The Movies that Made Men
After I published The Movies that Made Me, I started wondering about other people. The films I watched on repeat as a kid gave me a script for manhood. Messy, contradictory, sometimes fear-driven and sometimes love-driven. But they were the map I had.
That sparked a thought. What if other people could explore the same thing?
So I built a custom GPT. You type in the movies you grew up watching, and it reflects back what those films might have been teaching you about being a man. It analyzes the main male characters and identifies the surface traits everyone saw, the deeper layers that made them human, their love-based moments of connection and care, and their fear-based moments of control and withdrawal.
This isn’t about a single definition of masculinity. I believe there is no one masculinity. There are masculinities, plural, as varied and complex as the people who live them. And this reflection isn’t just for men. People of all gender identities grew up on films and absorbed lessons about gender, leadership, and belonging.
Think of it as playful cultural archaeology. Digging into the VHS tapes, DVDs, or streaming queues that left fingerprints on us when we were young.
One reader put in American Werewolf in London, Breakfast Club, Meatballs, Stripes, and Spinal Tap. His response? “Frighteningly on the nose.”
The films we watched don’t just make us. They keep remaking us. Noticing that is where change can begin.
Read the full piece on Substack
Learn more about the adventure at www.heart-strong.org
