Look beyond blame and buzzwords if you want to find out what’s up with men, says Brendan Cowell
Blaming ‘toxic masculinity’ for problems in modern Australia doesn’t help, says screen star Brendan Cowell as he tells his own story of footy and messed-up manhood.
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What does it mean to be a man today? Award-winning actor BRENDAN COWELL takes on the question in his second novel Plum, with a host of characters based in part on personal experience.
There’s a lot being said about toxic masculinity and the way men are and what is wrong with men. This has led to the notion that their stories should be diminished, and their voices minimalised, in order to make way for other voices. I can see why. So much of what is going bad in the world is men doing men stuff. Addiction to power. Greed mixed with confusion. Trauma mixed with pride. But I reckon if you’re going to get better as a society you gotta look in to look out. See what lives inside the toxicity. What’s causing the confusion in men? I think the term toxic masculinity throws a blanket of blame over so much complexity, just making it worse. Human behaviour is the dance. And we’re all on the beat there.
Let’s face it, we love it when a man enters a room after fixing something. When a man enters a room after kayaking halfway round the bay. When a man enters a room in a singlet looking for his axe. It’s enthralling. Women and children respond to that feeling of protection and power. But a real man has to be OK with a strong woman, and not find himself having to show off or dominate. A man has to be able to take a knee when his son is bewildered, and just be in the feelings with the kid, not solve them. This is what it’s all about, and what I wanted to explore in my novel, Plum.
There are a few messed up men in my novel. Peter ‘the Plum’ Lum is an amalgamation of a few things. I grew up watching Gavin Miller play footy and imagined Plum to have his ferocity, his flair, and his face. Plum is also my dad, charming and funny, but then a bit distant too – I’m not sure I ever really knew what was going in his head. But Plum’s almighty aloofness is actually just his fear of people.
Brick Wall, Plum’s best mate, is a hybrid of Martin Bella and Glenn Lazarus, with a hint of a huge bloke that coached my junior footy side and always let me stand behind him when it rained. Brick provides an ongoing tension with Plum, in the way that some men can spend their lives trying to destroy their mate in everything they do, but if anyone else says a bad word about them, look out.
Magic Matt, another of their mates, is a busted ex-basketball player with addiction issues. Matt is a bloke you can find at every tavern across Australia, first to lead the shout and the last to leave it, but something about him says this guy ain’t all smiles and cheers on the inside.
“Squeaky” or Hugh Rennick, the fourth in their crew, is a champion jockey who loves his mates more than life itself. I grew up at racecourses, as my dad owned a string of slow-ish horses, and so I often found myself at Kembla Grange of a weekend, surrounded by punting blokes and horse men. Gambling is not my thing. My life is already a gamble, not knowing if I will work again, or where the work may be. But for Hugh it’s his life, and he’s likely got an issue, looking to any number of apps to bet on anything, just to fill the void. Luckily, love can fill that hole in his soul.
Plum, Brick, Magic Matt and Squeaky, they’re all set in their ways. Old school men, resistant to change. But best bloke in the novel is Gavin, Plum’s son. It was important to me in this book that the young people were more positive and evolved than their parents. Gav didn’t get caught in video game screens, or reach for the bottle or the bong as a teen. Gav stays athletic, loving his sport, going for a surf, focused on what his body can do. Gavin and his girlfriend Ainslee can get through stuff Plum could only ever dream of, for while Plum implodes in the relationship realm, Gavin just keeps it simple, knowing love is like fitness. He knows you’ve just got to rest and give injuries time to heal. And not run away when things get difficult. Gavin is the golden light of this book and of men. All Hail King Gavin.
Plum by Brendan Cowell, published by HarperCollins, is out now.
Our Book of the Month is Cuckoo’s Cry by Caroline Overington. Get 30 per cent off the RRP of $19.99 at Booktopia by using the code CUCKOO at checkout. And please come and talk books of all sorts at the Sunday Book Club group on Facebook.
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