The Joys of Meathead Entertainment

Guys being dudes.

I’m not immune to the moral connotations of entertainment. I also don’t believe you should turn off your brain to enjoy yourself. When people criticized the climax of Man of Steel for Superman not saving anyone as he and Zod battled across Metropolis, I felt that was a valid critique even though you could reduce the set piece down to “guys punching.”

However, there are also times when I feel we can lean too much into “depiction is endorsement,” and that entertainment must serve as moral instruction as if everything is an episode of Sesame Street. That’s a fine show, but adults know (or at least should know) that sometimes a thing can be bad for you but you enjoy it in moderation. That’s how I feel about meathead entertainment—I don’t know if I could mainline it or make it my entire leisure time, but I also can’t deny the joys of buff dudes beating each other up over silly stuff.

That’s largely how I spent yesterday. I watched Den of Thieves, played a few hours of the video game Sleeping Dogs, and went to see Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. While it’s wise to be on the lookout for copaganda, we should also be aware of when we’re being shown a total fantasy that plays to genre tropes rather than aspiring to any kind of informative reality. The first Den of Thieves is about a special task force trying to stop an elite team of bank robbers, but the opening text claims that a bank is robbed in Los Angeles every 48 minutes and, like, no. Even if you include armored cars, there’s no way that claim is true.

Gerard Butler as “Big Nick” O’Brien in Den of Thieves | Image via STX Films