The Narrative of the Masculine Hero in Slumdog Millionaire and Kung Fu Panda

Hero narratives are an important part of our story telling. A concern of these hero narratives is to establish definitions of masculinity according to cultural ideals, which might change and require a redefinitions of masculinity as well. This piece is an attempt to apply this perspective to two movies of 2008: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ [Sd M] and ‘Kung Fu Panda’ [KFP].

It’s important to identify the mythical structure in the plots of both the movies which serves to build the hero narrative. Once the hero and the struggle have been identified, both movies establish the hero as the winner through leaps of logic that are more characteristic of myth than fiction. While this might be apparent in KFP, where the Panda ‘figures out’ the magical ‘Wushi finger’ hold to beat the unbeatable Tiger, it might not be so in Sd M. But watching Sd M critically, asking how the protagonist came to have efficient reading skills without tutoring, or how all the questions asked on the game are linked to the most dramatic experiences of the protagonist’s life, brings home the mythical structure that serves to complete the hero narrative.

The narratives are also concerned with the hero’s masculinity. The happy endings themselves establish a definition of the masculine as the winner who ‘takes it all’. This is why in Sd M, it is not enough that the protagonist just resolves the central conflict of the plot, that is, his separation from his beloved. In the end, through strokes of luck that sacrifice the story’s plausibility, he not only has love but also wins fame and money.

The hero’s masculinity is established in other ways as well. In KFP, the protagonist represents the ‘cool guy’ archetype. Contrasted with Tigress, Panda is carefree, jokes around, and gets a lot of laughs from those around. Here, you also see how Tigress serves to represent femininity in opposition to which Panda’s masculinity is constructed against. Certainly not good with jokes, Tigress is a ‘good girl’, a diligent student devoted to earning Master Shi Fu’s approval. She is the opposite of ‘cool guy’, who wins without any diligent devotion. A different but more traditional approach to this same end is seen in Sl M, in which the hero of the narrative saves the archetypal ‘damsel in distress’. The hero here represents more the anguished warrior who, as he comes of age, gets to reclaim his manhood by getting back his childhood sweetheart and becoming the winner.

But both the movies are also concerned with constructing a newer, ‘softer’ form of masculinity. The hero of Sl D is a low-income ‘chai wala’, who does not mind being laughed at for his occupation, and is only playing the game so that his beloved can see him, and not interested in winning. He also avoids a direct confrontation with the captor of his beloved. Similarly in KFP, the hero does not mind showing and talking about his feelings, and struggles with self-esteem issues. This makes sense because of the changing cultural paradigms that are redefining masculinities. Is that because of feminism or the ‘emasculation of the collective’ in late capitalism? Whatever the reason though, feminism has still a long way to go because we are still obsessed with the archetype of the masculine hero.