Now, leaving aside that a hero should have high moral standards and you cannot look just at the bodies... there's certainly a shift, but this comparison is flawed
All the 2019 heroes represented here are perfect for their role
Let's pick R. Downey jr. He's not physically notable, but:
- as Tony stark he's a genius, a normal man that in a fight hand to hand would lose, but he's capable to overcome his "weakness" with tech
- as Sherlock holmes he's an expert of evaluation and prediction, who is perfectly able to believably beat opponents stronger than him
Ruffalo as Bruce Banner is exactly what should be: a very normal person which becomes unstoppable once he shifts to Hulk. Bill Bixby was the original Bruce Banner in the TV series, and Lou Ferrigno was the Hulk. A muscolar Bruce Banner would undermine the concept.
Benedict C. characters are not meant to win by hysical strenght.
Doctor Strange? a genius with magic
Sherlock Holmes? a genius that wins by reasoning, much more similar to the kind of character that was MacGyver, and Richard Anderson in the '80 was definitely a hero, but not with the body of Stallone or Arnold.
Not all the heroes of '80 were physically strong. Pick Sean Connery, for example.
Agreed, and as
@BrotherSutek also rightly said, the heroes
before the 80s were also nowhere near any kind of ripped, but nobody doubts their masculinity.
The whole idea that a hero had to be rippling with muscles first and foremost is very much a product of the attitudes of the time... gymnasia were experiencing their first craze with more of them being built, vitamins, steroids and drugs that made bodybuilding that much easier were starting to become widely available to the public, and, certainly here in Britain, the ordinary classes of people started to become more affluent for the first time since before WWII, and for the first time men could afford to spend time down the gym to even attempt to achieve something like this. Even then though, even our Olympic athletes were very much outclassed by the steroid-infused hulks put out by America and Russia, whose access to far greater wealth and (especially in the case of America) a greater national obsession with sport and athletic success meant men could be sponsored to dedicate their whole lives to the activity of bodybuilding (as Arnie and others very much showed).
But as above, a man may look more 'masculine' with a ripped form, but that by no means guarantees he's going to
be masculine. True masculinity is a mindset to be exercised from the inside out, and the great strength gained by means of bodybuilding is only a tool of true masculinity, if a man with a truly masculine mind uses it for good - to protect the weak and to build and maintain civilisation. There are many men out there who use such physical brawn for evil, going against the principles of masculinity to use it to belittle, terrorise and threaten. Indeed I personally think gymnasia should be banned from prisons, to stop prisoners from dedicating themselves to keeping themselves so fit and using that strength to specifically to harm other prisoners or warders, because there are weak men who would be quite happy to do that.
I have always perceived a man's mind to be his greatest weapon, for it is through using that mind to visualise, create, interact and learn that he gains the skills needed to make his fair share of difference to the world. As you say
@Killer Angel, thankfully there are plenty of heroes who use their potent minds to solve so many problems that sheer dumb brawn cannot, and even if the superficial think that these people look less masculine than muscle-bound hulks, they forget that even those hulks still have to have the modicum of brain power necessary to realise the importance of traits like honour, courage, assertiveness, honesty and incorruptibility in making a man strong.
Also look at the heroes of the Pulp era or WW2, they are fit but not Stallone fit.
I would prefer old school men as it's less fantasy and more realistic and makes it a healthier goal for us to reach for. Sure Samson and other legendary men should look massive, but everyday men shouldn't look like they spend 20hrs a day at the gym and juiced up.
You, my friend, get it.
In eras of culture all the way up to around the 50s, it was very rare to see a male hero be pure dumb brawn. Even the legends of Greek myth more famed for their strength, like Heracles, wouldn't have accomplished all their tasks had they not possessed enough of a noodle to work out how to slay a particularly challenging foe. Indeed you mention Samson, and he is very much an example of a character who is pretty much entirely brawn, undone by his own stupidity in telling Delilah that all his strength came from his hair. A few snips of scissors later, and he has gone from hero to zero.
Returning to Ancient Greece, that first pinnacle of perceived Western Civilisation, the most idolised sort of man in most of the Greek City-States was the 'Warrior-Scholar' archetype - a man who was decently fit, decently competent in athletics and by no means fat or slobbish, but also wise and learned, having read accounts of those inspirational aforementioned legends and works by the great philosophers - for an unintelligent man was perceived to be one who could not function properly in society. In short, the ideal man was an all-rounder, someone who could apply themselves to different occupations and roles in war and peacetime equally effectively. The only real exception to this was the Spartans, who very much venerated the Warrior part of the archetype more than anything (though they did also reward those who could lie, cheat and steal without getting caught, which requires brain activity), yet their militaristic dominance in the internecine wars of the City-States was ultimately brought low by Thebes, who used tactics to crush Sparta's most elite warriors at Leuctra. Brain once again triumphs over brawn. Even when someone refers to a 'Greek God' body to describe a modern ripped physique, when you look at a lot of Greek statues, they actually depict figures far less muscly and bulky than a modern-day bodybuilder, with maybe a muscled chest but relatively normal-looking arm and leg structure... for again, that 'Warrior-Scholar' archetype was the preferred ideal of a 'perfect' man. Excessive brawn was seen as a sign of dim-wittedness, or raw, animalistic savagery that had no place in respected, civilised society.
Civilisations since then have often made sure to respect male wisdom and intelligence alongside strength. In particular in the last few centuries, the archetype of the 'Gentleman', a man of wit, wisdom, learning sophistication and competence, was very much the resurrection of the Ancient Greek ideal. Of course, exact definitions of the ideal incarnation of this archetype differed in the eyes of the beholder, especially where country of origin was concerned... some held greater respect for the martial abilities and commanding powers of a military officer, others appreciated the loveable roguish charm of the 'rake', yet more idolised the emotionally-driven brooding of the romantic poet... but all forms had that mental agility as the common denominator, and it was this that was so admired. By contrast, a bulky, brawny body and a dim mind was seen as the mark of a common labourer, a thuggish peasant who had no appreciation of civilised society or behaviours. Look at most of the film heroes of that pre-60s time period, before the degeneracies of the 'sexual revolution' and the rise of bodybuilding made brawn 'cool'. All the male film stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood were idolised as those very same 'Gentlemen' - even if they were given a rougher edge like Clark Gable or Humphrey Bogart, or were 'scoundrels' like many characters played by David Niven or Leslie Phillips. Physical brawn was very much seen as being bottom of the list of priorities, while character, wit, ultimate decency and social glamour were the prize traits of masculinity. It is very telling to look at how long these traditional ideals of an intelligent, competent, societally-functional, overall benign man have been revered, compared to the roughly 50 years in which the dumb brawny 'hunk' has taken centre stage in his place. Not just in terms of encouraging gym culture, but also in mannerisms and attitude... certainly here in Britain it is a tragedy that the rough, common, lower-class thug who speaks as though they have just emerged from the sewer, most commonly known as the 'chav', has taken the place of the traditional English gentleman archetype upon the world stage, but also across the West the same decline in behavioural standards in men is occurring. Funnily enough, not much different to how the tarty 'bikini babe', prioritising good looks and sexual allure, has taken the place of the refined, genteel, elegant, sophisticated, beautiful lady as the desired archetype in women in the past few decades.
Moreover, think about the sort of physique that's
natural for a man. One of the main reasons why physical brawn has not been seen as the most desirable traits in a man for so long is that for so long, men did not have access to the highly advanced gymnasia and the aforementioned bulking-out drugs and steroids that modern men can use. Nor did they have the time to dedicate their entire lives to weight training, or, very often, the diet needed to pump up that muscle. Even those cultures that had access to a lot of red meat still wouldn't have had access to a supermarket or any other means to standardise the eating of the same food each day in a rigorous diet programme. True, fighting men would have spent more time physically training than most, but their prime objective was to fight, not to get ripped - more time would have been spent practicing how to wield a sword or other weapon dynamically against an opponent than simply sitting or standing there pumping iron. More to the point, these men had to keep moving to be able to complete their objectives on a battlefield, and an excess of body bulk would make that harder, rather than easier. These men would have needed a more all-rounder training routine than pure weightlifting or pure running, and would thus have had an all-round boost to their physique - some strength improvement, but also some agility improvement, some stamina improvement, and some improved mental acuity too... it's no good being brawny if you've been shot in the head by an archer you were too dumb to notice.
In short, it's not natural for a man to be that level of ripped. Indeed, putting yourself through that much weight training for so long is bound to incur negative effects on the body as well as positive - bone disintegration, particularly in your joints, from working them too hard... strain on your heart from the procedure of bulking out and from carrying all that extra weight around... not to mention that while you might look great while you're young in keeping all that bulk together, it's going to get progressively harder and harder to do that as you age. All that muscle is going to sag and waste away as your body becomes less able to sustain it.
It's well-known that there are conditions young women sometimes experience that prompt them to become unhealthily paranoid of their appearance - anorexia being the most obvious one - but it's much less documented as to how similar needless peer pressures are being asserted upon the young men of today... this new obsession with getting a gym bod to avoid looking 'weak' or 'unmanly', and wasting every non-working hour down the gym and consuming potentially risky chemicals from potentially dodgy sources to try and pursue the unrealistic and unnatural dream of a six-pack, is all very saddening to be honest, and shows a lack of confidence in a young man's ability to be a real masculine man without supposedly 'looking the part'. It, plus the decline of the 'gentleman' archetype, is a big symptom of the increasing superficiality of modern society, and proof that a lot of people have lost their way in life.
But not me. I still maintain a decently fit and healthy body through exercise, but I have absolutely no desire to waste my time down the gym with a load of people so obsessed with their physical appearance - I prefer to enjoy exercising constructively through playing sports like tennis (which openly and naturally motivate me to run in order to hit the ball
) , and spending my non-exercising or working time enjoying far more relaxing and mentally stimulating pastimes, principally in the form of painting, modelling and getting the odd game in, but also going out places, volunteering at the last steam-driven Victorian Brickworks in Britain, and spending time with my family. I take pride in conducting myself as a true gentleman, properly pronouncing phrases in English (especially my 'ts', which peasants take degenerate pride in not speaking these days), speaking in a clear, civilised voice, and behaving in a truly courteous, polite and sophisticated manner. I have educated myself on the truth of what true masculinity means, and very much aspire to adhering to the principles of courage, honour, valour and assertiveness as the principle attitudes all real men should have.
In these ways, I am proud to have the backbone to set my own standards on male behaviour, and to be an ambassador to traditional, normal, healthy, gentlemanly masculinity
