Admiring A Problematic White Man

Photo taken by author

I have a confession to make: I will watch the shit out of a Tom Cruise action movie. There is just something delightful about the way he runs full tilt with a straight back and long stride. There are near constant elements of danger where he defies every conceivable fear to complete a mission. The man hangs out of planes and climbs skyscrapers. His disregard for limits is extraordinary. He can do anything.

I am also a big James Bond fan. He is suave, impeccably dressed, resourceful, but also a rapist. I know this. And yet I have an entire wiki detailing the minutiae of nearly every Bond film. I count how many times he’s been beat into unconsciousness, how many women he’s had sex with, and tracked the appearances of his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld. One day, you’ll get a front row seat to that obsession.

We live in a culture that is keen on identifying a man as “a nice guy” right before it tells us about the severed heads in his freezer. We love epic tales of a conquest before we realize we are the indigenous in the story who are being ravaged by disease and slaughtered by the thousands to create “civilization”.

The long-held image of a white, male, straight protagonist will exist whether or not I consume it. Far from excusing the behavior of a colonizer or amoral government operative, I recognize the fantasy. We are all too familiar…