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A Macho Actor and an Ex-Pro Football Player Warn of a Masculinity Crisis
Daniel Craig and Chis Kluwe speak the truth
“Sometimes I find it very laughable, the idea of maleness. Most men go through life with this act that they do. But it is an act.”
— Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig is most recognized as the suave, oh-so manly, and arrow-straight James Bond. The actor made the above statement in a New York Times article by Kyle Buchanan about his transition from Bond to a very different kind of role in the film Queer.
I know these words to be true from personal experience. Not because I’ve ever succeeded in pulling off the act to which Craig refers. But rather because, as a cis male queer, I’ve long recognized my inability to deliver a convincing performance; and, because I’ve never been particularly interested in joining any club that would require its members to adopt such a shallow, two-dimensional posture.
The masculine stereotype — tough, confident, aggressive, anti-intellectual, emotionally remote — has sustained through human history by being passed down from generation to generation. Fathers in many cultures have instilled these characteristics in sons, uncles in nephews, coaches in male athletes, and mentors in male students, etc.
