ALPHA males love certain films featuring manly violence and dominant behaviour. But on closer inspection some of them may in fact be about puny beta males. Like these.
The Deer Hunter (1978)
This three-hour film charts the progress of Robert De Niro’s character from a man who’s able to kill deer without batting an eyelid to becoming an animal rights supporter who lets one go. Okay, he’s slaughtered loads of Viet Cong in the meantime, but he’s still a wuss. Plus there’s a wedding scene, which makes the film soppy as well as poncy.
Gladiator (2000)
No self-respecting alpha male would be caught dead wearing sandals, yet Russell Crowe’s Maximus spends the whole film in them like a drippy Guardian reader. At least he doesn’t wear socks too. And he enjoys wandering about in wheat fields, stroking it like it’s his pet hamster. What a complete fanny.
Scarface (1983)
Cocaine is the beta male’s drug of choice. Alpha males stick to steroids they pick up from a guy they know at their gym. Al Pacino’s line ‘Say hello to my little friend’ is clearly a metaphor for his penis, making Scarface a homoerotic thriller.
Fight Club (1999)
Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden is supposedly the classic alpha male. But his main job is making and selling soap like he works in a branch of Body Shop or something. He plays golf instead of a proper man’s sport like rugby. And he comes up with a list of rules. Real men don’t follow rules.
The Shining (1980)
Jack Nicholson is a writer who gets a job as a caretaker, neither of which is a proper man’s job. If he had any dignity, he’d be working as a professional MMA fighter or a hitman. And he manages to get lost in a garden maze and freeze to death. If he was properly hard, he’d easily be able to cope with a couple of inches of snow in just a t-shirt. And if it had been Jason Statham, he’d have blown up the Overlook Hotel.
Any Bond film
James Bond spends a good portion of his time poncing about in fancy suits wearing bow ties and sipping cocktails. If he had any self-respect he’d be drinking pints of whisky, not martinis. Plus he’s called James – a beta male name if ever there was one. He should have been called something manly like Blade or Colt.
The Godfather (1972)
Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone is supposedly the alpha male patriarch of a mob family. Except he’s got a cat, and everyone knows cats are only owned by women and ‘new man’ types. He probably feeds it poncy cat food too, like Sheba rather than Whiskas.
First Blood (1982)
Alpha males drive Audis and BMWs, but Stallone’s John Rambo prefers to walk. And he knows how to live off the land, like an American Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. In the end, he starts crying like a baby right before he surrenders to police. At least Pacino’s Scarface went out holding a massive phallic symbol.
