Feedback Friday: Power of the Dog has a big casting problem (Patreon)

In an effort to streamline the podcast and encourage a little more conversation around some of the feedback letters we receive, we're putting some of them here and responding to them individually. This week, a listener complains that Netflix's Best Picture nominee Power of the Dog doesn't work as a story about manhood. They write:

I’m behind on the stream, and just got to #307 on The Power of the Dog. There are so, so many things wrong with this film that it truly deserves an epic-length takedown. But who has time for that? So here’s just one thing.

There’s a lot of "Blah blah [cough] TOXIC MASCULINITY!" blather about this film out there. And indeed toxic masculinity is a bad thing. But masculinity is not a bad thing. Masculinity is a thing out there in the world, like gravity. Masculinity exists, and operates according to certain rules and principles, which are predictable and knowable. You can be upset that if you release a rock it will plummet to the earth. “I am so uninterested in gravity!” you might exclaim. But gravity is still out there, doing its thing.

The problem with toxic masculinity as an item in this film comes from the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch, who weighs what, 165 pounds soaking wet? So if a big, threatening actor played Phil, THEN we could have a discussion about toxic masculinity. It would also make more sense why other males in the movie give Phil the time of day.

But with Cumberbatch playing this role, the story makes no sense at all. Unlike in novels, where readers can fill in details with their imagination, the thing with films is that actors are very specific embodiments of a character. And the physical is primal. So you could cast Steve Buscemi as Batman or The Rock as Harry Potter, but the second you do, the audience watching that film is reacting to only what they see. Do these characters make sense, given who they are physically?

In the real world of men and masculinity, an underweight guy like Cumberbatch running his mouth and being an asshole in the Old (or current) West would be dispatched with a blow to the head in five seconds. That’s known as chivalry. No doubt Cumberbatch would be great as a sensitive lead in a mumblecore film. But he is not a cowboy. He is not a threat to anything, except children.

Now you’re going to accuse me of toxic masculinity. “That is so awful that you think some other guys should beat the hell out of Phil.” Back to the laws of gravity. In physical settings with men, the physical is primal. If some little guy suddenly jumps up and starts threatening someone out of proportion to his actual physical ability to carry something off, he is dealt with. There is a pecking order. There are rules. If you think this is some artifact of yon olden times, go to the Pinedale Rodeo in Wyoming in July and check it out.

So the problem here could be twofold: Campion has no knowledge of real (as opposed to toxic) masculinity. And perhaps your reviewing crew is also somewhat removed from this world. That’s fine. Not everyone knows every world. If Taylor Sheridan decided to remake Emma, we might get worried this is not the world he knows. I know nothing about Japanese film. You wouldn’t want to listen to me opining about it. You have to know your subject matter. If you’re making a movie about the Old West, you have to know about men. And in this case, you need to cast the right person for your story, or it makes no sense. Or it becomes an unintentional comedy, as here. Anyone at all familiar with remote Western settings filled with men couldn’t believe this movie for five seconds.

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Tasha says:

It sounds like you're speaking from experience here, from a culture you know well and are immersed in. I can't in any way argue about what the rules are in that world, or how people form hierarchies there. And I certainly can't argue you into respecting or liking Power of the Dog if you don't, because that's just never a worthwhile endeavor.

But I will push back on the idea that the rules at a rodeo in modern-day Wyoming are the rules everywhere and everywhen, or that a man has to be a certain size or shape to be intimidating or respected. And I think your definition of toxic masculinity here is unnecessarily limited.

A problem with "toxic masculinity" as a term is that, much like "feminism," different people define it radically differently. You seem to be defining it as physical bullying and the ability to dominate other men through strength. But most of the definitions you'll find online are about society sharply limiting the accepted forms of expression and behavior for men, and men enforcing those rigid expectations on each other with harassment, aggression, and abuse aimed at anyone who crosses those lines — for instance, by showing vulnerability or emotion. Which is exactly what we see Phil doing, not by physically beating Peter, but by publicly humiliating him in a situation where Phil has all the power.

I think you're right to notice that Phil is not a physically imposing man. And I think Campion is fully aware of what Benedict Cumberbatch looks like,  and cast him deliberately, given the particular kind of bully Phil is. He isn't someone who picks bar fights or challenges big men to wrestling contests. He's someone who picks on people weaker than him, mostly because he's afraid of seeming weak. And he absolutely chooses his targets carefully to make sure they don't have the kind of physical power you're talking about.

I think Phil knows he's a skinny man in a world full of more physically intimidating men, and that's one of the reasons he's so aggressive about picking on Peter to show his disdain for effeminacy. He's operating from insecurity, a common thread in toxic masculinity, because of his own secretive sexuality. So he bullies and mocks someone who's skinnier, younger, clearly sheltered and inexperienced, and socially constrained from fighting back. (As the son of a boarding-house owner, Peter has to keep the clients' good will.) Phil consciously picks a time where he has an appreciative audience of other men who already like and respect him, and who could back him up if Peter or anyone else present did try to make an issue of the abuse. This isn't a case of a little guy picking on a big guy who inexplicably cowers before him, it's about someone with clout and social power seeking out a weaker mark to abuse.

I'm not sure who you think would thump Phil on the head for his behavior here. Certainly not his own friends and employees, who aren't going to take a strange kid's side over their boss' side. And not the locals getting drunk in the boarding house, largely women and older men who are outnumbered by Phil's group. Phil choses his moments and his targets carefully in this story — you say he's only a threat to children, but he also bullies a fragile and fearful woman, his aged parents, and his meek and mild brother. Notice that when he's alone with Peter and the odds are a little closer to even, he's a lot more civil. Maybe that's because, as many have interpreted, he's grooming Peter as a possible sexual partner. But it's also pretty natural that his behavior is different when he isn't performing his masculinity for a crowd he wants and needs to respect him, who could also back him up if things do get hairy.

I'm also not sure why you think anyone would stand up for Peter out of chivalry. This kind of performative group abuse of anyone seen as an outsider is extremely common in societies throughout history and around the world. Gay-bashing in particular has long been seen as a male bonding activity, and Phil specifically brands Peter as gay in order to turn the group against him. In that era, in that group, and especially in that volatile, charged-up setting, the men around Phil are far more likely to beat Peter up themselves than to defend him and risk being seen as sympathetic to an outsider. 

In spite of what you're saying about bullying, there are a lot of different ways for men to attain power over a group besides physical size, and Phil exhibits a lot of them. As the owner of a large ranch, he has social and financial power over most of the other men we see in the film, who depend on him for their livelihood. He's clearly knowledgable and experienced at ranch work, and the other cowboys defer to him because he knows what he's doing. He's smart, incisive, and confident, which are all strong leadership traits. And if all that fails, he has that trick of looking off into the distance and pretending he sees something no one else can see — an odd little gimmick that clearly makes the younger cowboys think he's some kind of wise visionary. Yes, someone bigger could still punch him out, but he doesn't give the people who could any reason to. He's built a cadre of younger men who respect him and depend on him, and he keeps those men around him most of the time.

You notice when he doesn't, though? When he's bathing. While most of the men wash up at the river together, Phil goes off alone. Some of that is because he wants to fantasize about Bronco Henry and remember their time together. It's possible that some of it is because being around other naked men might be dangerous for him, if he physically responded to them, or even if they caught him looking. He might even be avoiding temptation. But some of it might just be because he doesn't need his employees seeing him naked, and thinking more crucially about his slim build compared to theirs. He has a lot to hide, and he's canny about hiding it. (Although if you look at the scene where the other cowboys are sunning themselves naked after bathing, you'll note they aren't exactly weightlifters themselves. They're pretty young and small overall.)

Westerns traditionally find masculinity and heroism in a lot of things besides size and strength, but Power of the Dog is particularly careful about not putting Phil up against bigger, stronger men, and showing how he's cultivated a reputation for masculinity to make sure no one ever questions his. Cumberbatch's physicality isn't a mistake or an oversight, it's part of the point.

And as to your point about "some little guy" in the West shooting his mouth off and getting taken down… Benedict Cumberbatch is 6 feet tall. Jesse James, terror of the Old West, was 5-foot-6 and weighed about 120 pounds. He's believed to have murdered more than a dozen people in his short criminal career. Billy the Kid was 5-foot-8. Look at old photos of the West's biggest outlaws, and you'll see a bunch of young, scrawny, funny-looking guys who don't look like they could hold their own in a fight either. Guns are a great equalizer. And so, as Peter finds out in the movie, are brains, a steady hand, and a willingness to kill whoever gets in your way. Dominance in any age isn't just about brawn. It's about what you do with the tools at your disposal.