Why is Maverick making men cry? My obsession with Top Gun is still not over which is unfortunate to anyone who reads these newsletters. Even though I think some reactions to life events makes me feel like I am taking “crazy pills”, I still learn valuable information from those outcomes in the free market (consumers free to decide what to buy and sell).
Free market outcomes are fantastic real time data that can help us understand how a population feels about certain things even if we do not agree. Being in reality helps us make more accurate decisions, and it can help us find ways to persuade our intended audience. I want to persuade people that the #MeToo movement has been damaging to our culture, and that one of the greatest American values is the ethos that people are innocent until proven guilty.
What do consumers of Top Gun: Maverick tell me?
From my previous newsletter, I reviewed the demographics that went out to see this movie. I have since learned of some who are not happy about the generation groupings that I put together so I consulted more articles to gather more information. Here is the breakdown from a teen kids website that I thought was helpful because it includes their population number as well -
Baby Boomers - 1946 - 1964; ages 57 - 75 = 71.6 million
Gen X - 1965 - 1979/80; ages 41 - 56 = 65.2 million
Gen Y (millennials) - 1981 - 1994/6; ages 25 - 40 = 72.1 million
Gen Z - 1997 - 2012; ages 9 - 24; 68 million
Gen A (Alpha) - 2012 - 2025 (maybe later); 48 million
People ages 35 and up made up 55% of ticket sales for Top Gun: Maverick. Therefore, the older part of Gen Y is included in that bracket which will make my one fan happy to know he is really more in that Gen X category.;)
Why are men ages 35 and up crying about a 59 year old actor who flies supersonic jets, plays football on beach and hangs out in bars full of gorgeous and thin people? Maybe they are crying because they want that life? I think the answer is more about the cultural events and context of this time. I believe this because of a conversation I recently had with my Dad about iconic movies.
Rocky and Stagflation/Inflation
In an effort to persuade people that Top Gun: Maverick was not an iconic movie, we discussed other iconic movies like Rocky (1976). My Dad explained that at the time this movie was released the country was hit with inflation and stagflation at once. They had never seen that before nor did they think it could happen. It was a time of uncertainty with car lines at gas stations and shortages.
Rocky was a small budget film with an awkward looking actor, Sylvester Stallone, and an almost incomprehensible speech pattern. I needed to watch the movie with subtitles to understand what he was saying at times. On a 1 million dollar budget that was “shot in 28 days; it made over $225 million, the highest grossing film of 1976”. The free market consumers were telling American politicians that they felt like Rocky Balboa, the underdog, and wanted to see the underdog fight to overcome the challenges.
The sentiments of Rocky resonated with the American people because of the cultural and economic events of that time. The timing could not have been more perfect for this low budget and homely cast of characters. President Carter could have read this outcome as “tea leaves” to know that he was in trouble come 1980.
The Cultural Events and Context of Today
It is my opinion that American culture has waged a “war on men” for the last decade. One example can be found in the phrase “toxic masculinity” or the idea that male behaviors are a problem. This idea has been building over the last several decades, and I believe it started to cascade on April 4, 2011 with a “Dear Colleague Letter” by the Obama Administration’s Office for Civil Rights.
“Dear Colleague” letter -
Purpose - letter written by someone in an Executive branch agency like the Department of Education that is alerting the public to “suggested” guidelines
Effect - private business organizations that fall under the guidelines of the relevant “Dear Colleague” letter treat the letter as if it is law or else they might lose federal funding
Why use “Dear Colleague” - this is a way for the Executive branch to make laws or influence businesses without using Congress
Here is the building timeline that is relevant to why men cry while watching 59 year old Maverick fly supersonic jets -
2010 - President Obama signs the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 that sweeps college student loans under “consumer debt”.
Effect #1 - the Federal government is now in the student loan business and private banks leave the student loan business
Effect #2 - Just about every college in the US (except for 15) take federal money in the form of student loans and subject to “Dear Colleague” suggestions.
April 4, 2011 - Dear Colleague from the Department of Education and Office for Civil Rights (OCR) gives guidelines for colleges concerning Title IX and sexual harassment meant to put the victim (women) in a position of being believed and not having to testify in front of their accused
Effect #1 - All Colleges that take federal funding set up disciplinary boards that treat allegations and accusations as facts that the *defendant* must prove false
Effect #2 - Campus Culture starts to believe that women should be believed and the defendant is guilty until proven innocent
September 22, 2017 - “Dear Colleague” from Secretary Betsy DeVos of the Department of Education rescinds the previous “dear colleague” letter to raise the standard of proof, etc.
Effect #1 - Some colleges refuse to follow guidance and lose in court battles
Effect #2 - Liberals lose ground on college campuses but look to gain ground in the “court of public opinion”.
October 2017 - Alyssa Milano pushes #MeToo hashtag on Twitter in wake of Harvey Weinstein reports and it goes viral.
Effect - The Campus Culture students are now in the “real world” and the idea that women should be believed and guilty until proven innocent spreads to the rest of American culture
July 2018 - Brett Kavanaugh is nominated to be a justice to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump.
Effect - Liberals are not happy because they believe this would give “the right” a 5-4 advantage
September 2018 - Christine Blasey Ford claims Brett Kavanaugh sexually harassed her at a party when they were teenagers and is forced to testify or else the Senate would confirm Kavanaugh
Effect #1 - #MeToo movement is going strong and says that Blasey Ford should be believed and does not have to give evidence
Effect #2 - Blasey Ford offers no corroborating evidence to support her memory, but much of the culture believes in “Guilty until proven Innocent” simply because it is not a court of law
Effect #3 - the hearing spawns a flurry of bombastic accusations against Kavanaugh in the belief that more people means he is really really guilty
October 2018 - Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed on a slim majority based on party lines with the exception of one Democrat, the Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin
Effect - First blow to #MeToo and the idea that women should be believed without any supporting evidence
December 2018 - Amber Heard “writes” an op-ed in the Washington Post implying that Johnny Depp physically abused her during their marriage
Effect - Cultural movement believe Amber Heard overall and Johnny Depp loses his pirate job
March 8, 2021 - President Biden signs an Executive Order directing the Department of Education to look at Betsy DeVos “Dear Colleague” letter from September 2017.
Effect #1 - First step in setting up the next “Dear Colleague” letter
Effect #2 - trying to change the definition of “biological sex” that would effectively allow males to compete with females
March 29, 2022 - Johnny Depp sues Amber Heard for defamation, or communicating false statements about another person that injures the reputation of that person
Effect #1 - This tests the #MeToo and women should be believed without any corroborating evidence movement
Effect #2 - The trial is televised and captures the attention of all ages of people not seen since the hit Netflix documentary “Tiger King” in 2020.
May 27, 2022 - Grown men cry in theaters around the US while watching Tom Cruise happily live a masculine life without any toxicity attached to his behaviors.
Effect #1 - Free market outcome says that many consumers are men and those men have been traumatized by living in a world where they are “guilty until proven innocent” even though all women should be believed therefore, they will always be guilty.
Effect #2 - It is ok to like engines, jets, football on the beach and being prone to reject authority figures.
June 1, 2022 - Jury reaches a verdict in Depp vs. Heard defamation trial and finds that Heard did defame Depp in the Washington Post op-ed. The jury awards Depp $10 million dollars to be paid by Heard.
Effect #1 - Amber Heard is mad and believes this verdict is bad for women who speak up and out without shame
Effect #2 - The jury simply did not believe Heard and neither did the American people who watched the trial (including me).
Effect #3 - I believe (and hope) #MeToo has peaked in the court of public opinion
Summary
I realize that timeline is a lot. I wish I knew a better way to visually capture it so it could be easier to read and follow. It is meant to capture what might be lost over time - cultural context. For my kids who watch Rocky, they simply do not get it or why it is even neat. It is hard to convey to one generation the anxieties and problems of previous generations that played a role in why some populations identify with movies and those movies gave them hope.
It will be really hard to convey to future generations this “war on men” era that has been very damaging to our culture, in my opinion. The #MeToo movement turned into the Salem witch trials which forced the accused to prove innocence instead of the accuser proving guilt. I am not sure people realize how difficult it is to prove a “negative”. The old adage example goes something like this - “prove you didn’t beat your wife”. Proving a negative is impossible and the punishment is so steep (ruined reputation, jail, etc.) that our justice system requires the accuser or even “the State” to prove guilt. We should treat people the same way in the “court of public opinion” and reject the “Dear Colleague” premise that we should have the lowest standard outside a court of law. The belief created a domino effect into our culture and became toxic in public discourse making it impossible to have any civil discussion on this topic.
My hope for the near future is that men (specifically those aged 35 and over) have a good cry these next couple of weeks to get it out of their system so the we can raise our standard for movies as consumers in the free market. Do we really need “Fast X” or also known as “Fast & Furious 10”? Is there a way to be manly without it being a 2 hour music video?
Sincerely,
Me