{"id":1627507,"date":"2022-08-31T03:17:38","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T07:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1627507"},"modified":"2022-08-31T03:17:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-31T07:17:59","slug":"even-with-perfectly-cast-jeff-bridges-the-old-man-falls-short-in-understanding-male-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/even-with-perfectly-cast-jeff-bridges-the-old-man-falls-short-in-understanding-male-aging\/","title":{"rendered":"Even With Perfectly Cast Jeff Bridges, \u2018The Old Man\u2019 Falls Short In Understanding Male Aging"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Feven-with-perfectly-cast-jeff-bridges-the-old-man-falls-short-in-understanding-male-aging%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1627507&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Editorials last month include \u201cThe Problem of Gerontocracy,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/news-politics\/a40644358\/senate-house-presidential-age-limits\/\">The Case for Age Limits in American Politics<\/a>,\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/07\/27\/opinion\/gerontocracy-and-generational-power-in-american-politics.html\">Is the US Stuck in a Gerontocracy?<\/a> Half of Americans support an upper age limit on political service, according to a 2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/today.yougov.com\/topics\/politics\/articles-reports\/2022\/01\/19\/elected-officials-maximum-age-limit-poll\">survey<\/a>. Although Jack Butler <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/corner\/the-problem-of-gerontocracy\/\">writes<\/a> that the older generation should serve as \u201ctransmitters for proper inheritances,\u201d many 25-54 influencers and educators would like to show older Americans out the door from national affairs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Case for Age Limits\u201d appeared in Esquire, which seems also to be the most devoted media <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/entertainment\/movies\/a48805\/jeff-bridges-what-ive-learned\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commentator<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/entertainment\/movies\/a56780\/lebowski-fest-the-big-lebowski\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">supporter<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esquire.com\/entertainment\/movies\/a23824\/lebowski-fest-new-york\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">cheerleader<\/a> for the acting career of Jeff Bridges. Bridges is one actor who embraces typecasting. His 1998 role as \u201cthe Dude\u201d in \u201cThe Big Lebowski\u201d was his last until 2010, and to this day he leads a band called The Abiders, named after a famed \u201cLebowski\u201d quote.<\/p>\n<p>Juxtaposed against Walter Sobchak\u2019s satirical caricature of masculinity, the Dude reinforced cosmopolitan Gen X and Millennials\u2019 tendencies, and called these \u201cpacifists.\u201d A self-awareness to \u201cabide\u201d instead of getting swept up in manias such as Presidents Clinton and Bush\u2019s foreign war drumbeats certainly has its value. In application, however, the Dude\u2019s \u201cpacifism\u201d tends to engender nonchalance in national and personal outcomes, evasion of raising a family, and diminishment of self-defense, and other traditionally male priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Whereas Joel and Ethan Coen\u2019s \u201cLebowski\u201d fostered a disinterest in proactive male indomitability a generation ago, Bridges\u2019 latest work, \u201cThe Old Man,\u201d which debuted on FX this summer, revives the appearance of powerful masculine themes. Unfortunately, it also lobotomizes them of meaning and relevance. What is left after \u201cThe Old Man\u2019s\u201d gutting of meaning is a carcass of \u201cman\u201d that retains supply lines of charisma, but stinks the longer you stand around.<\/p>\n<p>Bridges stars as Dan Chase who is ever on the run, mentally when not physically, and an examination of the spy psyche. John Lithgow plays the foil, FBI Assistant Director Harold Harper, who worked closely with Chase in Cold War special ops five decades earlier. Their male bonding straddles superficiality and death-facing military brotherliness, and they share a cunning mentor.<\/p>\n<p>What inheritances do these senior men transmit? In one interaction with seventh-floor FBI officials, Harper explains, \u201cThe game Chase and I played when we were young, I\u2019m starting to realize, has no rules. The puzzles have no solutions. They just lead to other puzzles. That\u2019s what makes it so interesting.\u201d The government\u2019s top authorities such as Harper, then, accept the futility of a goalless fight, while Harper encourages junior officers to get their interests caught up in geopolitical games anyhow.<\/p>\n<p>The transmission devolves from futile to ghastly. During a flashback to covert action on the ground in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, young Dan Chase says the Afghan theater is his favorite because it provides his best chance to \u201ckill Russians.\u201d Noting the moral monstrosity this line represents, Chase\u2019s unique role in that country is code-named \u201cHamzad\u2019s Monster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In real history, an American fighter against Soviet positions would have been more likely to say, \u201ckill commies.\u201d We are not ethno-murderers, and many of our warriors abide by meaningful moral convictions that include beliefs in religious, economic, political, and health freedom, not anti-Russian bloodthirst. Stripping Chase of conviction while he fights the Soviets lowers him to hatred of the people of a country, a largely Christian one.<\/p>\n<p>Despite its ideological vapidness, \u201cThe Old Man\u201d delivers more introspection than many out-of-retirement action dramas like \u201cTop Gun: Maverick,\u201d \u201cThe Rock,\u201d \u201cThe Expendables,\u201d and even \u201cBalboa\u201d and \u201cCreed.\u201d Chase, Agent Adams, Hamzad, and others\u2019 inner experiences include pounding nightmares and visitations from the deceased. The words \u201ccountry\u201d and \u201cfamily\u201d are uttered regularly as the characters express their haunting thoughts. <\/p>\n<p>Amid this, however, there is never a reference to God. A remembrance or talk with God would have fit in cinematographically. Yet despite the actual majority of <a href=\"https:\/\/firstliberty.org\/news\/how-religious-is-our-military\/\">faithfulness<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barna.com\/research\/faith-influences-military-service\/\">nation\u2019s services<\/a>, and for all the personal experiences \u201cThe Old Man\u201d conveys, its servicemen skip out on prayer life. The classic motto, \u201cGod, family, and country,\u201d is abridged to its latter two \u2014 what could go wrong?<\/p>\n<p>Season one is brilliantly written (loosely based on the novel) and distinctively acted, but man\u2019s role in patriotically defending liberty has its soul sucked out, and his protectiveness toward family becomes distorted, turning \u201cThe Old Man\u201d into a nihilistic wasteland in the clothing of a soldier\u2019s thriller.<\/p>\n<p>Upon this flattened terrain rides not man\u2019s deeper senses of purpose, but old men\u2019s fever dreams. The set of solid facts known about Chase\u2019s life erodes, dizzyingly, with each plot turn. The annihilation of the lead\u2019s conviction, in turn, reduces Chase\u2019s deceased wife, Abbey (Leem Lubany), who appears in memories, and Zoe (Amy Brenneman) to chronic disorientation.<\/p>\n<p>If lobotomized <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-case-for-an-american-moral-revolution-history-judgement-virtue-politics-regime-constitution-humanists-petrarch-11660919176\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rudderlessness<\/a> informs the government\u2019s moves from one unsolvable puzzle to the next, then there is only an illusion of a republic. Officials in \u201cThe Old Man\u201d wax purposeless and vain, not for the reasons in Ecclesiastes 1:1 that \u201call is vanity,\u201d that is, to highlight the desperate imperative of knowing God to help the nation reach its destiny, but because the state\u2019s directorship finds meaninglessness \u201cinteresting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Drama critical of foreign entanglements and unconstitutional violations of citizens\u2019 privacy is one thing. Transforming elder leaders into levers and pawns who lack a hint about what they stand for, are manipulated by foreign adversaries, and at times cease to exist to their own families is another, smacking of a produced agenda. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Old Man\u2019s\u201d twisty, yet ultimately vacant, psychodrama and explosive action can be briefly enjoyed while remembering it is a Hollywood producer\u2019s show, not a patriot\u2019s.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Michael Bedar works in media and design, enjoys building and managing small construction, raising children, wrote a novel, &#8220;Sweet Healing,&#8221; about freedom and wellbeing, and appreciates time with family. He learned boating in and around marshes.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editorials last month include \u201cThe Problem of Gerontocracy,\u201d \u201cThe Case for Age Limits in American Politics,\u201d and \u201cIs the US Stuck in a Gerontocracy? Half of Americans support an upper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1122,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1627507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}