Role Models for Males Apply Here ...

 

I'm All Walled Up Inside, But Thanks for the Coffee, Ma'am

Line Up Stoics, Sigmas, and Self-Reliers

Watch You Tube enough and you find out how hot ancient meditators have become. What follows are YT stars to conjure with: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, plus later lights Machiavelli, Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, these to light way toward wisdom from times past and more so now. It’s cool to be stoic, to rely mostly if not all on yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson published his 1814 Self-Reliance essay we could as profitably live by today. Life coaches in the meantime sell tickets to teach us how to comport like Roman generals. To be a Sigma Male they say is to be a wolf among dogs, or better put, sheep. Being indifferent and emotionally unreachable is essence of quest. Let others talk as you stand silent and wait your turn to strike. What’s this to do with films, let alone films older than any of us? Seeing enough You Tube convinces me that Marcus Aurelius invented our Classic Era star system, him and fraternal lot from time of Christ to modern if confused concept of manhood as is, or ideally would be. Who are role models now? A song from fifty years back went, Our Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys. Not now they aren’t, but ho … is it possible philosophers have surpassed film figures as guides for masculine behavior? I read Stoics, observe Sigmas, and think yes, these all speak to me, or at least the strong, silent force I'd like to be. Too late? Maybe for some, but persuaders, influencers as they’re better defined, claim we’ve got stuff to keep a hostile world at bay, so long as we let it out, or better, hold it in. Advice covered in syrup that is flattery. But wasn’t this what role modelling movie stars did all along, and did best?

My Rifle, My Pony, and Me Was All Guys Like Ladd Needed

Still Waiting for This World of Ours (Really Theirs) To Make Wider Way For Me

Artificial Intelligence we pray to says the term “Sigma Male” came into usage during the early 2010’s, being desired alternative to Beta Males, who let others boss them, Gamma Males, who sell brooms for the Lion’s Club and seek to be liked by everybody --- then there are Alpha Males, who boss everybody and end up liked by nobody. There are other kinds of Males, but space forfends my listing whole of Greek alphabet. Sigmas are my meat for their being so much like stars in Classic Era’s firmament. Having oft-patterned myself after he-types from then, it’s clear now that Sigma is what I longed to be. Independent … keeps his own counsel … seeks not the approval of others … a loner wolf alert to anyone who’d seize an advantage. Chicks love Sigmas they say. Remember Pee-Wee identifying himself as “a loner and a rebel”? Every man wants to think of himself on rebel if not loner terms. Try watching Ride Lonesome and not projecting onto Randolph Scott. Idea of Sigma men was so appealing that of course they’d have to be certified by popular culture, at least named for purpose of You Tube and online worship. Sigmas are however nothing new. We’ve had them long as there’s been movies … or literature … or tales told by firelight. Sigmas know the score, answer to no one, live entirely off convention’s grid. Corporations can’t own them for they survive nicely whatever their circumstance. Alpha males may get rich and control others, which means they constantly have to deal with others, if only to dominate them. Sigmas go about cool because they dig being isolated. Alan Ladd says in Appointment with Danger that his idea of true love is carrying a .45 that won’t jam. We laugh but also envy his self-possession. If you want to understand Sigma, or be Sigma, go buy or stream Ladd plus others that polished the brand, and know they were popular for understanding What Men Really Want, and Women Too (from their men).

Later Ruth ... Me and Ward Bond Have Gotta Go Tap Another Well

If Only We Could, Marcus. Please Come Back and Show Us How

As moderation applies to all things, so then do we combine Sigma, Gamma, Beta, even Alpha, to arrive at ideal manhood. Lone wolves are assumed to walk alone, but if that’s true, how come wolves keep being born? Those who preach benefits of Stoic and Sigma are mostly self-helpers selling lifestyles they claim are good for us as they were for the ancients. What Emerson counseled plugs profitably into most any life. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think, he said, a quote as easily emanating from Gary Cooper once he decides to haul nitro in Blowing Wild so he can finance another oil dig. Alan Ladd’s onscreen philosophy was summed up by Emerson thus: It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Male stars were always for Self-Reliance. Scott, Cooper, Ladd became role models for the simple reason they lived for goals generally short term and let no one interfere with their pursuit. You could summarize Sigma life philosophy in a dozen or less words: Scott will find and kill men responsible for the murder of his wife, Cooper will get cash one way or another to drill another hole, Ladd will go undercover and root out mail robbers, simplest objective always the better. We watch these men’s behavior and are happily guided by them.

Good Job, Bogie, But Let's Not Make a Habit of Roles Like This ...

The Next One He Did ... and Back at Familiar Work We Hired Him For

YT coaches tell Sigma candidates things they long to hear, cats  stroked when influencers speak. Who wouldn’t plug themselves into these: In a world of puppets, Sigmas cut the string … Instead of reacting, they absorb … The Sigma never seeks approval … People want you to be predictable, but you will always confound them. Check, check, and check --- That’s me, we’d all say. Swap your impotence for virility reclaimed. Folks imagine this to be fresh phenomenon, but frustration like modern men feel go back far as Adam, movie salve a same since film got hold 125 years back and counting. Did pioneering Sigmas begin with strong, silent, and alone William S. Hart? That alone part is price Sigmas must ultimately pay. Might “loser” more describe those who’d elect always to isolate? Movies have done good giving boys and men worthwhile examples to follow. Many were those in maturity who’d lament passing of heroes adopted in youth. Ones less given to fan following were more subtly coopted. See/hear enough of any charismatic face and voice and chances are you’ll imitate him. How else did I get to be the youngest Basil Rathbone on my street? As narrative and character developed on film, there came shading by idols, effect sometimes unintended, this where good enough actors left singular impression upon men and boys who went expecting one thing and got something else. To ponder work of favorites is to realize they early adapted Sigma, widening range an option open to personas that projected strongest, result sometimes gone sideways and leaving us to wonder whether this is a man we’d like to emulate … or not.

That Stuff's Priceless!, Warns Offscreen Waldo to Laser-Focused Mark McPherson

Where Being Sigma Costs Lives and Property, Especially in Wartime. Slow Down, Jim!

Cary and His Childlike Crew. He Alone Knows Tokyo is Their Objective

Consider then Sigma performances and spot which were default setting for actors playing them. Some roles were so definitive as to sum up and represent the stance from there forward. Humphrey Bogart is decisively Sigma in The Maltese Falcon and then Casablanca, but would himself crack the mold to, if nothing else, show he could: Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen, The Caine Mutiny … would these disappoint ones who appointed him their life guide? Note a once thriving Bogart cult listing latters as less essential to reviving, because who wants to grow up and be Fred C. Dobbs, Charlie Allnutt, or Captain Queeg? Bogart into his fifties would be less convincingly Sigma, returns to old Bogie form a matter of being an “official” hero who would support status quo of law enforcing (The Enforcer), or crime-busting journalism (Deadline USA). Sigmas being goal-focused to exclusion of all else could be romantic and a thing to aspire to, or distinctly neither of these. Consider Dana Andrews as Mark McPherson … we know he’ll end up with Gene Tierney’s Laura once she turns out to be still alive. Mark had a past relationship that he dumped for the gal pushing too much to marry, Sigmas sensing such as signal to back off. McPherson’s diligence on the job will put him at odds with a mainstream, attractively so in a long run, at least in Laura’s view, but what of the Sigma male too alienated from normal course of life. Laird Cregar in I Wake Up Screaming was an extreme example, Betty Grable asking him how anyone can get along without relationships, human contact of any kind, to which he softly replies, It can be done. That Laird turns out to be near psychotic comes as no surprise.

Pat Hendry Understands That to Lead Is To Do So Sans Baggage --- Will Sassy/Saucy Nikki Change His Mind?

Smug Townfolk Look On Approvingly at a Safely Gelded Jeff Webster

Urban dwelling was best done by oneself. Even with badges, Sigmas went largely solo. Dennis O’Keefe in T-Men knows any man weighted by family and domestic duties dies hard in the face of harsh reality, a lesson undercover partner Alfred Ryder learns at expense of his life. Kenneth Tobey is effective where protecting us from Arctic alien invasion but might be less so should he settle down with Margaret Sheridan. What’s a Sigma to do? The Thing’s teasing conclusion implies he’ll give in, or maybe not. We can have it either way depending on personal preference. James Stewart in The Far Country must be beaten, shot, otherwise outraged, before joining community membership. He’ll belong to them or else, Sigmas in the audience figuring Jim worse off than if felled altogether by villainy. Mid-fifties Sigmas seem at times like overgrown juvenile delinquents, less cool to us for having less control of unattractive impulses. James Dean’s Jett Rink sulks and pouts and throws sucker punches to disappointment of would-be fellow Sigmas, but maybe he was just warning us what might come of such chosen way of life.

If 1966-67 Had a Cooler Example to Follow, I Surely Missed Him

Where Even a Dedicated Sigma Could Never Undo a Grievous Past Mistake

Don't Get Too Close Ingrid, I'm a Married Man. Except He Really Isn't.

A man could turn heavy Sigma for loss sustained offscreen and long ago. Lee Marvin’s “Fardan” in The Professionals had a wife once, but she was cruelly done in by the Mexican army and he has gone it resolutely alone since. It is for Burt Lancaster’s “Dolworth” to explain in fewest words as Sigmas are wont. Water might muddy where a Sigma has committed a bad deed for which there’d be no proper penance, like Paul Newman as Hud Bannon drunkenly responsible for his brother’s death in an auto crack-up. Despite Hud being so indifferently cool otherwise, we cannot forget any more than his estranged father will. Sigmas often floated upon a past that was mild soufflé, nothing to disturb us or them. Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill had a marriage that failed, but so what? He’s Sigma now and liking it. To Catch a Thief gives Cary a reformed thief’s irresistible past plus Single Is the Best Thing philosophy per You Tube imprint above. Indiscreet sees Grant telling Ingrid Bergman he’s married to keep her at safe distance. Grant did ageless Sigma most becomingly, was able to carry it off longer than rival leading men. I could go on about Sigma Males, in fact will in future columns. For my liking of the type and actors that represented it, there could well be a series coming of this, so be warned.