Kumail Nanjiani has a serious problem with traditional masculinity. After acting in the movie “Stuber,” which supposedly tackled the issue of “toxic masculinity,” he has now declared traditional masculinity to be a disease.
In a tweet on Wednesday, the “Silicon Valley” star responded to a tweet from Five-Thirty-Eight writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux arguing that President Trump may have performed better with men in the 2020 election due to his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Why did so many men stick with Trump in 2020? The COVID-19 pandemic may have given him a way to reach more masculine men. Many of those men actually liked Trump’s ‘shrug it off’ approach,” tweeted Thomson-DeVeaux.
“Traditional masculinity is a disease,” responded Nanjiani.
Traditional masculinity is a disease. https://t.co/viSNNE9iah
— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) December 9, 2020
Nanjiani has long positioned himself as an anti-masculinity activist. In 2019, when promoting his movie “Stuber,” Nanjiani said that the narrow definition of masculinity has been harmful and hailed the action genre as an avenue through which to discuss such issues.
“I feel like we’re in a time where we can talk about masculinity and how it’s always been very traditionally defined in a narrow way and how that’s led to problems for everyone — for women and for men,” Nanjiani told The Hollywood Reporter. “I felt like it would be interesting to try to talk about that stuff in a traditionally very masculine genre. A buddy cop action comedy is such a dude movie, so we thought it would be interesting to talk about dude issues that also affect the whole world, in a traditionally male genre.”
Nanjiani and other leftists who often deride traditionally masculine traits like aggression and dominance reject the idea that such traits are useful for young men when correctly directed. Allie Stuckey put it well in a video for PragerU in which she proclaimed that society needs more masculinity to curtail violence — not less of it:
When you try to make men more like women, you don’t get less “toxic masculinity,” you get more.
Why? Because bad men don’t become good when they stop being men; they become good when they stop being bad. Aggression, violence, and unbridled ambition can’t be eliminated from the male psyche; they can only be harnessed. And when they are harnessed, they are tools for good, not for harm.
The same masculine traits that bring destruction also defeat tyranny. The traits that foster greed also build economies. The traits that drive men to take foolish risks also drive men to take heroic risks.
The answer to toxic masculinity isn’t less masculinity; it’s better masculinity. And we know what that looks like.
It’s a young man opening the door for a girl on their first date. It’s a father working long hours to provide for his family. It’s a soldier risking his life to defend his country.
The growing problem in today’s society isn’t that men are too masculine; it’s that they’re not masculine enough. When men embrace their masculinity in a way that is healthy and productive, they are leaders, warriors and heroes. When they deny their masculinity, they run away from responsibilities, leaving destruction and despair in their wake.