Possibly the most iconic charismatic alpha male jerkboy in pre-post-America movie history is the character “Bender”, played by Judd Nelson in the (all-white) cult classic The Breakfast Club.
On that topic, a reader writes,
I’ve watched this movie twice this month. You really have to appreciate Bender’s alphatude.
I think it would be fun to hear your take on him. To my surprise I’ve searched around the Manosphere and found zilch. You would think he would be the poster (man) for the Manosphere, at least Alpha of the Month!
Could it be that CH overlooked Bender as Exhibit Asshole of the jerk with the alpha attitude that is diggeth by yon maidens? I searched the archives and, scandaleux!, an ode to Bender is nowhere found. Pry your eyes, time to rectify.
Bender is the classic übercool, sarcastic, brooding, lone wolf neg machine who supercharges the sex fantasies of girls from good backgrounds. He has so many great scenes of game in TBC that it’s hard to pick a favorite, but this one — a quickie in a closet where Bender responds to Claire’s pregnant ASD inquiry about his feelings towards her earlier trick of putting lipstick on herself using only her cleavage — is (IMfactualO) the perfect distillation of charismatic jerkboy game in as few words as humanly possible.
Claire: Were you really disgusted about what I did with my lipstick?
Watch out! This is a scrumptious niblet of beta bait that Clarie tosses overboard to see if Bender goes all goopy on her. Most betas would promptly qualify themselves, along the lines of “no i was just kidding with you. how could i be disgusted by anything you do?”
Bender: Truth?
Bender knows what to do with beta bait. Tug on the line, get the girl excited that maybe you’ve bitten down on the hook, but attach an old shoe instead and watch her face light up when she reels it back onto the boat, happy that her feminine wile was so expertly subdued.
Claire: Truth.
Bender: *nodding as if saying ‘yes’* No. *follows up with award-winning smirk*
Unpredictability and playfulness are the alpha player’s coin of the womb. She expected a straight answer, he responded with a flirtatious contradiction in verbal and physical acknowledgment. In other words, he broke the courtship rules. And she loves him for doing that.
Bender’s alpha attitude is a fusion reactor of gina tingles. His kind is so rare and so in-demand by women that he’s practically his own gender, a subspecies of betamale flaccidus. Why aren’t there more of him, then? Maybe his subspecies is reproductively self-correcting, flourishing only when his numbers in the broader population are low.
The CH series, Great Scenes of Game in the Movies (GSGM), is a useful learning tool for men seeking to become the charming player who sets female hearts fluttering. Movies are fantasy, but fantasy reflects real life desire, otherwise no one would be interested in watching. Art must contain a kernel of truth to have any true effect on viewers.
Browse the archived GSGM entries
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
here
and the one that started it all, here.
PS a girly commenter (swkstudent) to the above Youtube video snippet, shocked and dismayed by what she saw, felt an incredible urge to volunteer this ego-fluffing platitude:
no she likes him because she knows deep down he’s not an asshole and he was honest with her
It still amazes me the lengths to which delicate flowers will go to avoid the bleeding obvious when the bleeding obvious isn’t kind to their comatose belief systems.
swkstudent, you can’t later rationalize your love for a jerk by insisting that deep down he’s not an asshole unless you first know he’s an asshole. Otherwise, Brian, the niceguy in TBC who’s clearly not an asshole and who’s honest with everyone, would be sailing the seas of Claire’s beaver brine. And yet he’s not. Fancy that.