In thinking about how the male body ideal is portrayed in the media, more specifically in film, I became curious about which types of male actors were paid highest in Hollywood and for what roles. It didn’t surprise me that the most successful and highest paid actors were also the most attractive but what did surprise me was that along with their physique the actors that garnered the most success were the bad ass guys, the manly men. These men were the superheroes and soldiers, the risk-takers and fighters. Not only is Hollywood searching for men who are extremely attractive but they are also attempting to fill roles that show men to be very one dimensional. If a man is a true man he will be muscular and he will probably be a superhero or a soldier. To be a superhero you obviously have to have huge muscles, no body hair, and a set of certain qualities, manly qualities. As young boys watch these films they are served a simple idea, men worth recognizing are physically and emotionally strong. What if captain America had been a skinny superhero? In the film, before he can become powerful, inf,influential, or worthy of recognition, his body but be completely transformed. The film encourages the idea that a man couldn’t be influential with a skinny body, he wouldn’t be capable of anything without muscles. Furthermore, although that man may be courageous and kind before the transformation, it amounted to nothing without the body to match. His courage wasn’t useful or valuable without a body to match. The message we are sending young boys who watch these films is that to be useful, to be heroic, to be taken seriously, to be celebrated they must look a certain way. We tell young boys they must have the sanitized muscular body. We tell young boys the lie that true courage looks a certain way, just having courage isn’t enough.