The Future of masculinity is amphibian: representations of new masculinity in Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water

[Para 1]: " As evidenced by the October 2019 GQ cover story, “The New Masculinity Issue,” and Harper’s Magazine November 2019 issue, titled “Manhood in the age of #MeToo,” the masculine realm is in the midst of a tumultuous transition. According to Michael Kimmel, scholar on men and masculinities, this situation is by no means new. In his book The History of Men he states, “American men have been searching for their lost manhood since the middle of the nineteenth century” (37). Kimmel believes it was centuries ago that men’s secure sense of manhood was destabilized (37). Top headlines during the 21st century have only further confirmed this is still the case, and that the need for a different kind of manhood is becoming altogether urgent. As the Harper’s Magazine title suggests, the 2017 #MeToo movement indisputably exposed the prevalence and pernicious impact of sexual violence that powerful men are still inflicting on women today. This movement has also demonstrated that a well-adjusted masculinity has not yet materialized. The GQmagazine cover story further suggests that a new masculinity is in order."