Masculinity can be portrayed in many different ways especially when we are discussing movie characters. The character I chose to portray the masculinity most common to our lives is Lorenzo anello (robert de niro) in the movie. He plays the main characterès (cologero) father. Cologero is stuck in the middle between his father telling him to go to school and get an education while he hangs out with his gangster friend (sunny). Sunny is telling cologero the same thing but cologero sees the life of a gangster and worships sunny because of it seeing him almost as a mentor.
Lorenzo wants his son to stay away from these people because he does not want his son to hang around these gangsters or worse become one. Cologero sees sunny as the alpha figure of the neighborhood being the boss of the city and sees him as a mentor. What he is unaware of is that people fear sunny and don’t respect him. He wants to be sunny which is the complete opposite of what his father wants for him.
The scene that stands out to me the most was when the bikers go into sunny’s bar thinking they can take it over. But when sunny and his tough guy friends came in showed them who the real tough guys were when cologero really idolized sunny and wanted him to be his mentor.
The masculinity portrayed in this movie stands out to me the most when Lorenzo gives his son a speech about how Sunny thinks he is a tough guy when the real tough guy is him. “ It doesn’t take much to shoot a gun but it takes a real man to get up early in the morning and go to work everyday”.
“The saddest thing in life is wasted talent” told to cologero everyday by his father. He wants his son to succeed in life without having to become a gangster to have lots of money. The masculinity portrayed here is a father figure trying to protect his son from a tough world of violence and crime.
Lorenzo wants his son to understand that the life he glorifies of guns, drugs and money is not a life he wants. He wants him to have a good education and get a well paying job like a real man would do. He explains how a gangster life seems very cool and masculine until it comes down to when someone has a gun to your head and now you’re powerless.
I decided to choose this character because it symbolizes how a father trying to protect his son is the most masculine thing any man can do in my opinion. A family man who goes to work to provide for his family is the most alpha type of masculinity a man can have. Sacrificing his life to protect the ones he loves.
Fight Clubs/Night Clubs 