In most popular stories Betas may be protagonists, but they’re never really heros. Every movie, that I can remember, that has a beta as a protagonist has been a comedy; beta males are good for laughing at – no one actually admires them.
One thing I remember my parents complaining about when I was
growing up was how men were treated as targets of ridicule on TV. Most shows, especially sitcoms, tended to
portray the average guy as someone to be mocked; as someone to be derided. My parents thought that this was a Hollywood
conspiracy to undermine men and male leadership. I pretty much agreed with them (because what
twelve-year-old disagrees with his parents), but now I’m not so sure.
Nowadays I’m inclined to believe that my parents had causality backwards. It’s not that Hollywood thought that they
should make men into objects of derision but rather that men had already become
objects worthy of derision.
Louie, I think, is
the perfect example of this. The title
character is a sackless loser of a man.
From what I’ve seen of Louis C.K.’s standup, this isn’t too far from the
man himself.* Basically, the man has no
clue about women, having apparently bought into all the lies of feminism and
believing them whole-heartedly. It’s
kind of sad, really, but he turns it into an interesting form of shock comedy. Nonetheless, Louis C.K. perfectly represents the fundamental problem with beta
males: they have no clue about women. They also have no clue about men. They don’t know how to lead, they don’t know
how to charm, and they don’t know how to be men. And really, the only emotions these types of
men can inspire are pity, revulsion, or derision. It is the latter that is most profitable, which
is why there are so many comedies with beta protagonists.
To state my thesis plainly, comedies reflect the state of
men. It’s interesting to see the history
of how men were portrayed in sitcoms. In
the earlier days, fathers were generally more serious, respectable characters
(cf. Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, The
Andy Griffith Show, even Happy Days). Comedy was derived more generally from
children (like Beaver or Opie) or women (Lucy and Ethel, among others), or
fatherless or unmarried men (Gomer Pyle and Barney Fife, The Fonz, etc.). I suspect that the reason for this was that,
a long time ago, fathers (more generally, the men who became fathers) had a
certain gravitas about them. They
carried themselves as men, entrusted to carry on a legacy. You don’t really seem to see that attitude as
much today. Today’s father-males don’t
carry themselves as men but rather as ATMs; some don’t even care about their legacies.
It should not be surprising, then, that men today are viewed
with such derision. In a sense, they
aren’t even men; they are merely males.
They don’t know or understand their role, and cannot embody it. They don’t lead their wives or guide their children. They simply work to provide them with nice
things, as if a father’s main duty is to get stuff for his family. Fathers thus become slaves to the capricious—and
often thankless—demands of their wives and children. I pity these men, but I can understand why they are mocked.
* See this bit on “The World’s Saddest Hand Job” and this bit on “Rape.”
