TV’s Antidote to the Year of Men in Crisis

Boys, boys, boys. This year has been the year of the Crisis of Masculinity, or maybe the year of the Male Loneliness Epidemic, or maybe, if we’re getting spicy with it, the year of the Great Feminization. A fascination with the problems of boys and young men is nothing new. Men, as diagnosed in Richard Reeves’s 2022 bestseller, Of Boys and Men, are struggling, isolated and adrift, bereft of strong role models or a supportive culture. And the same period has seen the rise of figures like Jordan Peterson peddling a vision of masculinity based partly in self-discipline (with exhortations to clean one’s room and stand up straight) and partly in resentment and perceived threat.