Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Masculinity in a comedy action film about a video game is bound to be interesting. And Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle proves that theory to be correct. It is the newest addition to the Jumanji franchise and the sequel to the 1995 film Jumanji. This new sequel stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan as a group of teens who were transformed into video game characters while serving detention.
The joke of the film is that each of the teens is transformed into someone dramatically different than their “real” self. Most interestingly, the hyper masculine athlete “Fridge” and the sensitive, nervous nerd Spencer are both transformed into their exact opposite. Fridge chooses the character of Franklin Finbar, who turns out to be a zoologist whose weakness is strength, speed, and cake. Spencer, on the other hand, is transformed into the mighty and adventurous “Dr. Smolder Bravestone.” Throughout the film you watch them both come to terms with their new expected forms of masculinity.
Fridge has to learn how to deal with his new tiny stature and lack of strength. From the minute they enter the game, he is freaking out about “missing the top two feet of [his] body.” His lack of speed and strength also shock him as the action of the game commences. He also has issues dealing with the fact that, in the game, he is Bravestone’s sidekick and carries around his weapons for him. Besides, Zoology and a backpack, he has virtually no useful skills.
This clearly shocks him and he delved into incredibly toxic behaviors as the result of this. First, he states that he would rather die than have Spencer (as Bravestone) carry him away from danger. Then, he goes on to push Spencer off a cliff after he insults Fridge and stands up for himself for once. Towards the end of the movie, he drinks heavily and nearly compromises their ability to get out of the game. By the end of the game, he has slightly shed his hegemonic masculinity, but is still incredibly eager to return to his normal stature and regain his normal abilities.
While Fridge was horrified at his character, Spencer felt quite the opposite when he realized that he was now a tall, strong, and fearless leader. His strengths in the game are everything he is not in reality and some of the comedy of the film draws on the inability of Spencer to fully embody his hyper masculine character. At one point, Bethany comments that Braveheart is “a man,” while Spencer stands just out of earshot whispering to himself not to cry. Late on in the film, Spencer (Braveheart) shrieks in fear when he sees a squirrel in the tree he is climbing and Fridge condescendingly remarks that it is definitely Spencer.
This condescension makes it very unsurprising when Spencer is hesitant to leave the game and return to his normal life. In the game, he was able to command respect and lead a group of people with very little resistance. The others listened to him and relied on him, simply because he was bigger and stronger than anyone else. Spencer obviously feared that he would lose all of that respect when they returned to reality, which was a fair assumption given his social status in their high school.
However, this distinction between Fridge’s and Spencer’s eagerness to return to reality provides a clear picture of the advantage of hegemony. While Fridge did not recognize the social advantage he had until he lost it, Spencer was painfully aware of the ways in which his non-hegemony made him invisible at best and a target of taunting at worst. However, while Spencer was hesitant to return to reality, it is also important to note that he displayed none of the toxic behavior associated with hegemonic masculinity when he was occupying a role that fit the hegemonic mold. This makes it clear that the writers were critiquing rather than encouraging the toxic masculinity that gave Fridge his advantages in the first place.
