Between the first presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the arrival of the #MeToo movement in 2017, progressive activists and social critics increasingly warned us about something called toxic masculinity. The term, vaguely academic in nature, referred to traditional norms of manliness (emotional stoicism, physical aggressiveness) and their potentially dangerous consequences. There were certainly many examples of appalling male behavior, and these were taken as expressions of a deeper problem.
But even as the condemnation of toxic masculinity commanded public assent, there were signs of uncertainty. This was understandable, given that toxic masculinity seemed to encompass a wide range of offenses, from sexual violence to disrespectful manners to mere competitiveness. In the years since, the confusion has only intensified. If the second election of Mr. Trump and the rehabilitation of various “canceled” male figures are any indication, lots of people harbored doubts about whether ostensibly toxic men could, or should, be banished from society.
Among the signs of this ambivalence is a recent spate of erotic thriller movies in which controlling, ambitious, libidinous men appear as objects of sexual fascination. These films — including “Babygirl” (2024), “Fair Play” (2023), “Cat Person” (2023), “Deep Water” (2022), “The Voyeurs” (2021) and “Instinct” (2019) — suggest that today’s sexual politics are trending away from progressive pieties. While the official disapproval of the toxic male persists in these movies, it coexists with an unacknowledged and often perverse attraction to him. All of which speaks, however uncomfortably, to the continuing appeal of toxic masculinity — or perhaps of masculinity as such.
We have seen this before in film, albeit with the gender roles reversed. When noir emerged as a genre in the 1940s, it was centered on the dangerous appeal of the femme fatale, a figure at once alluring and threatening, impossible to ignore yet deadly to embrace.
The appearance of the femme fatale was a reflection of momentous changes in American society. During World War II, women entered the work force in large numbers, taking jobs that were traditionally done by men and performing them competently. They also found a new sexual liberty. From 1940 to 1945, the rate of single motherhood increased by 44 percent, a reflection of changed mores and the relationship-altering consequences of war. Since the days of Cleopatra, the figure of the ambitious, sexually independent woman had represented a threat to traditional social norms. Suddenly this threat seemed to be everywhere.
Americans who had conflicted feelings about this new type of woman saw their ambivalence expressed in noir. Charismatic actresses such as Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Bennett and Jane Greer played characters who were sexually bold and economically avid. They took men and money that didn’t belong to them. But their transgressiveness only increased their mystique for the noir hero, who found the femme fatale more interesting than the good girls in his life. Social convention and the Motion Picture Production Code (which sought to promote moral content) ensured that these women were punished, but their appeal was undeniable.
Public norms eventually caught up with the revolution in private behavior, and a more accepting attitude toward these women emerged decades later with the erotic thriller. Films such as “Body Heat” (1981) and “Basic Instinct” (1992) reveled in sex scenes and frequently depicted formidable women who suffered no penalty for their rejection of propriety. Yet the most notorious erotic thriller of this era, “Fatal Attraction” (1987), continued to view the femme fatale with almost maniacal suspicion. What linked the classic noir and the erotic thriller was a fascination — part attraction, part repulsion — with women who challenged the existing order.
Today, to judge from recent films, the cultural figure that most sharply elicits ambivalence is the toxic male. Whether it’s Harris Dickinson’s dominating intern in “Babygirl,” Alden Ehrenreich’s resentful finance bro in “Fair Play,” Nicholas Braun’s incel stalker in “Cat Person” or Ben Hardy’s pitiless playboy in “The Voyeurs,” this new social type has emerged as the center of interest in the erotic thriller. Of course, the idea of the bad boy — the rebel who is more sexually alluring than the nice guy — is nothing new. What sets apart the toxic male is the reversal of gender roles: He is now the object of desire (subject to what academic theorists might call the female gaze), while his female counterpart retains her agency.
“Babygirl,” directed by Halina Reijn, exemplifies this shift. The plot follows a budding affair between Romy Mathis, a successful executive played by Nicole Kidman, and her young intern Samuel. Samuel appeals to Romy precisely because he is willing to dominate her. “You like to be told what to do,” he tells her in an early exchange. By contrast, Romy’s considerate husband is unable to meet her needs. When she asks her husband to play out one of her bedroom fantasies, he protests. “I can’t,” he says. “It’s making me feel like a villain.”
Samuel’s dangerous appeal runs counter to the human-resources-enforced ideology of the modern workplace. He and the other interns watch a training video on the importance of “building a healthy, safe, inclusive community.” But what if certain things about the safe and inclusive community don’t really work — sexually or socially?
Likewise in “The Voyeurs,” Pippa, a young professional woman played by Sydney Sweeney, finds her attention drifting from her sexually undemanding boyfriend, Thomas — a musician making a song for an erectile dysfunction ad — to a manipulative satyr who lives across the way. Thomas asks her, “Am I not enough for you?” No, he isn’t.
The point of such juxtapositions is not to excuse the offenses of the toxic male, any more than the traditional noir approved of the murder and deceit practiced by the femme fatale. These films do something more interesting: By depicting a socially disfavored type in exaggerated and often compelling terms, they reveal the contradictions in public morality. They show that we aren’t entirely ready to dispense with toxic males, just as the United States in the 1940s found something appealing in the women who flouted traditional notions of femininity.
To be sure, most of these films punish the toxic male, affirming a progressive outlook as faithfully as film noirs once adhered to the morally conservative production code. In “The Voyeurs,” the satyr is blinded for his crimes. In “Fair Play,” the millennial finance guy who undermines his fiancée’s career is forced at knifepoint to apologize. In “Cat Person,” the love interest turns out to be a violent stalker and is driven from town.
But like the classic noirs that both punished and romanticized their heroines, these thrillers reveal a gap between what people are supposed to want and what they actually want. St. Augustine once said that for those who lack the spirit, “the presence of the prohibition serves only to increase the desire to sin.” If that is true, the spirit of sexual progressivism may be departing, even as the prohibitions it imposed remain in place.
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