- Batman, driving the Batmobile,
pulls up to a four-way stop.
And he gets there first, so he's about to go,
when this other guy
who clearly got to the stop after Batman just goes.
So Batman slams on the brakes.
This guy's white truck flies by.
He's talking on his phone,
looks at Batman, and just keeps going.
Now, instead of continuing on straight,
does Batman turn right, follow this guy,
this criminal to wherever he's going,
and then use his billionaire vigilante ninja skills
to teach him an unforgettable, bone-cracking lesson
on how to properly navigate a four-way stop.
No. (chuckling)
Batman has more important things to do.
Batman takes the L and continues on with his day.
Now that may not be the most exciting Batman story,
but it contains an important message.
Just like when someone cuts in front of James Bond
while he's waiting to get a fried apple pie
at the state fair,
or when Achilles has to squeeze through
a crowd of people at the airport who've lined up,
even though their boarding group hasn't been called yet,
or when Wolverine discovers
that his beefy five layer burrito has sour cream on it,
when he ordered it without sour cream,
but he went through the drive-through
and he's already back at the X-Mansion.
Sometimes you just have to take the L.
Sometimes getting your way no matter the cost
costs too much.
Of course, some people learn that very early.
Depending on your race, your religion,
where you grew up, it may not be a revelation
to hear that your heroes aren't bulletproof.
Others, however, don't hear those stories growing up.
We only hear the other ones.
All those heroes, all those powerful men,
always in control, always dominant, always winning.
My earliest memory of masculinity.
I'm supposed to say something dramatic here, right?
Like, the smoking rifle and the dead rabbit,
or the stepfather's fists.
But it doesn't take a bolt of lightning
to keep the television on.
Just the steady background hum of electricity,
the invisible power coursing through the walls.
My earliest memory of masculinity
is not a particle, it's a wave.
My earliest memory of masculinity is not a man, it's a mask.
And look, reflected in the TV screen.
It's me, an acorn kid, son of a single mother sun
who gave me all the light I'd ever need.
I was and am soft, an indoor boy.
This is neither a bad thing nor a good thing,
it's just a way to be.
Tell that to the TV, though.
Of the infinite number of ways to be,
look at our heroes, look at what stories we choose to tell.
A million different jobs,
and half the shows on TV are about cops.
A million different ways
to be in a relationship with other humans,
and half the movies have the same boy meets girl,
'cause there's gotta be a girl, subplot.
A million different looks, and half the video games
star the exact same strapping six foot tall white guy
with short brown hair, a five-o'clock shadow,
and a bad attitude.
A million little examples that mean nothing on their own,
but they add up to a story.
The story we tell about manhood
is an old one and an obvious one.
Like a real man, quote, unquote, is what?
Strong, brave, stoic, sexually experienced,
has a firm handshake, orders his steak rare,
drives a big truck, play sports, wins.
And look, none of these things are good or bad either.
They're just ways to be.
But what happens when that's the only story we tell?
From the TV screen, to the locker room, to the dinner table,
to the headphones, to the comments section.
What happens when that's the only story we hear?
The real man, all fist and no hand,
all swirling cape and six chambered steel heart.
That man who wins at any cost.
That hero, always in control,
never sad, or confused, or frustrated.
So when we feel sad, or confused, or frustrated,
because every human being does,
watch insecurity bloom like a virus.
Watch how our bodies fight back by seeking security,
and power, and conformity in that story.
Watch how easily being the stereotypical guy's guy
goes from one way to be a man to the way to be a man,
and then watch how that gets enforced
because masculinity has always been a team sport.
Man up, stop crying, be a man.
If I have to fit in this box,
then you have to fit in it, too.
And watch how easily all the positive qualities
we assign to men reveal their secret identities.
Courage becomes carelessness.
Strength becomes violence.
Leadership becomes entitlements.
Cool becomes cold.
Watch how easily the desire to win
becomes the need to dominate.
How easily the desire to win
becomes the inability to cope with loss,
with frustration, with rejection.
And watch me, a young man,
soak it all in like cosmic rays, like radiation.
Watch how I mutate,
how I become something bigger than myself,
maybe stronger than myself, but also other than myself.
And if you know how stories work,
you might expect this to be the point in the story
where something really bad happens.
Maybe the young man at the center of the story
hurts someone.
Maybe he finds himself in a situation
where he knows what the right thing to do is,
and he knows how the story goes,
and he knows that they don't line up,
but that story is so powerful, so full of power.
That isn't how my story goes, though.
And I'm definitely not any smarter
or better than any other man.
I've swallowed that same big story.
It's just that somewhere in the margins of it,
I've been able to write this other one, too.
And there's no big, full color splash page,
life-altering lightning strike event at the root of it.
Just a bunch of random little moments,
luck, and privilege, and relationships, and loss.
Especially loss.
When I felt the most defeated,
a football coach who found me crying in a hallway
after a tough loss and just gave me a hug.
When I felt the most inadequate,
the friends who modeled for me a strength
that was not based on our capacity to hurt someone,
who affirmed for me that as easily as we can be warriors,
we can be healers.
When I felt the most persecuted,
the mentors who reminded me that the Ls we take matter,
but so do the LS we'll never have to take.
Batman never has to worry about
where his hands are when he's pulled over.
John Wick never has to laugh off an inappropriate joke
his boss made because he really needs that job.
Wolverine never has to walk back to his car
holding his keys between his fingers like adamantium claws.
When I felt the most unforgiving,
the rapper who told a story about getting carjacked
and having a gun, but choosing to let the car go
because even an enemy's life is worth more than a car.
When I felt the most alone.
The question echoing through that funeral home.
What if we treated every loss
like the way we treat the loss of a loved one?
Not a reason to punch through the drywall
or run an SUV off the road.
An opportunity for reflection,
an excuse to step back and breathe,
and put things in perspective.
When I felt the most cynical, the activists who showed me
that there are some battles worth fighting.
That winning them is work,
and so is choosing the ones that matter in the first place.
A million little examples that mean nothing on their own,
but they add up to a story.
It's not that loss makes us stronger.
That can be true sometimes, but loss also kills some of us,
or drives us to hurt others.
The heart of this counter story is not loss itself,
it is the impulse to understand it.
To know how to take the L when you have to
and keep moving, learning how to lose.
Learning that I'm entitled to so little
saved my life more than once.
Because when you step outside
that big story we tell about manhood,
you start to see the poison in it.
When the hero always wins,
when the hero always gets the girl,
when the hero always has
a trick up his sleeve to save the day,
or one last burst of energy to defeat his enemy,
when you've been taught all your life that you are the hero,
that a real man is always in control, always dominant,
always wins, what happens you lose?
Because you will.
And not every man can share the little heartwarming stories
about learning how to lose that I shared a minute ago,
so the small things, like getting cut off in traffic,
or someone being mean to you on the internet
transform from annoyances into challenges,
and the big things, like getting laid off,
going through a tough breakup,
having people you love die, they transform, too.
A difficult chapter becomes a sea of red ink.
The story tells us that real men always win.
So when we lose, some of us take that as evidence
that there's something wrong with the story,
and some of us take that as evidence
that there's something wrong with us, or with the world.
In the US, 75% of suicides are men,
85% of gun deaths are caused by men,
more than 95% of mass shooters are men.
And we can talk about guns,
and we can talk about access to mental healthcare,
but why aren't we talking about men?
The vast majority of sexual violence,
no matter who the victim is, is committed by men.
And we know that rape isn't about sex, it's about power.
Sexual harassment isn't about pleasure,
it's about control, it's about entitlement.
Our heroes never ask for help.
Never ask for anything.
As much as we talk about how man up
means to take responsibility, how many of us really do that?
Admit when we're wrong, apologize, reflect, grow.
This is an old story.
The rugged individual, the self-made man,
the Dark Knight, 007, Weapon X,
all these code names, all these masks,
all these hysterical TV pundits and pseudo-intellectuals
saying that men are in crisis
because we've forgotten how to be men.
I think we know all too well how to be men.
We've heard that at story since birth.
What we've forgotten, what we've lost is how to be ourselves
untethered from any stereotype,
from that sense of entitlement that burden all these heroes,
all these real men we will never be as strong as
because they're not real.
Batmobile continues on its path.
Batman has to pick up
his two daughters from volleyball practice.
There's no Joker in this story.
Doesn't mean that
there aren't villains in the world, though.
And yeah, there are sometimes
when taking the L is unacceptable,
when you fight on no matter the odds and never give up.
And yes, our heroes do teach us some good things, too.
Be true to your word, stand up to bullies,
do the right thing, even when it's hard.
But none of that has anything to do with being a man,
much less a hero.
It has everything to do with just being kind,
with being yourself whether you're Bruce Wayne on a budget
or Wolverine with bones simply made of bone,
or a father, driving along with the family he loves,
windows down, just going home.
All we have lost, for better or worse,
has brought us to this moment.
If we could lose just a little more,
imagine how light we could become.
If we could lose just a little more, I bet we could fly.
(crowd applauding)