Mythogyny: Popular Medievalism and Toxic Masculinity

Summary

On October 16, 2012, Daryush Valizadeh launched Return of Kings, a website so virulently misogynistic that the Southern Poverty Law Center tracks it on HateWatch.Article titles include: “Feminists Are Hysterical About Rape Because No Man Wants to Rape Them,”“The Husband is the Head of the Wife,”“It’s Time to Bring Back Slut Shaming,”and “Women Must Have Their Behavior and Decisions Controlled By Men.”When a site-name invites comparison to The Return of the King, the final volume of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, its masthead sports a medieval shield, and Robert Zemeckis’ 2007 Beowulf is cited as “an astounding victory for red pill cinema,”we need to do some serious reflection on how popular medieval-ism, particularly films and TV series with wide audience appeal, helps foster toxic masculinity. Beginning with a short excursus into the general elements of medievalism that encourage misogyny, this essay will explore fantasies about the Middle Ages that lead to a problematic and reductionist view of masculinity.

While medievalism is a notoriously tricky term to define, we can come up with a taxonomy of what makes a particular text medievalist: it makes use of tropes that resonate with what a general audience would recognize as “medieval.” It is a creation of a Middle Ages that intrigues an audience with its elements of unfamiliarity but is built upon a familiar narrative-structure. Present values are projected back into the past, while desirable elements of the Middle Ages are brought forward to meet it. Thus, authenticity does not mean a historically accurate depiction of medieval society; rather, it means what the audience sees as “authentic.” Pam Clements describes a criterion for perceived authenticity: “Does [a medievalist text] create a believable (though obviously fictional) medieval world? This kind of verisimilitude, even as the reader or viewer or player is fully aware of the work’s lack of historical authenticity, can create a sense of authenticity.”

If historical accuracy is not a criterion, then the sense of authenticity is built not from the work itself, but from the audience’s sense of satisfaction with the work, satisfaction determined by how much the work corresponds with the audience’s fantasies about the Middle Ages, particularly fantasies that validate his/her own values.