Humanizing Boys: How Disney's Luca Shows Us Another Masculinity is Possible
The following is a significantly expanded version of a piece originally published in the Fall 2021 edition of Voice Male magazine. I share the full-length piece in this two-part series in an effort to highlight the best of feminist theory in combating narrow conceptions of male humanity as well as female humanity.
The 2021 Disney movie, Luca, is a coming-of-age story about a young sea monster boy on the cusp of adolescence. It's also a powerful challenge to conventional, restrictive male socialization, and inspiring celebration of expansive, healthy, male emotional connection.
Exemplifying features of what Joseph Campbell called the hero’s journey, Luca, a young sea monster, receives a call to adventure that interrupts his humdrum life. While exploring tantalizing sea objects, he encounters a seemingly carefree human boy, Alberto, who introduces him to a simultaneously exciting and frightening new world beyond the waters of ordinary sea-monster life. Luca quickly discovers that he has as much to learn about himself as he does the broader world he inhabits.
Luca’s first obstacle is his fear of transgressing the status quo boundaries that have shaped his childhood. Alberto tells him, “You’ve got a “Bruno” in your head”—Alberto’s term for our inner critic; the one who says, “you can’t.” Rather than obey the critic, Alberto teaches Luca his mantra for courageous and authentic living: “Silenzio, Bruno!”
Parents are likely to see value in the child's inner “Bruno.” There are some things Alberto and Luca really shouldn’t do. This inner critic is sometimes a valuable voice of prudence and caution. But it can also push us to prioritize social-cultural propriety over growth, independence, and authenticity, with the result being conformity to erroneous cultural beliefs and practices. Alberto teaches his friend that our “Bruno” sometimes holds us back from our true self.
Sex, Gender, and Luca: Humanizing Boys
In her visionary book, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004), feminist intellectual, bell hooks wrote that men are themselves chief victims of patriarchal culture.
“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.”
This damaging vision of manhood not only presumes men are inherently superior in worth and ability to women, but also asserts that men are most fully themselves when exercising dominance, to include violence at times, and emotionally detached from life. This idea of manhood limits—and diminishes—men’s potential for human self-actualization.
Luca beautifully subverts narrow patriarchal definitions of masculinity—with its emphasis on aggressive competition and rejecting all things “feminine” including emotion, interpersonal bonding. The two lead characters, Luca Paguro and Alberto Scorfano, share more than the typical adventure. Yes, they ride a makeshift Vespa off of a dangerously constructed ramp into the sea; go to a forbidden land; and evade a menacing antagonist. But they also befriend a girl without any ulterior motive of romance, and they take time to get to know each other—to develop friendship.
They hold meaningful conversations, share their dreams, and openly express their emotions. Instead of belittling each other, they encourage one another. And while they make a few choices that would lead most parents to worry for their safety, Luca and Alberto aren’t aggressive or violent. Luca, thus, honors the parts of boys’ humanity they are otherwise expected to “kill off,” as hooks put it.
Such a portrayal of adolescent males starkly contrasts with conventional expressions of masculinity that normalize aggression, violence, misogyny, and winner-take-all competition. The importance of this alternative conception of masculinity is clear when we consider that, as sociologists Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams write, “men construct their masculinity amid a triad of violence: men against women, men against men, and men against themselves.” This socialization process occurs early on in boys’ lives where they are taught “(through, for instance, toys and sports) to symbolically correlate competition, violence, power, and domination with masculinity.”
Given the value of popular representations of gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people in popular culture, it’s understandable that many people were disappointed when Luca’s director explained that the filmmakers conceived of the boys relationship as a preadolescent friendship and not a romantic bond.
“Today, small boys and young men are daily inundated with a poisonous pedagogy that supports male violence and male domination, that teaches boys that unchecked violence is acceptable, and that teaches them to disrespect and hate women.”
Some observers argued Luca’s struggle with acceptance—and having to hide his true self—exemplified the experiences of many who are the LGBTQ+. Though this interpretation has validity, it’s important to recognize that virtually all boys struggle, (though in different ways), with painful, alienating patriarchal socialization. A socialization that forces them to fit into a narrowly prescribed vision of proper masculinity; one that requires denying parts of their humanity.
Everyday Dehumanization of Boys
We have gotten good at recognizing the unconscionable distortion of female humanity generated by sexist stereotypes and expectations. But we have not yet learned to see how the stereotypes and expectations of men, exalted by dominant culture, also functions to maim and distort male humanity. From a very young age, boys are subjected to a pervasive education in the patriarchal masculine ideal. bell hooks wrote,
“Today, small boys and young men are daily inundated with a poisonous pedagogy that supports male violence and male domination, that teaches boys that unchecked violence is acceptable, and that teaches them to disrespect and hate women.”
The lesson is soon made clear, explained hooks:
“They know they must not express feelings, with the exception of anger; that they must not do anything considered feminine or womanly.”
Walk through the toy aisles of a mainstream department store and you will find isles filled with baby dolls, toy-sets centered on family life, along with household items beckoning girls to enact homemaking and caretaking roles. Boys are, on the other hand, find a plethora of toys and games centered around warfare, policing, and violent sports such as mixed martial arts, wrestling, and football. The images of children on the toy packages make it all too clear that these aisles represent polarized societal roles: girls over there as nurturers and boys over here as fighters. And if you spend enough time in those toy aisles you will hear parents reinforce this cultural polarity, explicitly reprimanding their boys for curiously turning the corner down the “girl” aisle.
Through the powerful pedagogy of play, boys learn that those parts of humanity that are culturally defined as “feminine” are off-limits and beneath them. Neither boys nor girls are permitted to freely explore and then develop a complete, multifaceted identity. Instead, they are pressured or shamed into fitting themselves into limited one-dimensional models of selfhood.
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This is interesting but how do we know that men need to be humanized and that this way of doing it does in fact humanize them? It’s built on the assumption that the view of men as only able to express themselves through violence or anger is in fact the default. It also assumes that it’s a socialized thing that is done to men. How do we know that the belief that it’s socialized isn’t socialized itself?