One more totally random 🔥 take from my Norwegian travels—this one on movies (lots of time for watching them on the two-day trip over and back!)
I am convinced now that the Godfather movies (I and II) are beloved because they gave ritual and vocabulary to masculinity. They are saturated in it, and those elements form the context, subtext, and text of the thing. If you’re not interested in dudes ritually, socially, and physically exercising their power over one another, there’s nothing there for you. Women function merely as props in the juvenile dramas of the men. And let’s be very honest, it IS juvenile. It’s like the fantasy of manhood from the perspective of 14-year-old boys.
(They are extremely well-made, and Coppola is correctly praised. They’re beautiful, well-acted, and the cinematography is exquisite. It’s just all in service of a rather diminished subject.)
I suspect these movies are FAR more beloved by men than women. I’d love to see the top ten movies list by a panel of women critics. My guess is there would be almost no overlap with the typical lists, which are overwhelmingly compiled by men.
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