Last night we watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as a family. My eldest pulled a “me” and promptly fell asleep. When his snoring got so loud that it became a distraction, we sent him to his bed.

The other two remained and got treated to the best cinematic ending in all of history.

My youngest, sensing a mom-lecture that could possibly be longer than the almost 3 hour movie, asked if he could go upstairs. Off he went.

He wasn’t wrong. I did have a lecture under my belt.

My middle son and I like to have discussions about what we just watched. We’re almost wrapping up the series Mad Men and after each episode we dissect everything. This kid is my dream come true and I see him bestowing many lectures upon his own children one day.

So after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, one of the things we talked about was how Quentin Tarantino loves to expose the fake tough guys of the world.

He did it in Django Unchained with the slave owners and the Ku Klux Klan (the latter in a hilarious scene where the holes in their white hoods were too small and they couldn’t see anything); in Inglorious Basterds he made Hitler a caricature of the real monster; and in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, not only were the Manson family members portrayed as idiotic teenagers instead of mysterious cult figures, but the actor Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, was a weeping insecure mess, juxtaposing the cool and collected image he brought to TV screens – which tells me that’s probably the case with most actors.

I explained to my son that the press really is fake news. They make dummies look smart, evil look cool, and pussies look tough.

That was the moment it turned from a discussion to a lecture, but don’t worry, I think he was up for it.

I told him that in real life, it’s the big mouths who really have nothing to back them up. Like Michael Madsen says to Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs, “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are ya gonna bite?”

In Once Upon a Time…, the true tough guy was stuntman Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt. Booth, body double/stuntman to DiCaprio’s Dalton, didn’t talk much, he just got shit done.

It reminds me of the car scene in The Sopranos when Tony asks, “What ever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type?” (Not realizing it was a rhetorical question, Silvio replies, “He died.” 🤣)

I explained to my son that if you’re a “real man” you don’t have to announce it to the world. You don’t have to shoot your mouth off or pretend to be a certain way. A real man keeps his head down and takes care of business. A real man treats people, especially women, with respect. Real men keep their word, they don’t lie all the time. Real men are not afraid to be vulnerable because they’re not worried about being exposed as weaklings. They’re not bullies, and they care about people who are less fortunate than them.

It’s always the ones with the loudest mouths who are the weakest. Not tough guys, just frauds.

I did give my son some examples, but for the sake of keeping this post non-political, I’ll end it here 😉