audience is rebuke for enjoying the fireworks”*

*“we found ourselves suddenly confronted with the narrative about consequences”*

*“for some starwars fans it must have felt as if princess leia had just reached out of the movie screen and personally slapped them across the face”*

*“now its noteworthy that blowing up the space fascist death ray isn’t framed as morally wrong, instead we are asked to consider the tactical and human cost of that violence”if ever a beloved leader is incapacitated we expect out brash hero to suddenly find themselves in command, but that doesn’t happen either. vice admiral holdo is even less sympathetic to poe attitude than general leia. she harshly chastises poe for his recklessness and sees him as reliability to their mission. and this is at the hear of why so many angry fans hate vice admiral holdos character so much.*

*“poe damerons story is that of a cocky, headstrong, “never tell me the odds” style of male hero, who is repeatedly wrong, until finally he learn to listen to and trust the women in positions of power”*

*“as the episode 8 begins, we see fin is a man obsessed, he wants nothing more than to find his friend ray and get as far away from war as possible. fins intentions are selfish and driven by lack of faith. his convince that the fight against the first order is a lost cause. enter rose tyco, low ranking maintenance worker who is a fan of fins exploits from force awakens. when she realizes that he is not the committed resistance hero she has heard stories about her disappointment is palpable. rose takes on the role of fins guide and mento, she’s the one who pulls back the curtain to expose the oppression festering just below the surface of the galaxy”*

*“unlike leia and holdo, rose holds no formal position of power but she does speak for moral authority, she articulates political and moral reasons why resistance is necessary and by doing so, she inspires fin to finally identify a “rebel”. and it’s her role as moral compass, to fin and to the audience, that’s responsible for good proportion of the rage directed at the roses character from the more toxic side of the Star Wars fandom. many of these guys can’t help but feel women who is serving as teacher to male hero anything other than preachy, annoying or emasculating. fact that rose also happens to be played by actress of color only magnifies their anger. the other reason for the backlash against rose is because she interrupts fins big heroic sacrifice. in the film’s final battle, fin embarks in self-destructive charge. his arc is finally in the right place, but his judgment is clouded by his eagerness to act on his newfound convictions. as the movie makes clear, fins suicide attack is doomed to fail. but fin is so focused on striking a blow against the first order that he cant see ow ineffective this strategy is. understanding that his actions amount to noble but senseless sacrifice, rose steps in to save fin from himself” “a heroic sacrifice is part of long tradition oof, where death is framed as a way for men to proof their bravery, their conviction, their love and even their manhood. and movies tend to romantic images of men going off in the blaze of glory, even when their sacrifice is unnecessary (jack titanic) this notion that death and violent death in particular is redemptive (fury road) and restorative to men deeply ingrained in media that many angry fans are adamant that fins misguided kamikaze attack had succeeded, despite the film explicitly telling us otherwise. these men are incensed that women got “the big damn hero moment” and she got it, in their view by robbing a male hero his chance of martyrdom”*

*“when rey finally meets her hero, the legendary jedi knight isn’t at all what she expected, luke skywalker has become cynical old hermit, man so consumed by fear and guilt that he has turned his back to the resistance. this comes off as tremendous chock, both to ray and to the audience, like ray, many star wars fans were expecting luke to appear a triumphant badass one they remember or rather misremember from the original trilogy. but the thing is, luke was never really depicted as a great jedi warrior”*

*“as I mentioned earlier, its assumed Hollywood heroes, especially men, will grow exponentially more powerful over time. the expectation is that once a man has conquered his demons those demons they conquered forever. but even though luke rejected the dark side back in the return of the jedi, his struggle to resist the temptation absolute power isn’t over. his still scared of the darkness hiding inside of himself, just as he was as a young man in degoba. although his older luke skywalker is consistent with his characterization from original trilogy angry fans still believe that last jedi represents a downgrading of his power and status. fan fury is exasperated by the fact that young untrained jedi who challenges this mythic hero on his failures.”*

*“later on, yoda offers guidance too, but its ray who opens the door for luke to overcome his paralyzing self-doubt, so instead of seeing the old jedi master teaching rey how to wield the awesome power of the force audience is treated with scenes in which rey reminds luke of what is means to be a jedi. of course, ray isn’t a more powerful jedi than luke and she ends up being wrong about her ability to fix kylo ren, but she does poses something that his lost, rey still has hope, she still has conviction, she still has clarity of purpose, the idea that young woman like rey has something important to teach to older, mythic male hero like luke skywalker is erroneously view by some male fans as emasculating”*

*“it’s worth pointing out that angry fan defensiveness isn’t just a reaction to women existing in popular science fiction. if women aren’t included alongside male heroes, in the way that doesn’t overshadow or upstage or interfere with traditional expectations of masculinity. then we don’t see these same kinds of extended temper tantrums male fans, especially if the female characters in question are cast as young, white and conventionally attractive”*

*“the last jedi isn’t satisfied simply including women, its goes much further and puts female characters in positions of institutional power or moral authority over male heroes. the movie then has those women leverage that power to challenge and ultimately change men’s behavior, that is almost unheard of in summer blockbusters films. in the end our male heroes face up to the r mistakes and overcome their failures, poe learns from holdo and leia to put aside his desire of heroic short-term gains and then consider the bigger picture. its only through roses moral insights that fin comes to believe something bigger than himself”*

*“women in the last jedi hold their male counterpart accountable not out of animosity but because they genuinely care about them. male heroes are not being diminished or erased in his movie, in fact lot of time and effort is devoted to giving men transformative arcs. the last jedi is story about men learning to trust women’s ideas and decision, and then becoming better people and better heroes because of it. and while that might be unexpected message for Star Wars story, it’s a vital lesson that men need to learn, if we are to achieve gender equality”*

## References

1. ↑ EFAP #3 - "How The Last Jedi Defies Expectations" - "Let's Talk about Thanos - Movies with Mikey"