The male lead has changed over the past several decades from being the man the story relies on to being the man the story laughs at. Comedy has always loved rule-breakers, with these rebels being rewarded because they could see what no one else could. The change was comedies centering on an immature man-child was often rewarded despite never learning to do anything at all. Audiences were taught to find this endearing.
John Belushi’s Bluto in Animal House may have started the trend as the independent brute, and I remember he was the talk amongst my peers. Bill Murray’s characters in Meatballs and Stripes were quick and clever men who refused to apply themselves, yet their appeal came from their independence and refusing to let society “own” them.
This trend continued into the 1990s, when Adam Sandler brought it to another level focusing on arrested development made almost literal. Billy Madison returns to grade school. Happy Gilmore has the impulses of an angry adolescent. Bobby Boucher in The Water Boy remains emotionally governed by his mother.
Ben Stiller offered a similar version in There’s Something About Mary and Along Came Polly, with his characters being so anxious and humiliated by adulthood, that they are unable to navigate romance, work, or ordinary social life without unraveling.
The next wave of films in the 2000s made this pattern into a genre. Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad all specialized in the reluctant-growth story. Todd Phillips approached the same subject from the opposite direction. In Old School and later The Hangover, adult men flee from marriage, work, and domestic responsibility. Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Seth Rogen, James Franco, and Jonah Hill played different versions of the role, but the basic shape remained recognizable: the overgrown adolescent, the fast-talking avoider, the delusional incompetent, the man who mistakes impulse for freedom. Step Brothers may be the purest version of the theme, with two unemployed middle-aged men still living with their parents. Ted made the metaphor literal with the male star living with his childhood teddy bear. Neighbors placed adulthood on one side of the property line and permanent fraternity life on the other. Grown Ups turned nostalgia for adolescence into the premise.
By now the audience immediately recognizes the type and through repetition, the character becomes a model, that has spilled over onto television, streaming platforms, and social media. Today, the newer media environment lets a man inhabit the role himself. He can spend hours detached from adulthood and reality.
While it is tempting to blame cultural movements, the institutions and traditional milestones that once pushed young men into adulthood weakened within a few generations. The draft ended. Manufacturing employment declined. Two family incomes became more necessary, not to mention waiting until later to get married, purchase a home, and/or becoming a father. While many of those changes brought the appearance of freedom and more options, books like The Paradox of Choice successfully argue more choices do not necessarily lead to more action and happiness. If anything, it is inaction and dissatisfaction.
Strengthening the allure is that adulthood is tough for anyone. The traditional path could be narrow, unfair, and unforgiving, but at least it was a path We abandoned tradition without providing a new model that felt equally real, respected, or attainable. Entertainment is not the underlying cause, but it provided comfort and possible reinforcement. Hollywood’s man-child embraced a delayed adulthood and was happier and freer for never striving for them.
Videogames added actual progress inside the game without formation. Along with being entertaining, a game requires concentration, coordination, strategy, teamwork, and/or patience, within an ordered world in which effort produces visible progress. Your rank and character improve, skills are developed or attained, and the next achievement is attainable. Videogames satisfy the real human desire to become more capable, while providing certainty of it. Unfortunately, while a person my feel progress as they experience hours of advancement within the game, the reality is there is not any corresponding improvement in his work, relationships, health, judgment, or ability to support himself, yet they give him a place where ambition is easier to satisfy.
Artificial intelligence is now compounding this because AI can complete the task, not just simulate like a video game. Normally, producing a result and improving capability worked hand-in-hand. You learned to write by struggling to write. You learned a trade by making mistakes, correcting them, and developing the judgment for what good work required. So what is being developed if an undeveloped mind uses AI to writing emails, summarize instead of read books, solving a problem, building a presentation, generating an image, producing code, or constructing an argument?
For this answer, I think we can look at the role of a tutor, critic, collaborator, or parent. Unlike AI, the best of these can help a person improve while still requiring him to think. A poor tutor, though, provides answers to the passive student, which gives him the sense accomplishment without undergoing the process of developing the capability or skill.
The reality is young men are facing challenges in labor, housing, education, marriage, and family formation. Prime-age male labor-force participation has steadily declined, with younger men less likely to purchase a first-time home and more likely than young women to remain in a parent’s home. The economic realities of expensive housing, comparatively lower wages, and less choice of stable career paths are changes that have left many young men behind.
I could not be taken seriously if I blamed Sandler, videogames, or AI for those outcomes, but I would be dishonest to pretend culture has no role. I know I am a role model for my three sons, whether they or society acknowledge it. Specifically, I know how I act, whom I associate with, the type of men I respect, the type of work, hobbies, and entertainment I partake in serve as a model for them. Perhaps I am misguided, by when I extrapolate, I think a society teaches adulthood partly through the lives it honors, the conduct it rewards, and how it portrays success.
I have raised them to remember these sorts of distinctions. What they see on the screen that feels like growth is not always growth. The result of a task does not necessarily validate the process or reflect a developed skill. Most important, the feeling of mastery is not the same as having become a master since it is depends on what skills were developed after the task is accomplished.
Unfortunately, in many popular comedies, the husband/father has been increasingly presented as trapped, dull, defeated, or ridiculous. The man-child avoiding those obligations was presented as authentic and free. Reality has made it harder for both young men and women, but culture gave young men comfort in striving for less, if anything at all.
The man-child was never merely a joke. He became one of culture’s most durable answers to what should a man do when adulthood is delayed, expensive, and no longer admired. The answer was to stop wanting it. Then with video games and now AI, we have given him the feeling of arrival without requiring the journey. We should not be surprised by the result.