El Pais Magazine


Innocent brutes by Rosa Montero -- Thanks to Claudia for the translation

The other day I watched on TV, once more, the wonderful film by Curtis Hanson, L.A. Confidential, based on a novel by James Ellroy, and I enjoyed again the touching portrayal that Russell Crowe did of the cop Bud White, a muscular animal used by his superior as a mere thug, but who really hides inside his big body the purest heart of all the film’s characters. His surname, White, is in itself the symbol of that purity. He is a character perfectly designed (and played) to incarnate one of the archetypes most attractive to women: the innocent brute. Let’s say that the innocent brute occupies in the list of masculine types the same one as the blonde-bombshell-but-naive does in the feminine repertoire. A sort of Marilyn Monroe with testosterone. A classic movie sex-symbol. Remember, for instance, the lovely film Johnny Guitar, directed by Nicholas Ray, who offered in the shape of the handsome Sterling Hayden another perfect example of the big animal of pure heart.

All these archetypes are primary and elemental models, primitive designs stemming from the unconscious collective mind. Men hold, in the deepest of their minds, a collection of women roles (from Mother Earth to the smouldering temptress) and we also share, in the darkness of our skulls, such a series of men (from Protector Father to the smug, gorgeous Mr.Big), and the funniest thing happens. Men as well as women are terribly offended by the models corresponding to our sex. For instance, we generally get very angry when men find attractive the naive blondes, to which we usually reserve the eloquent term of dumb blondes. And they do not understand for the love of God our admiration for the innocent brute, as most of men consider him an ignorant ass. "How on Earth can you fall for such a piece of meat?»"", my male friends have sometimes complained.

And it is truthfully a good question. How on Earth do we, and they, like those prototypes? The mechanisms by which sexual attraction work are certainly enigmatic, but we could try to discover the main networks for seduction ability by analysing the models that have such a massive success. In the case of dumb blondes (my mistake, naive blondes), the secret of their success lies probably in the combination of a hooker look and an innocent soul: it must be like having a virgin prostitute for yourself only. And on top of that, dependent, obedient and docile. As for the innocent brute, he embodies everything our female genes request from a man (testosterone galore, muscles, magnitude, physical strength and even the ability to kill), but his purity also turns him into a child, someone who will not beat us or use his power to tyrannize us. In the end, in both examples, the candor that we attribute to the archetype diminishes all risk for ourselves. They are beings that we can love without too much danger. It would mean that, at the core of our uncounscious mind, we are afraid of the other, and that the dream lover can easily become the enemy of our nightmares.

But then, of course, these prototypes are nothing but primary symbols, and therefore nothing to do with real life. And therefore, it is much easier to feel attracted to the literary or film image of the innocent brutes, but then maybe in real life it would be wiser to start running in the opposite direction, should any of these mastodontic lookalikes of the innocent brute appear. Because it is true that they are less candid, and more thick, and probably daily life shows them in a less flattering light, as boring, stubborn and plain, much in the same way that naive blondes can become dumb hysterical egocentric, spoilt little tyrants, and unbearable tasteless women. Human beings are too complex and contradictory to be reduced to the simple scratch of personality that is an archetype. So long live innocent brutes, and even more so if Russell Crowe is playing them.