Teenagers Don’t Want Stories About Capes. They Want Ones Where…Men Are In Touch With Their Emotions?
Teenagers are into stories about men in touch with their emotions. And at the end of the day, don’t we all? But it seems that it’s resonating particularly with Gen Alpha and Gen Z, according to the most recent “Teens & Screens” survey from the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at UCLA.
Kids and young adults ages 10-24 prefer to see onscreen portrayals of “fathers enjoying parenting” or “fathers showing love to kids” by a 5 to 1 margin versus those who wanted to see less of those dynamics, found the report.
“Young people are not just asking for better dads; they are asking for a reimagining of how men show up in the lives of others. Whether it is a father, mentor, coach, or teacher, the message from the audience was the same,” according to the report’s authors.
One strong portrayal that the study’s authors singled out was Noah Wyle’s portrayal of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch in the HBO Max series The Pitt. In it, Robby is a flawed, but empathetic, mentor for the trainees at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s emergency room. He listens and he makes sure that he’s there for not just the trainees, but for the entire department as well.
This certainly marks a change amongst audiences in the past few years. For countless years creators and executives have “operated under the assumption that young male audiences prefer, or at least expect, stoic, independent male heroes.” This is evident by the films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and DC Extended Universe (DCEU), as well as the stories of the lone heroes who save the world.
“For decades, media has relied on the ‘stoic provider’ or the ‘distant hero’ as the default for adult men,’ per the report. “Our data shows that by primarily showing men in positions of power or physical strength, we ignore the roles that young people value, defined by empathy, patience, and emotional availability.”
So why has this changed?
Older millennials and Gen X are the generations that have grown up with a passed-down sense of toxic masculinity, but are young enough to enact change. They were taught that men don’t cry, and that men need to be emotionally removed. Their job was to make the money, not connect with their kids or their emotions.
However, as millennials in particular grow older and begin to raise families of their own, they want to dismantle the system that they grew up on. They want to heal from their own trauma. And if we connect to characters like Dr. Robby simply because they’re kind in ways the men in our own lives weren’t, well, it could be much worse.
(featured image: HBO)
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