Men In Boats

I've been watching the Horatio Hornblower movies, a high-minded adventure series based on the books of C.S. Forester, written circa WWII. In these movies, Hornblower is inevitably faced with a challenge which he overcomes, saving the day, his ship (Indefatigable), his father figure Captain, his reputation, his honor and so on and so forth. He is inevitably recognized as a true hero by afore-mentioned Captain and his crewmates. This is accompanied by slow moving boats blowing up other slow moving boats (the movies take place during the French Revolution, which just goes to show that the British never liked the French, before or after Napoleon).

I haven't read the books but if the movies are based, even approximately, on the books, then they must be the most unpretentiously sincere books on record. In "The Duchess and the Devil," when Horatio informs his Captain that he has given his word to return to a Spanish prison, my thought was, "Yeah, and in real life, honey, your Captain would have thrown you in the brig for wasting his time with such high falutin' nonsense." But not Horatio Hornblower--oh, no. The Captain understands the issue, the crew is informed, Horatio and his men return to the prison from which they are later released for their noble actions.

And here's my confession: I love this stuff.

I don't, I admit, get the whole slow moving boat thing, but manly men being courageous and honorable and self-sacrificing, etc. etc. etc. that's just a whole lot of fun. And refreshing. I admit I prefer my manly men a bit more Kiplingesque (some ambiguity and wink wink thrown in--read Stalky & Co for a good example). But it's all very fun to watch.

Manly men (and their accompanying attributes) are an important factor in movie watching. Male-heavy casts like The Fugitive, The Hunt for Red October and Ocean's 11 exhibit plentry of manly behavior that is appealing in and of itself (aside from the plots).

Now, I know, and I won't dispute, that women can be honorable and self-sacrificing and courageous. What is so nice about manly movies--especially for some reason movies that involve men in boats--is that those qualities are taken for granted. It isn't the point of the movie that the men are brave and honorable and self-sacrificing. They just are. Tom Wolfe does a better job of explaining this in his book about the Apollo astronauts: The Right Stuff.

This taking-for-grantedness can work with women, so long as nobody is making some big deal out of the fact that there's a woman involved. Poole of Deputy Gerard's team in The Fugitive is a good example of a woman who fits into the team without anyone going, "Look it's a woman. Isn't she brave? Isn't she aggressive? Isn't she doing her job well?" The team teases her about her shoes but later they also tease Cosmo, so it isn't really a "female" moment. (Just to be obnoxious, let me say that I'm not sure some feminists understand this point: equality comes when you stop calling attention to it.)

And I think many women like to watch men acting manly. Take The Hunt for Red October. The Hunt for Red October is one of the best compare and contrast movies of male heirarchies on records. There are four male heirarchies (not counting the Pentagon meeting) in the movie, all on boats: Red October's heirarchy, headed by Captain Remius, Dallas' heirarchy headed by Captain Marcuso (played the incomparable Scott Glenn), that of the USS Enterprise headed by Rear Admiral Joshua Painter and Konovalov's heirarchy, headed by Captain Tupolev.

Of the four, only the last is depicted negatively. Captain Tupolev is arrogant, hot-headed, disorganized. The remaining three, however, are depicted as positives, if very different.

The first heirarchy is strictly controlled, relying on the smart but ultimately unquestioning loyalty of the officers towards Captain Ramius.

The Enterprise utilizies a bad cop/good cop method of leadership; the second-in-command takes a hard line with Alec Baldwin's character while his superior sits back and assesses the situation. The assessment, however, is accurate, and results in the second-in-command later passing on information to Alec Baldwin.

The remaining ship (submarine), Dallas, is a loosely run heirarchy in which the Captain can rely on the smart, individual decisions of his crew. He collects information, and his decisions alter with his increase in knowledge. He is the most flexible of the captains and therefore, rightly, the Captain who contacts Red October.

For a movie that lacks all but two female characters, therefore, The Hunt provides plenty of human interest moments (women being notoriously more interested in people than the boats, although that is a debatable point--golly, could I make any more generalizations in this post?!) And no matter what, I would argue that women like to see men behaving well. Even in supposedly chauvinistic settings.