Very quick before we start talking about the importance of nice and kind and lovely men. The Sicilian Inheritance podcast was just named as a finalist for a Signal Award which is a huge deal in the audio world!
The awards are decided by votes so I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if you could vote for it. I love this show so much because of the message it carries about the importance of women’s histories. Voting is annoying. You have to register. BLARGH. But I truly appreciate it.
Let’s talk about kind men.
If you’re a woman of a certain age then you are very much experiencing what I am referring to as Adam Brody fall. The Seth Cohen of it all is in full effect and it is inescapable and also lovely.
Like every other lady I know I binged the Netflix rom com Nobody Wants This in exactly two days while ignoring my husband and children. It was a delight. I was enthralled. I both loved and hated Kristen Bell’s agnostic podcaster. Did I see myself in her (yeah, 10 years ago) and I snort laughed at most of the truly excellent performance from Justine Lupe (Willa from Succession) as Bell’s sister.
Was it cringey in parts? Absolutely. The portrayal of Jewish woman was also not great. For more on that read this from Emma Gray and listen to her wonderful podcast episode about it. She’s coming on UTI next week to chat more.
Did I also have to suspend belief just a tad that Bell and Brody seem to be portraying early to mid thirty somethings? Only a little. Everyone’s Botox and fillers are truly top-notch.
But the one thing that stuck with me about this show was how wonderfully kind Brody’s hot rabbi is and how I want more of him on the screen and in books. MORE KIND MEN. THAT IS WHAT WOMEN WANT.
At one point Bell’s character tells Brody’s that her greatest fear is that he will think she is too much (spoiler…she’s a lot) and he gently tells her, “I can handle you.”
I also married a man who could handle my “too muchness,” who didn’t run away in terror because I was “a lot.” The day after Nick Aster and I first hooked up I remember he told me, “I can’t wait to see you again. I’ll call you when I get home.” That seemed insane to 34 year old me who was very used to men who simply did not do that.
Looking back, I was conditioned to seek out men who treated me badly. Most of us were.
I grew up watching and reading the near-constant romance trope of the bad boy. The bad boy was sexy and fun and the more unattainable a man the more you should chase him and want him.
Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones
Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club
Mr. FUCKING BIG.
These characters have a unfortunate place in the pantheon of rom-coms, captivating audiences with their swagger, unpredictability and general douch-baggery.
In popular culture the bad boy embodies excitement, promising a life filled with adventure, spontaneity, and the kind of passion that makes your heart race. In contrast, the “nice guy”—though undoubtedly lovable—often represents stability and predictability which Hollywood wants you to see as BORING.
Sigh. Maybe it’s because it has been douchebaggy men greenlighting shows and movies for so long. Maybe it’s because too many of us have been indoctrinated into the cult of believing we don’t deserve nice things.
As young girls so many of us were told that when boys tease you or are mean to you that they must like you. I certainly was. HOW INSANE IS THAT???? You know what I tell my daughter when she tells me a boy pulled her hair or called her a name on the playground? STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THAT KID. HE HAS ISSUES!
We should celebrate male kindness in all of its forms. We should see more of it in the stories that we love. That’s what women truly want and what girls need to see.
Thank god I didn’t marry Mr. Big (though I dated plenty of them). I married an Aiden and it has made all the difference.
The romanticization of bad boys leads to troubling implications. Too often we see narratives that suggest that a woman’s love can change a man (it won’t). This message, will perpetuate the unrealistic expectation that love alone can fix deeply rooted issues (it won’t).
I wrote about this earlier this year when I explained why I banned Beauty in the Beast in my house despite my great love for Mrs. Potts.
I love Hot Rabbi. I loved Seth Cohen. Emotionally available men who want to care for and support women are sexy as fuck and Hollywood needs to take that to heart.
The greatest blessing of my entire life:
1. Met a kind and caring boy (a high school sweetheart!)
2. Broke up with him in college because I thought I needed something more than that. Kind and caring boy immediately enlisted and got sent across the globe.
3. Dated a string of bad boys. Kind and caring and I kept in touch.
4. Realized I needed kind and caring.
5. That same kind and caring boy was always there for me through it all, even though we weren't together and he was in a polar opposite time zone and on a boat, got to come back stateside eventually and we got the band back together. He told me he tried to date but "no one ever compared to you."
I love telling people we're high school sweethearts, and love more telling them that we're much more than that. Been together (and not together) for 20 years. I'm only in my mid-thirties. A blessing.
Fantastic piece. YES. I, too, married an Aiden and he is the best. I am also the mother of three boys and I tell them over my dead body am I putting assholes out in to the world; they may not keep their rooms as tidy as I would like but they better be nice and also know how to clean a bathroom. I picked up a banana peel from the side table yesterday and the first thing I thought of was their future partners (please know I tried!!!).
I have to say, though, that I was chewed up and spit out by a Mr. Big in my early twenties. I agree we need to move away from spotlighting that kind of guy, but could part of the problem also be the "helpless broken-hearted maiden" reaction? Because there is something very satisfying about seeing a woman come into her own, recognize her power, and shut that shit down.