The Heroic Gent Podcast – How Film Icons Shape Our View of Manliness

Fiction shapes us. This is true of novels—Jake in The Sun Also Rises, Huck in Huckleberry Finn and so many more sure developed my view of manhood. And, interestingly, neither of those powerful characters have ever really come to life in film, though many studios tried.

Still, some characters that began in novels became just as large or even larger, if different, in film. Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe comes to mind (thanks Humphry Bogart), as does Ian Flemming’s James Bond (no actor ever bested Sean Connery).

Sometimes how John Wayne’s or Clint Eastwood’s roles shape our own conceptions of how we should behave are obvious to us; other times they live in our subconscious, as almost shadow selves to us.

In any case, these characters—whether we reject or embrace them—show us the way.

This discussion is just the beginning of this exploration. Alan Peterson is a film producer, director, writer, and actor. He has spent a lifetime exploring how to bring us characters and plots that shape us, that leave us different after having met them.