The Fantastic Masculinity of Newt Scamander
Table of Contents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4kuR1gyOeQ
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Newt Scamander, protagonist of this Harry Potter spin-off, is an unconventional male hero. He performs a refreshingly atypical form of masculinity especially for the lead in a fantasy adventure story.
1. Masculanity we expect
- We expect leading men who are, or learn to be, autonomous, brazen, and physically strong.
- Or at least men who are witty, boisterous, and charismatic.
- Preferably all of the above.
- It's practically required for male heroes to hide their vulnerability.
- We're accustomed to seeing men who are quick to violence and slow to diplomacy.
But his version of manhood doesn't stem from physical strength or combat skills or feats of daring-do, or even from some preordained mystic destiny like so many other male heroes.
2. Characteristics
- His is a quiet, vulnerable, yet confident form of manhood.
- Newt Scamander is not the "chosen one."
- He is not plagued with self-doubt about his abilities or his place in the magical world.
- Newts truly special gift is not his magic. It's his empathy.
- And the story doesn't frme his social anxiety as an obstacle.
- This type of quiet sensitive masculinity is so out of the ordinary for a leading man that I wasn't terribly surprised to see a number of movie reviewers turned off by his character.
- Newt's character is largely defined by his extraordinary ability to connect with magical creatures and by his relative inability to connect with other human beings.
- This is also not an "animal good, human bad" story. Even though he's painfully shy and socially awkward Newt's empathetic worldview extends to people, especially to those discriminated against or marginalized.
- He's strongly opposed to segregation, discriminatory laws, capital punishment, and other violence committed in the name of justice.
- He's sincere, nurturing, emotional, and sensitive.
- But Newt is not Harry Potter. He's a Hufflepuff. The House characterized by friendship, hard work, and humility. Hufflepuffs are said to be more down-to-earth and less competitive than the other three wizarding houses. Harry Potter, on the other hand, was sorted into Gryffindor, the House known for daring, nerve, chivalry, and prone to a fair bit of showing off. As such, Harry fits neatly into the pantheon of traditional Hollywood heroes.
2.1. Social Anxiety is not an obstacle
- Characters like this tend to fall into a few specific archetypes.
- There's the Tormented Genius: a brilliant but insufferable character who's intelligent to the point of instability or mental illness which is often framed as "the price" he must pay for his extraordinary talent.
- There's the Mad Scientist: a whimsical or bumbling character whose weird eccentricities are perhaps endearing to a degree…
- And then there's the Sherlock Holmes archetype: a character possessing such a superhuman IQ that it leads to callousness and the inability or perhaps unwillingness to feel sympathy for other people.
- Critically, Fantastic Beasts doesn't frame Newt's social anxiety as an obstacle he must ultimately overcome in order to be a true hero. The narrative doesn't require him to "toughen up" or learn to be more outgoing.
3. The ending
The ending of Fantastic Beasts is rather anticlimactic compared to most other action fantasy movies and even compared to most other films in the Harry Potter universe. Rather than besting his foe in an epic magical duel, Newt approaches the conflict with an eye for de-escalation. Of course, in the end the malevolent force is vanquished, but it's not done by Newt's hand. Even more surprising, this triumph of over evil isn't shown to be a cause for celebration. It is instead framed as a melancholy event. Melancholy because our heroes failed to save the monster.
