This is why I read you, John. There's a thread in here about how Hollywood forces men to choose to either despise themselves for not looking like Thor or being a rich asshole like Tony Stark, OR, lousy choice, being the schlub joke.

You could legitimately argue precisely the same about women, that you're either Charlize Theron or the Fat Friend, a bitterly awful forced choice that none of us wants to make..

I love this actor, having seen him in Bourne and Venom. I like that his range is expanding. However what you said about yourself here is to me far more important.

As a survivor of incest, multiple rapes in the military and untold other rather unkind events, I have had to walk this road myself, largely alone, and sometimes stitched back together by examples of other busted folks who figured out how to un-fuck themselves. For me, right after I left the Army in 1976, that was Ellen Ripley in Alien. It would be hard to describe the effect that series of films, most especially the first sequel, had on giving me and women like me permission to be badasses after shitty experiences. It doesn't matter that she is fictional. She represents for me all women who have been broken by monsters and got right back up. She had PTSD, was terrified, had night sweats. Most broken folks can relate. For me it was forty years of eating disorders.

What appeals about heroes like this is their everyman/everywoman relatability. There is NO fixing a rape, or a devastating accident, or or or. There IS negotiating terms. And if we're fortunate, VERY fortunate, and do the work. We climb atop the bones of our losses and shriek victory to the gods. It may not be much, but in those transcendent moments we are superheroes in the tiny arcs of our own lives.

The pressure that so many feel to be perfect, not only with cobblestone abs or perfect cheekbones but the unrelenting, impossible pressure to stay young kills us and keeps us broken. That sells a lotta shit, John. But none of us heals the chasms in the heart. All you and I can do is build bridges across them. It can be done. Does get done. And those who get to the other side…

All right.

I'm turning this into an article.