Why do we still tell stories of angry white men?
By
Alexander Gordon Jahans
A grim dark world of shit and misery.
A few good men and pockets of hope and salvation.
There is suffering and there is terror.
And there walks our hero.
Broken and beaten then reforged in the white hot heat of rage and battle.
This hero is not nice, is not entirely sane and prone to acts of extreme violence.
But they are on the side of the angels.
They carve through the enemy, bringing peace and sanity to a ruined world.
In real life this would be a horror movie.
In fiction it's fantasy.
This is the power fantasy.
This is the fantasy of agency and control.
I can't punch my problems in the face.
I could not and would not resolve my problems with violence.
In reality I am pathetic. I hate myself. I don't think I should be.
I am a genetic aberration, I have a worthless degree and I am part of a hated demographic in a time when being a productive member of society means dick to your chances of survival.
I have spent the past year in this filth and there is no easy way out.
This has to happen slowly.
Build up experience through volunteering.
Gain skills.
Don't let the progress on the online media drop.
Build up your confidence.
Get out there.
Live.
Get a job.
Move out.
Travel.
Get a house.
There is no easy path to victory. I am going to feel very shit for a very very very long time. Oh I could do counselling or whatever the fuck scientists have decided will help next. Or I could stick with what I know works. With what has seen me through the darkest times....
People want to help. Good people. Kind people. People I care about deeply. But they know dick all about this situation.
Mild Asperger's Syndrome, Kallman's Syndrome, finding a home and friends only to lose it all again. My parents separating, my sister emigrating, my dad being a collossal arsehole and now I have little hope, shite prospects and the seemingly impossible task of finding a half decent job I can actually do and get.
I am not happy. I am in a very dark place and I have been for quite some time but I survived. I survived and got to a point where I am starting to get better and to feel better and maybe one day have a better life.
I don't need your help. I don't want your advice. I survived when I had cocking no one. And now I'm getting better and I finally finally start to tell you the truth and...
Look, I understand. You hear that someone you care about is suffering and you want to help. You want to ease their burdens. You wanna use your smarts and your abilities to help. It's a nice gesture. It means well.
But it is incredibly frustrating. You weren't there when I needed help. You weren't there when I was fighting against the desire to stab a knife through my own chest. You weren't there when I was so lost and so alone and my dear sweet beloved well meaning ever loving father was screaming at me that I was a pathetic baby. You weren't there when I needed somebody, anybody. No. You weren't there when I needed you.
Instead I have performed a near fucking miracle and not just survived but started to pull my life together to the point where I now want to live, where I now think that maybe someday I can live a good life and most days I am happy and now, fucking NOW, you want to help me? You want to offer me advice? Well I don't need it now. I have a system that works.
Tell me, why the fuck would I risk everything I have achieved? Why would I abandon the system that has kept me alive through all that? Because I'm broken and need help, right? Well there's more than one way to heal and I have found a way that is working thank you very much.
Now look I know that I am a white man and so I have privilege. I know that my demographic doesn't need more representation and believe me I will goddamn cheer when we a get a female Doctor or a female James Bond but I need the power fantasy right now.
I need the fantasy that one person can make a difference to a broken society. I need the fantasy that the monster can be redeemed. I need the fantasy that women will find me attractive. And I'm bisexual but hoo boy I am not ready to start exploring that side of my sexuality yet. Experiencing such thorough emasculation as Kallman's Syndrome delivers rather leaves one unready to explore their less masculine acceptable sides.
I am not a nice man right now. I am petty and sadistic and angry. All tempered by my morality of course but to paraphrase Shepard book from Firefly, Utilitarian Morality is rather fuzzy on the subject of being a little bit of an arsehole.
I remember when I first played Skyrim. I was horrified by the relenting misery, by the constant brutality and murder. I just wanted to pick flowers and do some crafting. Getting the daedric artifacts that required sacrificing priests really shocked me and to be fair they still make me feel a little a dirty even now but the game itself? Now, I get it and now I love it. As a matter of fact. I had to install Skyrim again after having completed it just because I needed to feel that sense of agency and control again.
I actually like that I get such awful comments on my videos because if you can't let rip on a self proclaimed national socialist who thinks all black people should be shot who can you? It's like I am a man who can only fight in self defense and really loves fighting so it's really kind of awesome that they keep queuing up for on of my lame ripostes.
And yeah I'm a 23 year old white man who rights stories about skinny young submissive women being gladly dominated. Actually that part does genuinely make me feel guilty because I aspire to be a feminist and to write fiction someday that feminists will love but I am a probably infertile jobless autistic young man grappling with depression and writing this kind of shit helps me and fuck it I self publish it for free on my blog so it's not like I'm denying the enjoyment of better written fiction.
I am not a nice man and I do not live a good life but I am surviving and I'm getting better. Do you want to know the best thing though?
I've played Skyrim alot. I played it as a male Argonian warrior called the Farsh-nuke, I played it as a male Khajit thief called Ronnikin, a female Breton mage called Lucy and now I am playing it as a female Nord assassin called the Bam-Kursh. Most of the time Skyrim is a first person game so the race and gender doesn't better but when you get a particularly epic kill you'll see your character being badass from third person. So I am going to spend now until I finish Skyrim again watching exactly the kind of woman I, in all my emasculated insecurity, would dearly love to dominate brutally destroying deer, daedric priests and dragons.
That is so very perfect because you see while the past year may have broken me, may have driven me to the point where I need these fantasies of power and agency to stay somewhat sane, I am still an aspiring feminist, I still strive to be a champion of good and decency and morality, I still want the world to be better. I may understand why the power fantasies are needed, why young white man can feel so very angry and hurt about them being taken away, but I still want societal progress and I know first hand now that I don't need my avatar to physically represent me. Heck I'm a betitted fatty with glasses, no hero ever does. Yet if the core motivation is there, the core fantasy is there, it genuinely doesn't matter if they're a lizard, a cat or indeed a woman.
TL:DR
When you're in a bad place a fantasy of being a badass capable of solving all strife with violence can be a pretty fine thing indeed but it really doesn't matter if they're white, male or even human. The Doctor will still be the Doctor, Bond will still be Bond and the Dragonborn will still be the Dragonborn. It may not be perfect. It may not be terrifically enlightened. It may not be advance the the art of storytelling. But hot damn it can help lift you out of darkness.
