The Lost Boys: How a Crisis in Masculinity is Creating the War Boys of the Real World.
An exploration of the angry, alienated men following figures like Andrew Tate and Enrique Tarrio, and their fictional counterparts in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’.
Watch the premiere of the public video here: Mad Maxculinity: Andrew Tate, Enrique Tarrio, Mike Tyson & The Lost Boys
Transcript
TITLE: ANDREW TATE, ENRIQUE TARRIO, MIKE TYSON and the LOST BOYS
IMAGES: Earth Quake, buildings toppling, scared man, robots on car assembly line, trans wrestler Gabbi Tuft (formerly Tyler Reks), Charlottesville racist night rally,
VO: Over the past 40 years, a slow earthquake has shaken the foundations of male identity in the Western world. Jobs that once guaranteed money, status and identity are disappearing. Traditional gender roles are no longer sacred. Cultural authority and superiority has eroded.
IMAGES:
UK Incel killer Jake Davison “In this day and age women have nothing but options”
Andrew Tate: “ Your wife starts talking. Your like, shut up !”
VO: Women in society are becoming increasingly powerful and independent. The influence of these economic factors and social media, and particularly the question of so-called female control over men’s alluded to in the television series Adolescence.
But why are young men so attracted to figures such as Andrew Tate and Enrique Tarrio ?
IMAGES: Andrew Tate “An easy way to view the world and try to understand why certain things happen.”
Enrique Tarrio clip: “ For instance this guy who used to sell camera equipment in Miami is suddenly being praised by Donald Trump.”
TATE: “ Because, as humans we’re always searching for meaning, we’re searching for understanding.”
James Garbarino and his book cover “Lost Boys”
Followed by War Boys in Fury Road and then protestors storming the Capital in USA
VO: In his book LOST BOYS, James Garbarino offers us some clues. Lets look at the portrayal of the War Boys of Fury Road to see what comparisons can maker between them and the individuals caught up in the Proud Boys movement, the Andrew Tate phenomenon and the Incel Movement. (http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/garbarino.html)
Many white men in particular, now believe that their authority has been undermined, and a way of life and their role in society is being stolen from them.
IMAGES: Trump “We will stop the steal.
Angry male demonstrators storming Capital. “Stop the steal !”
VO: In a world that used to promise boys and men, success and dominance, this loss of status feels like annihilation.
IMAGES: ‘Adolescence’
Boy “You do not control my…. Look at me now !”
IMAGES: Fury Road war boys, “Witness me !”
The War Boys at the Citadel chanting “V8 V8”
VO: The War Boys of Fury Road may be interpreted as emblematic of a broader social descent into damaged masculine identity, marked by instability, alienation and a hunger for meaning.
IMAGES: Woman gives up baby “Take my baby. He’s a boy”
VO: Raised in the emotional poverty of The Citadel, devoid of a positive male role model, the half-life Warboys worship a tyrant who offers a cult-like sense of belonging and promises respect through sacrifice and a future of eternal glory in a life after death.
IMAGES: Warboys with Immorten Joe’s voice-over’ “And I salute my half-life Warboys who will ride with me eternal on the highways of Valhalla.”
Nux in his vehicle salutes Joe and calls out to him. “ Immorten Joe “
Joe looks. Nux; “He looked at me. I am awaited. I am awaited in Valhalla.”
VO: Longing for recognition, they die screaming for Valhalla, not because they are fearless, but because they are starved for meaning in their infected, half-life selves.
IMAGES: Poverty stricken populace waiting for water flow from above.
VO: Immorten Joe rules a population through poverty and scarcity, dominated by his fanatical brotherhood of supremacy, the shock troops of a dying regime, who worship at the alter of power and control.
IMAGES: Warboys at the Citadel worshipping at the alter of V8 power and control (steering wheels).
IMAGES: Charlottesville rally.
VO: Psychotherapist Christine Wieland, in her investigations of the rise of Hitler youth in 1930s Germany, writes that young men who join such movements frequently do so because they are emotionally injured. The groups they join give the young men a mask of confidence, a sense of power and belonging, of purpose and meaning, even fame and glory. But underneath, there’s a frightened and unheld self, that many have not allowed to acknowledge, to grieve or to grow.
IMAGES: MIKE TYSON and SEANO: “You’re a scared little boy sometimes.”
ENRIQUE TARRIO commentator: “He appears as this really tough guy. He has these sunglasses, that cap, that military vest. But when you spend a little bit of time with him, you start to understand you’re facing a man that is deeply insecure.”
IMAGES: ‘The Secrets We Keep’. Woman jogging followed by image of au-pair with twelve year old boy.”
VO: This sense of emotional abandonment and immaturity described by Wieland, is illustrated in the Netflix Danish TV series The Secrets We Keep. In that program we see a twelve year old boy who feels so deprived of his parents’ attention that he relies on the family’s au pair helper to give him the hugging embrace his own narcissistic, business-focussed mother and father, are unable to provide.
IMAGES: Max being held and hugged by Jessie.
VO: In the first film, Mad Max from 1979, we see the interaction between Max and his wife Jessie, arguably a mother figure, as she holds him in a loving embrace. Later, following her death, we see the dreadful emotional impact her loss has on the zombie-like Max, a wanderer in the wasteland.
IMAGES: Jessie run down by bikies on the highway. Max wandering in a cemetery, with voice: “a burnt out desolate man. A man haunted by the demons of his past.”
VO: Perhaps we can feel some sympathy for Immorten Joe who in his own early life may have been deprived of maternal care, even forcefully rejected by it.
IMAGES: Joe licking at icecream them kneed in the balls by Jessie.
Mike Tyson; “I see a little boy that’s tricked the world to believe that he’s the killer when he’s really a scared little boy. You know I want people to love me, I want people to care and love me. That’s the way I became ferocious. No-one loved and cared for me. So I didn’t think I should care. I was programmed that way. Nobody cares about you.“
IMAGES: Milkers at the Citadel. Joe with a bottle of milk.
VO: Possibly being so deprived of the loving maternal breast in childhood, Joe has created a world that reproduces the mother’s body with its endless supply of milk
IMAGES: Nux and the Warboys in bile scenes. “Riding to Valhalla.”
Joe’s War Boys are not loved—they too have been programmed to be fighters, praised only in VO: death, bound together by shared code of violence, hatred, desperation and myth – the promise of greatness with a life after death in Valhalla.”
VO: In 1930s America, in the heart of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt is remembered for his statement……..
IMAGES: FDR’s inaugural Presidential address, “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror. “
IMAGES; Trump rally.
VO: Donald Trump, on the other hand, came to power promoting fear and hatred.
IMAGES: Trump “When Mexico send its people, they’r not sending their best. Their sending people with lots of problems. And they’re bring those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists…”
VO: Immorten Joe promises a spectacular future of life after death, but Trump claims he will restore America to greatness by a return to the glorious past of jobs for workers, economic power and world superiority.
IMAGES: Trump “Together, we will America strong again. And, yes, together we will make America great again.”
Photo of Enrique Tarrio, followed by Proud Boys demonstrations and storming the Capital.
VO: In this photo from 2026 of Enrique Tarrio, wearing a cap titled ‘The War Boys”, theself-styled leader of the Proud Boys Movement , he seems to be aligning himself the War Boys in the Mad Max film Fury Road.
IMAGES: War Boys at the alter at The Citadel cut with Proud Boys storming the Capital and Trump anouncing: “Proudboys stand back and stand by.”
War Boys at the alter “By my deeds I honour him.”
VO: Another individual who is exploiting the same emotional and psychological vacuum and of masculinity is attracting the attention of men and boys around the world who feel their manhood is threatened by the changes in society, especially by the role of women, and is Andrew Tate.
IMAGES: Tate, “The powers that be manipulate females through their emotionality to control weak men and control society.
Image of Elliott Roger, plus newspaper headline “Elliot Roger: How misogynist killer became ‘incel hero’ “ plus heading “2014 Isla Vista Rampage” with photo of victims.
VO: Similarly, mass murderer Elliott Roger, the so-called “perfect gentleman”, has been the focal point for disaffected boys and men, internationally, who see themselves as the victims of women who reject them.
IMAGE: Virgin killer Jake Davison “They do not want need or find average men attractive.”
Followed by images of rallies and Trump demonstrations.
VO: Various scholars call this the politics of resentment and revenge. It’s not about conservative values. It’s about reclaiming a lost birthright—real or imagined. As one scholar put it: “We’re not seeing rebellion from the most oppressed—we’re seeing re bellion from the once-dominant, reacting to loss.”
Make America Great Again. Return to tradition. Reclaim masculinity. These slogans are all echoes of the same primal wounds.
According to psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, a Primal Wound often forms early in life when a kid doesn’t get the kind of love, attention or support they really needed or wanted.
IMAGES: Television image from “The Most dangerous Animal of All” (2020)
Man; “I’ve had the fear of abandonment as far as I can remember. There is a Primal Wound that adoptees have. If you weren’t loved enough to be kept, how can you expect someone else to love you if you don’t love yourself. My parents, my adoptive family, were my biggest supporters. But feelings of insecurity were there as early as I can remember.
Sister: Where we were teenagers, I noticed Gary really starting to struggle with his identity. Even though we’ve had a fairy tale childhood, there’s still a wound to know where you came from.
Man: Your self confidence and self esteem tells you that you weren’t loved enough to be kept.
IMAGE: Mike Tyson “I was abused anyway a human being can be abused as kid. So Ive been bullied all the time. It had a profound effect on me, being bullied.
VO: The Primal Wound, also referred to as Narcissistic Wounds, are a deep emotional injury that happens when someone feels rejected, humiliated or not good enough. Especially when they expected to be admired, loved or seen as special.
IMAGE : Elliott Roger, “And that’s just such an injustice because I am so magnificent. I deserve girls.
VO “ To protect themselves, some people build up a tough or arrogant shell. But inside they still feel hurt insecure, or empty.
Tyson: “From being bullied I can be really malevolent you know.”
IMAGE tv series ‘The Killing” 2011
Boy, “The back door doesn’t lock. That’s how we got in that night. But this is home. A place you’re supposed to be safe, loved. My dad hated me. I saw it in his eyes every day of my life. And my mother ? I didn’t exist to her. Not to anyone. Maybe its me. Maybe somethings broken in me. Maybe somethings broken in means everyone knows it. They hated me. My family, my school, everywhere I went, everyone hated me. They had no idea what real hate was.
BOYS in hazing ritual at military academy: “You want to be a man you have to learn to kill the things you love. Or you’re weak. Kill, Kill. Kill”
IMAGE : JAMES GARBARINO, “ I do a lot of work with men on death row and murder cases and prison men
IMAGE: Intercut Fury Road “Come doctor of the choir of death. Come brother Cox. Sing, sing, sing !”
Garbarino: “And what I’ve come to see them as mostly is untreated traumatised children inhabiting the bodies of very often very scary men. And one thing that makes them so scary is their unconsciousness about that wounded child.”
TYSON: “ Being bullied you contract a really disgusting, terminal cancer in you. Its something you never forget. You just never forget it.
Warboys at The Citadel.
VO: The appearance of all the Warboys can be seen as symbolically reflecting the narcissistic wounds described by Kernberg. Not yet fully developed as human beings, we are told they are only half-lives, in constant need of blood transfusions. They bear cancerous growths, lack mental development and others have physical disabilities.
IMAGE: Nux in the tanker pointing out his cancerous growths “Larry and Barry” . Joe gives milk to his moronic son and we see his other deformed son.
VO: Max himself can be seen to carry his own narcissistic wound, the emotional loss of his mother figure Jessie, symbolised in the gunshot wound to his leg
IMAGE: Mad Max 1979. Max is shot in the leg.
VO: These personal frailties can be triggered and compounded by developments in society, in tandem with changes in social and cultural ideas.
IMAGES. Collapse of society seen in the intro for mad Max 2 with voice-over “Gone now, swept away.”
CNN images of Richard Reeves’ book “Of Boys and Men” followed by statistics.
VO: In his book ‘Of Boys and Men’, social scientist Richard Reeves examines the growing crisis of male disconnection in modern society, arguing that economic, educational and cultural shifts over the past 50 years have left many men feeling adrift. As women surged ahead in education and in the workforce, now earning 57% of bachelor degrees, men have experienced reduced labour force participation, declining wages and rising rates of suicide and incarceration.
IMAGES: Storming the Capital demonstrations
VO: The erosion of traditional male roles in manufacturing and bread-winning, coupled with a lack of new social scripts, has fuelled a male-malaise, leaving men struggling to find purpose and identity in a rapidly changing world.
IMAGES: Reporter asks demonstrator “Do you think men are angry today?’
Man: “Absolutely people are angry. And you can feel it. You can feel the rage, the madness.”
Men storming the Capital, fighting with police.
VO: Reeves highlights how boys, raised without strong, positive role models, often spiral into ‘shame-rage’ cycles, seeking validation in extremist ideologies or online sub-cultures like incels.
IMAGES: Cut to FURY ROAD with the War boys on top of the tanker, “Witness me !”
Garbarino’s psychological study reveals a chilling reality and describes a society of boys and men, many of whom have grown up without fathers, devoid of positive role models, seeking meaning in gangs, in extremist ideologies, in anything that promises identity.
IMAGES: Battle continues
These lost boys become angry WarBoys, vessels for violence in search of father figures, frequently falling into cults of anger and violence. Its violence directed against society in general and often against women in particular, since they are perceived as questioning men’s masculinity.
IMAGES” TATE, “If every man on earth walked around with a sword, then the females who have been emotionally manipulated, try and manipulate the men, the men won’t listen, that’ll make the female have more respect for the man, and most of the issues of the world, like all this crazy shit, you can name anything, basically would go away.
IMAGES: More riot at the Capital
VO: In recent years, many boys and men have sought their identity in cult-like groups, following individuals promoting hyper-masculinity, social division and hatred.
IMAGES: Enrique Taurino on a megaphone at a demonstration ,
“What are we here for ? To stop the steal.”
VO: I suggest that in Fury Road, the WarBoys are Garbarino’s theory made flesh. Raised in a cult of chrome and carnage, they worship Joe as father figure.
IMAGES: NUX, “If I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die historic on Fury Road”
VO: Their mantra, “Witness Me” isn’t just a battlecry its a plea for validation from a world that has abandoned them, from the very beginning when they were separated from their mothers.
They feel traumatised, abandoned by society, lacking in a clear vision of a positive future for themselves.
IMAGES: War Boys battle continues with taker on Fury Road. “Witness me !”
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