How "Project Hail Mary" Answers the Call for Positive Masculinity

In an era of male loneliness and confusing messages about manhood, Project Hail Mary models problem-solving, purpose, and fatherly strength without apology.

This is a guest post by Joseph Holmes.

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There’s a good reason we never stop talking about toxic masculinity. Men are powerful, so when they go bad, they’re dangerous. Recently, the Netflix documentary Into the Manosphere and The Young Women Leaving the New Right reignited conversations around how many men have modeled their views off of misogynist and racist figures like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes.

But as many have noted, it’s not enough to criticize. You have to offer an alternative. Author and CEO of the American Institute for Boys and Men, Dr. Richard Reeves, notes that much of the reason men turn to bad men for masculine models is that we often use “toxic masculinity” to refer to simply “masculinity”. “What does non-toxic masculinity look like?’ And people will often say things like ‘well, that’s where you’re more emotionally vulnerable, you’re much more caring, you’re nurturing.’ And then you say, ‘Well, how is that different from stereotypical femininity? Say, positive femininity?’ And then they’ll say, ‘Well, it isn’t really.”

This is one reason I think people found Project Hail Mary to be a breath of fresh air. The film has been a monster success among critics and audiences, achieving a 94% critics and 96% audience Rotten Tomatoes score and the second-highest box-office opening for a non-franchise in the past decade (only behind Oppenheimer) with $140.9 million global and $80.5 million domestic. The film is also a textbook case in positive masculinity. While many Hollywood films make it seem like you have to choose between Barbie’s toxic “Dictator Ken” or “Doormat Ken”, Project Hail Mary’s male heroes are distinctly positive while distinctly masculine. Understanding why can help us give men a viable vision for their manhood today.

Scientific Problem Solving

Ryland Grace–the hero of Project Hail Mary, portrayed by Ryan Gosling–is a problem solver. He’s a scientist who loves picking things apart, experimenting with them, and understanding how things work. And when he does–whether he’s figuring out how the bacteria work, how to translate his alien friend Rocky’s language, or how to save the world–he jumps for joy.

This ethos is at the heart of the film. Ryan Gosling describes it this way: “We’re so saturated with apocalyptic narratives and sort of just bleak outcomes, rarely given solutions. I think what he’s done is he’s giving us this opportunity to say maybe the future isn’t something to fear, rather just something to figure out, and that we’re capable of incredible things as human beings. It’s kind of our thing — that’s what we do.”

What’s fascinating is that this attitude is a well-established hallmark of masculinity. Sociologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt noted in The Anxious Generation that easily the biggest and most replicable cross-cultural male-female sex differences are that (on average) women like people more than things and men like things more than people. As kids, boys overwhelmingly play with trucks and girls with dolls. As teens, boys get addicted to video games and girls to social media. As adults, men choose STEM and women choose HEAL occupations. (Something even more true in more gender-equal societies.) Men choose religion, and women choose spirituality. Men find much more joy in looking at life like a machine to understand, problems to solve, and obstacles to overcome. Women look at life far more as relationships to love and reconcile with. Hence, men’s preference for stories about overcoming obstacles, such as action or sports movies (even when the protagonist is a woman). And why most stories made by women or for women (even when the lead is a man) have their conflicts resolved by people opening up and expressing their feelings (Heated Rivalry, Pride and Prejudice), self-acceptance and acceptance from others (K-Pop Demon Hunters), reconciling with and apologizing for wrongdoing (Frozen, Wicked).

When Moana addressed an environmental disaster like Project Hail Mary, the heroine apologized to the environment and made restitution. When Arrival addressed interstellar relationships, communication is solved through imaginative empathy rather than Project Hail Mary’s analytical problem-solving. This difference between “fixing” a situation and “empathizing” with it is often a source of mutual–often humorous–frustration between the sexes. (The “It’s not about the nail” sketch is one of my favorite examples from the guy’s point of view.)

The trend in Hollywood has been to treat the way men overwhelmingly operate in the world as a flaw. Reed Richards in Fantastic Four: First Steps describes his deeply analytical and scientific self as “broken” compared to his more empathetic wife. (A statement the film validates.) Films like Barbie, Iron Claw, Sketch, Ad Astra, and Deliver Me from Nowhere portray men’s relational style as a weakness to overcome. The main stories where men’s differences are welcome are stories about violence. Superhero movies or action heroes like John Wick, Reacher, or any Jason Statham film celebrate men, but primarily for their capacity to smash someone’s face in. These trends tell men the only acceptable way to be a man is to embrace stereotypical femininity or embrace violent masculinity. It doesn’t take an astrophage scientist to figure out where that leads.

Project Hail Mary portrays men’s orientation not as a barrier to thriving relationships, but as their source. Problem-solving is what brings Ryland Grace and Rocky together and how they solve the communication barrier. Problem-solving orientation is portrayed as a source of co-operation–where people work together to accomplish a goal–rather than something that requires a villain to destroy. (Unless you count the bacteria.)

Friendship and Purpose

When people talk about the crisis of men, whether it’s male loneliness or men falling behind economically, there is a tendency to blame men and male culture. Movies about male friendship, (like Friendship), male arrested development, like Palm Springs and The King of Staten Island, blame men for maladjusted relational skills and lack of ambition.

But the data shows the opposite. Men still deeply desire to have a life of purpose and responsibility, and “define manhood in traditional terms: responsibility, sacrifice, and the capacity to provide for others.” But they simply don’t see the path available to them to achieve them. As Samuel James writes for the American Enterprise Institute: “For much of the 20th century, the transition to adulthood was guided by clear institutional pathways. Stable employment, often accessible without a degree, provided the foundation for marriage and family formation. Community institutions—religious congregations, civic associations, fraternal organizations—offered mentorship and a sense of belonging.”

The problem is these pathways are increasingly closed to men. Schools largely teach according to girls’ learning styles and grade girls higher than boys for the same work. During the height of the “Woke” era, multiple organizations made it a stated goal to diversify their workplace (without firing any of the guys at the top) by simply not hiring a generation of men. Churchgoing has also collapsed, and with it, a sense of purpose and a built-in community.

Church collapse and workplace instability have hurt both men’s and women’s relationships. But they’ve hit men harder because men tend to build relationships differently. Women build connection through emotional intimacy first. Men do so through shared work, purpose, and goals (as I detailed in my review of F1). Without a central goal–through faith, shared cultural identity, or work–it’s much harder for men to get to emotional intimacy.

We find Ryland Grace in the same place many men today are. He’s shut out of places of cultural respect and influence. He is then called upon to help save the world, and it is through that shared mission that he builds his deep bonds with others–Officer Carl, Eva Stratt, Rocky, and more. This “purpose-focused” relationship building is assumed and celebrated rather than deconstructed. But unlike more “man’s man” movies like F1, which portray relationships of mutual respect that never get to emotional intimacy, Project Hail Mary has its heroes cry and express their love for each other.

Then there’s the demoralization. Even when paths are not totally closed, it can be difficult to go where you know you’re not wanted. A common theme in Hollywood and culture over the past few decades is that a) humans are a cancer in the world that’s destroying it (Princess Mononoke, WALLl-E, Noah, Avatar), b) that things are better once men abandon their positions of power and give them over to women (Avengers: Endgame, Poor Things, The Last Jedi, One Battle After Another, The Bride) and c) institutions are evil/compromised and you can only be heroic and/or free by abandoning those institutions (almost every Marvel movie, Reacher, F1). It also permeates the culture that normalizes women bashing men in songs and on social media.

One of the reasons Dr. Jordan Peterson became so popular with men is he directly condemned that story and told them a different story. One where they were a hero, and investing in themselves and institutions made the world better–not worse. “You have a woman to find, a garden to walk in, a family to nurture, an ark to build, a land to conquer, a ladder to heaven to build, and the utter catastrophe of life to face, in truth, devoted to love and without fear.”

Project Hail Mary follows Peterson in flipping the script on how men see themselves. Ryland Grace is likewise called up by the government agent Eva Stratt and told that he is important and that he has a purpose. He constantly insists that he’s just a teacher, but she points to the value that he brings to the world, and that by partnering with the government he can save it. As I wrote in my review for World Magazine: “The world is ending, but in this movie, it’s not because humans are a disease, destroying the planet with climate change. On the contrary, they’re the world’s only hope of survival. Grace is a flawed hero without being a deconstruction of a hero. Human institutions are imperfect, but they aren’t shadowy conspiracies run by corporations endangering the planet to make a profit.”

Men’s power means that justified fears of toxic masculinity will never go away. But the more we have pictures of positive masculinity like Project Hail Mary, the more likely we are to see it in real life too.