“When I was a boy, my father told me to bang my head against a rock, and I did it. I thought it was crazy, but I didn’t question him. And you know what happened? That rock split in two. It taught me what a Viking could do, Gobber. He could crush mountains, level forests, tame seas! Even as a boy, I knew what I was, what I had to become… Hiccup is not that boy.” – Stoick the Vast, How to Train Your Dragon
‘Toxic masculinity’, ‘alpha males’ and ‘red pill’ culture are all terms which have risen in popularity within the last decade across the social sphere of the Internet. ‘Red pill’ culture refers to the behaviours and ideologies some groups of men uphold and often promote to other men and young boys typically on the Internet, in order to ‘open their eyes’ to the realities of manhood in the modern day. Andrew Tate is one such notorious Internet figure, influencer and businessman. He markets himself on his website and other platforms as an economically successful ‘alpha male’, feeding lies and brainwashing his young and impressionable audience to ‘escape The Matrix’ through purchasing his services and ‘invaluable’ knowledge. How ‘valuable’ this knowledge is can be rightly contested, as Robert Lawson suggests, Tate is, “selling extreme masculinity to young men.” In this blog post, I’m going to show how stereotypes of masculinity, toxic or otherwise, are portrayed in the Dreamworks film How to Train Your Dragon (Sanders and DeBlois, 2010).
Broadly speaking, this ‘alpha male’ persona is often associated with the desire to be the male with the most power, dominance and social status which are characteristics inherently derived from traditional gender roles. As a result of this, a number of toxic traits can arise such as a lack of emotional expression, violence and misogyny, to name a few. The strive for ‘alpha’ status and the social domination of the patriarchal figure through the practice of toxic masculinity are encompassed under the term of ‘hegemonic masculinity’.
Hegemonic masculinity generally describes the behaviours and practices that legitimise social domination of men over other genders and marginalised ways of performing masculinity. Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) define hegemonic masculinity as embodying, “the most honored way of being a man,” and requires, “other men to position themselves in relation to it,” (p. 832). In How to Train Your Dragon, the chief of Berk, ‘Stoick the Vast’ can be viewed as embodying the most ‘honourable’ way of displaying manhood, both physically and emotionally (as his name, almost identical to the adjective ‘stoic’, suggests). His son Hiccup, on the other hand, is positioned far from being a hegemonically masculine figure. As a result of his small stature, lack of fighting ability and timid nature, Hiccup embodies everything Stoick is not. This results in a lot of tension in their relationship as father and son, which develops and changes throughout the film.
As Milani (2014) writes, “those who contest hegemonic masculinity are punished for deviating from the norm,” (p. 14) and this is evidenced for Hiccup throughout the narrative as he experiences relentless bullying by his peers. By the end of the film, Hiccup sets a new standard for what it means to be a ‘Viking’, which ultimately changes Stoick’s traditional beliefs that a Viking can only be strong and powerful, encompassing characteristics typically associated with hegemonic masculinity. Hiccup shows that although he is physically weaker, his compassion and his understanding nature towards dragons, as well as his intelligence and creativity, allows for a subversion of the gendered stereotypes his father held him to and for a new presentation of masculinity to emerge.
There have been a few studies into the subversion of gender stereotypes and the presentation of masculinity in How to Train Your Dragon (see Assa, Yulia and Sarmiati, 2022; Stienstra, 2022) but these are either largely lacking in detailed linguistic analysis or rooted in rhetorical criticism and interpretation. Through focusing on language in this analysis, I’ll show how stereotypically gendered language use can perpetuate and uphold hegemonic, toxic masculinity in animation. Focusing mainly on language, I’ll discuss the ways in which the protagonist Hiccup subverts gender stereotypes of hegemonic masculinity and how others promote it through their respective uses of language.
Toxic masculinity and (im)politeness surrounding the male body
(Im)politeness strategies (see Brown and Levinson, 1987) and their relation to gendered speech has been an area of research in the field of language and gender for a considerable amount of time (see Lakoff, 1973). Benabdellah (2018) studied this phenomenon in relation to Disney’s animated films and found that Disney heroines displayed more politeness than males and also found that, “males use impolite speech acts to seek dominance, struggle and competition,” (p. 48). This can be seen in the community of Berk wherein the Viking culture seems to surround the social status one gains in killing the most dragons.
Excerpt 1
Throughout the film there is a particular focus centred around the presentation and discussion surrounding Hiccup’s body, namely the fact that he is significantly smaller than the typical male Viking figure in Berk. Many characters use this against him through various impoliteness strategies. Hiccup’s sense of identification with his masculinity is flawed as a result of others’ language towards his body. In Excerpt 1, he is seen using self-deprecation in reference to his body through sarcasm, “I’m waaaay too muscular for their taste,” as well as direct insults about himself when imitating his father in Excerpt 2, “This here, this is a talking fish bone!”
Excerpt 2
In Excerpts 1 and 3, and at various other points in the film, Gobber (a second father figure of sorts to Hiccup) is the main perpetrator of these insults towards Hiccup and doesn’t seem to hold back from committing directly face threatening acts against him. He refers to him as a ‘toothpick’ and insults his strength and abilities: “You can’t lift a hammer, you can’t swing an axe, you can’t even throw one of these!” The use of the adverb ‘even’ here is particularly face threatening to Hiccup, implying that throwing this particular weapon is an easy task and it’s embarrassing and surprising that he is unable to.
Also in Excerpt 3, Gobber directly insults everything about Hiccup simultaneously in the phrase, “If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all… this. [Gestures to Hiccup]” and the imperative, “Stop being all of you.” This complete disregard for everything Hiccup embodies simultaneously promotes the strong and aggressive hegemonic masculine figure as an ideal whilst rejecting any other form of masculine expression. Although Hiccup is physically weaker than the other Vikings, his intelligence and creativity allows for him to invent different methods of attacking and ensnaring dragons. To most, this would be an impressive feat in and of itself however, because Hiccup’s behaviours and methods are not in line with the hegemonic, violent and stereotypically masculine approaches that the rest of the Vikings take, he is singled out as inadequate.
Excerpt 3
In Excerpt 4, Gobber directly compares Hiccup’s body to that of the other teenagers in the dragon training lesson. He threatens Hiccup’s positive face by calling him, “small” and “weak” as well as highlighting that, to the dragons, he will appear, “sick or insane”. He attempts to mitigate against this by framing it in a positive light (“Don’t worry”), but this does nothing but double down on the Othering of Hiccup, especially when attributing the other teenagers as ‘more Viking-like.’ Although this may be practically useful and true information, all Hiccup really wants as a young teenager is to fit in with the group, especially after a lifetime of being told all the ways that he doesn’t.
Excerpt 4
Astrid as a representation of hegemonic masculinity
A feature of hegemonic masculinity is the social domination of men over other genders. In How to Train Your Dragon, although women can participate in dragon fighting, the sphere still appears very male dominated. Viking women can be seen in the background of fighting scenes and appear in dragon training with the presence of Ruffnut and Astrid. However, they are significantly outnumbered and are treated differently by their male peers. For example, they are subjected to sexist language and stereotypes such as in Excerpt 5 where Astrid and Snotlout come face to face with a Deadly Nadder. Snotlout pushes Astrid out of the way pronouncing, “Watch out, babe. I’ll take care of this.” Here, Snotlout pairs the use of the demeaning and typically sexist term of address ‘babe’ with the assumption that Astrid does not have the abilities to defend herself. It is unlikely that Snotlout would have approached this situation the same if Astrid was not a conventionally attractive female whom he feels the need to impress through social domination. Although the scene does place Snoutlout as the subject of amusement as he is unsuccessful in defending the two of them, it is important to note the fact that Astrid, as a woman, is viewed as a sexual object first and a competent recruit after.
Excerpt 5
There are also issues with the exclusion of women through gendered language by male characters. In the scene pictured below, Gobber is describing the ‘prize’ the best recruit will get at the end of their dragon training – to kill their first dragon in front of the whole village. In doing this he uses the pronoun ‘his’ despite there being two women amongst the recruits. This demonstrates how although Berk’s Viking community allows women’s participation in stereotypically masculine roles, the language is yet to catch up. It also suggests a bias from Gobber towards the men in the group, as he appears to completely disregard the possibility of a woman winning, although Astrid displays abilities far exceeding any of the other recruits.
Astrid is an interesting character in How to Train Your Dragon as she seems to embody everything Stoick could want in a son and is, therefore, the antithesis of Hiccup. She is used as a plot device within the film to emphasise how far Hiccup really stands from hegemonic masculine standards. Her language is often dominating, strong and assertive, for example, the first time she speaks directly to Hiccup (seen in Excerpt 6) she is directly face threatening, “Is this some kind of a joke to you!?” When compared to the language of Hiccup’s, Astrid displays more stereotypically masculine characteristics.
Excerpt 6
Excerpt 7 displays a scene where Astrid is trying to find out why Hiccup is suddenly so successful in dragon training. If we look at her physical position at the beginning of the scene, she is elevated above Hiccup, emphasising her dominating and more powerful position in the interaction. She uses imperatives such as, “Start talking!”, “Get down!” and, “Get me down from here!” which are typically associated with masculine speech and the assertion of power in a conversation. Astrid also interrupts Hiccup after asking him a question, “Are you training with someone?” not allowing him the opportunity to properly answer, instead choosing to threaten him, “It better not involve this!” Interruptions and threats are often considered a stereotypically masculine conversational trait deployed to assert power in a conversation, which Astrid is undoubtedly doing here along with her aggressive body language.
Hiccup, on the other hand is passivized throughout this scene. He is grabbed by his clothes by Astrid, has his arm bent backwards and is forced to the ground and kicked by her as well as having her axe dropped on him. His language use is much less certain and dominating than Astrid’s as he uses a number of non-fluency features such as fillers and repetition. Astrid is the one holding the floor within the interaction, asking questions and guiding the topic of conversation, for example, “I want to know what’s going on.” She is positioned as the conversational participant with the most power, which is typically associated with the male participant. Thus, Astrid’s characteristics are foregrounded to the audience as a method of positioning Hiccup even further from the hegemonic masculine standard.
Excerpt 7
The significance of the presence of hegemonic masculinity in animation
With the rise of the manosphere and toxic masculinity across the present-day Internet, it is more vital now than ever to assess our biases and gender presentation in media, particularly animation targeted towards young and impressionable children. Films that push the hegemonic masculine standard are inherently harmful as they teach the incorrect notion that there is only one way of performing masculinity. Although How to Train Your Dragon subverts several gender stereotypes throughout the film, concluding with the idea that multiple forms of masculine presentation are accepted, it has its limitations. The conclusion of the film raises the question, is Hiccup really all that far from the hegemonic masculine model by the end of the film? His language becomes more dominating, he uses physical violence to beat the main villain, and he ‘wins’ the affections of the female side character by the end of the film. Although Hiccup is far from the stereotypical ‘alpha male’ figure that hegemonic masculinity and would hold him to, he is definitely not a complete subversion of the trope by the end of the film.
Thus, it is important to critique these somewhat problematic but complex depictions of masculinity in children’s animation and perhaps open audience’s minds to the concept of gender performativity. Hiccup can be smaller, weaker and more compassionate and can still be a male role model despite all of this. He doesn’t need to take on a role that is closer to the hegemonic masculine standard in order to succeed in winning his father’s and community’s affections, and this should be asserted more in the future of animation.
References and further reading/viewing
Assa, Mutiara Abna, Yulia, Vitania, & Sarmiati, Sarmiati. (2022). Being a Man: Representation of Liberating Masculinity in Animation Film (Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis of How to Train Your Dragon). In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Gender, Culture and Society, ICGCS 2021, 30-31 August 2021, Padang, Indonesia. http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/eai.30-8-2021.2316317
Benabdellah, Fatima Zohra. (2018). Impoliteness strategies and gender differences among Disney modern protagonists. European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(4), 40–50 https://doi.org/10.26417/ejms.v3i4.p40-50
Brown, Penelope. & Levinson, Stephen. (1987). Politeness: some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/10.1017/CBO9780511813085
Connell, Raewyn, & Messerschmidt, James. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept. Gender and Society, 19(6), 829–859. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243205278639
Lakoff, Robin. (1973). Language and woman’s place. Language in Society, 2(1), 45–79. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500000051
Lawson, Robert. (2022, October 27) Andrew Tate: How the ‘manosphere’ influencer is selling extreme masculinity to young men. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/andrew-tate-how-the-manosphere-influencer-is-selling-extreme-masculinity-to-young-men-192564
Sanders, Chris. & DeBlois, Dean. (Directors). (2010) How to Train Your Dragon [Film]. DreamWorks Animation
Stienstra, Giorgio. (2022). The representation of Viking Masculinity in Dreamwork’s How to Train Your Dragon [Bachelor’s Thesis, Radboud University] Radboud Educational Repository.
https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/14149