Role-modelling through entertainment to save lives: Why Superman (2025) felt so good, and why making films like The Hunt for Ben Solo matters
Role-modelling through entertainment to save lives: Why Superman (2025) felt so good, and why making films like The Hunt for Ben Solo matters
by Jen Davies, nerd
Nov 26, 2025
Trigger warning: Suicide and mental health concerns.
Spoiler alert: Plot points of the Superman (2025) film, and possibly The Man of Steel / Snyderverse. Star Wars sequels plot points.
Note: I will likely use terms and fail to define them because I’m integrating a lot of ideas here from diverse contexts, for example, emotional dysregulation (which refers to being a state of unmanaged high emotion) - not something we usually talk about in literary/film analysis.
At my home we are reaching the end of Movember, and I’m so glad because my spouse’s moustache is out of control. Every year for at least the last 7+ years, he has shaved his face at Halloween and proceeded to fundraise on behalf of the campaign by growing a thing on his face (no moustache suits him - he’s better off with a full face of hair). As I recall, the Movember Foundation launched to fund research on men’s cancers and there were lots of gonad jokes to bring some lightness to scary health conditions, however a few years ago - I think even before the Covid19 pandemic - they pivoted also to fund supports for men’s mental health, and that’s really nothing to laugh at (and they don’t).
Why the shift? Because suicide has become one of the top killers of North American men in several age brackets, which is not the case for women. Men are currently 3x (three times) more likely than women to die by suicide, and suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for youth/young adults aged 15-34 in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2023; AFSP, 2025).
And that's based on the deaths that are confirmed to have been suicides. In most Canadian jurisdictions I'm told by emergency responders who I’ve met that lots of car accidents and other accidents that don't seem to have an explanation remain categorized as accidental because there were no statements or messages to prove they might have been intentional - but there were no clear reasons for the accidents either.
I hope you’re asking what might be driving North American men to such extremes of emotional dysregulation that so many are choosing to end their lives rather than seek help. No answer is ever simple, but discourses about what it means to be “a man” in our society, in addition to the loss or confounding of the kinds of social supports that might support men to seek help, are likely related.
If you’re not sure what’s going on in the messaging that young men particularly are receiving about what their expectations are, Google something like “American masculinity” - Google will likely add the word “crisis.” This helpful summary will give you an idea: https://thegrowtheq.com/the-crisis-of-masculinity/ - TLDR: for a variety of reasons, young men in the US (and social trends in the US usually tag along in Canada) have fewer close relationships than they would have had in the 1990s. And if you think about what it means that you have fewer close relationships, it means you don’t have as many people around you to help you or reach out to you when life gets hard. And at the same time, you have (truly) whackos on the internet and social media selling lonely, vulnerable men on antisocial ways of being that do not promote mental health (I’m sure you can think of a few who talk about rugged individualism and leveraging power-over in relationships - I won’t dignify their work by naming them). In a relative vacuum of role-models and friends that would promote prosocial behaviour it's no wonder we see younger men struggling to live.
Shifting societal narratives about what it means to “be a man”
I was not alone this summer in seeing Superman and leaving the movie theatre feeling lifted. My fandoms are broad, and I really enjoyed The Man of Steel and the Snyderverse films, but the Snyder Superman had a very different feel: as many noted, in comparison to this year’s movie he is darker. That makes sense because The Man of Steel universe was a cautionary tale, and an examination of the world-as-it-is today. This year’s Superman film was future-oriented (Clark was already established as Superman, also see the technology leveraged by Lex Luthor and Mr. Terrific) and although it addressed the kinds of concerns we are dealing with on planet Earth today (war and the use of violence, misinformation, finding identity and community) it felt hopeful at the end, like we’re going to be able to figure it out.
On reflection, I realized pretty quickly that a lot of the difference was Clark and the way he was written and directed for the 2025 film. And none of this is a criticism of the way Clark was written and directed for The Man of Steel, they are both great, and they had different storytelling intentions so they had to be different. For this summer’s Superman, Clark had to be confident in who he was both as a news reporter and as Superman - the story started long after he had discovered his origins and established how he was going to fulfill his chosen role as protector and guide for planet Earth. Clark’s confidence made us confident (where The Man of Steel questioned, which made us question - and that’s fine because that was the story’s intent).
And in what behaviour was Clark (2025) making us feel confident? Caring carefully just because it’s the right thing to do (rescuing squirrels). Pursuing peace without regard for objections (avoid bloodshed entirely if possible). Giving and receiving a range of kinds of love (friendship, romance, love for humanity - “Isn’t that the real punk rock?”).
In addition, one story factor to the 2025 story was choice, and how much Clark could choose his path. Sure, Clark was lucky that a) his human parents raised him to be kind, and b) the violent part of the guidance from his Kryptonian parents was scrambled so he never heard it. But kindness also “fit” his personality - ask someone to act outside their nature and they may be able to for a while, but often their behaviour will revert back to their strengths/natural way of being over time. In developmental psychology, we have answered the question, “Is behaviour driven by nature or nurture?” Yes. It’s both. Clark chose living life with kindness and love - which are necessarily in relationship with other people - because he was raised to and also because they were just so much easier for him than rugged individualism or power-over others (in spite of having superpowers). He just gravitates to being in reciprocal, caring relationships, even with Gary (IYKYK).
Social justice and restorative justice for saving lives: Why The Hunt for Ben Solo matters
I use the term social justice here knowing that the very same “manosphere” that pushes ideas like rugged individualism and leveraging power-over in relationships would shit on it, and mock me as a foolish SJW (“social justice warrior” - like that’s a bad thing?). In the absence of those close friendships that young men are missing (see above), that space is holding a lot of the men who have been injured by societal narratives that I believe need to be shifted.
Worldwide, the narratives directed at men seem to lead to a lot of hurt: violence directed at men by other men is a leading cause of death worldwide, and “pervasive intimate partner and sexual violence casts all men as potential perpetrators and infuses fear and distrust into men’s daily interactions with women” (Peacock & Barker, 2014, p. 5) - and likely with other men if you don’t believe they can be trusted around “your” women (don’t get me started on the idea of ownership there) because of these narratives! How different daily interactions would be if you trusted the men around you to be respectful of the women in your life, and other men felt like they could trust you to do the same…
Let’s talk about Star Wars’ character Ben Solo (aka, Kylo Ren). Later in his life (in the last movie) but still much like Clark in Superman (2025), Ben seemed to realize that rugged individualism and power-over others was not creating the life he wanted for himself. Remember that he had killed his cruel mentor Snoke and taken over Supreme Leadership of the galaxy, which he must have thought would fulfill him. It just led to more violence in order to complete the galactic takeover and to protect himself in the role. He did not have a single close relationship, which was a key driver of his obsession with bringing Rey to his side - he must have been desperately lonely. He tries to meet his emotional needs through power, and can’t. Lucky for Ben, his dying mother and Rey are able to “reach” him via an accidentally combined effort (the modern-day equivalent of an intervention?) and he finally chooses to give up Kylo Ren - that persona wasn’t getting him what he needed. It’s significant that it’s his father (a man) who he has an imagined conversation with as he makes the choice to give up Kylo Ren (individualistic, power-focused) and to be Ben again (in relationship to others whom he loves).
So let’s come to The Hunt for Ben Solo, which if you haven’t heard is a Star Wars film proposed by actor Adam Driver (Kylo Ren/Ben Solo) and director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s 11, Erin Brockovich), which Lucasfilm bought a script for and then parent Disney cancelled. We don’t know any plot details, and I’m not concerned about which mechanism would be used to cheat Ben’s death (I hear cheating death happens often in the Star Wars extended universe, which I don’t follow), but there are really only two things the story could be about once he is alive again:
1) Ben (whose alter ego Kylo Ren dominated most of his adult life, part of his unsuccessful choice to try to embrace the dark side of the Force) trying to figure out who he is now, which is difficult because he has not acted like himself for a very long time; and/or
2) Ben’s remaining friends and “family” (Rey, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, R2D2 and C3P0) go looking for him (physical and/or psychologically) because Rey would report what happened at the end of the last movie: he had clearly given up his years-long attempt to shun the light and wanted to be Ben again - they want to help him restore himself.
However Ben is returned to life, the story will be about a young-ish man who had tried out the rugged individualism and power-over in all relationships and realized it was lonely and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He chooses love (a range of relationships) instead.
As a social scientist that was the reason the end of the last sequel movie was so dissatisfying to me: by killing off Ben, we missed the opportunity to show young men what it looks like to change your mind, to choose differently, to come back into relationships, and how to receive and give care and love. Because Ben was punished with death by the movie makers, we also missed the opportunity to role model forgiveness and redemption (the term Bendemption emerged on the internet not long after the last sequel movie).
Art/Media doesn't just reflect life, it shapes our mental lives: Neuroscience of imagination and memory
Art and media become part of our memories, and our memories affect our future planning and imagination. Part of your brain (hypothalamus) that is leveraged for imagination is also a base for our memory system (Wickelgren, 2023). In other words, humans tend to leverage our memories for making plans or imagining the future. That memory system has been documented to combine both real and imagined stimuli. Since our memories impact our planning and imagination, then even the fiction we consume like Star Wars is likely to have an impact on how we choose to pursue our lives.
Couldn’t it be entertaining as well as healing to offer movie-going audiences around the world, especially young men who we have documented are suffering with reduced close relationships and an epidemic of suicidal behaviour, a story that they can internalize that is full of life? One where our main character Ben learns how to live life differently, and (like Clark Kent in 2025) cares and receives care, strives to preserve life, and gives and receives love?
Like Superman (2025), The Hunt for Ben Solo could be a part of the media narrative young men need right now, to validate their felt need to give and receive love, in contrast to the yahoo narratives that an independent, power-oriented life is the way to go. Men are also welcome to be gentle, to be kind, to offer and receive care, and to give and receive love - let’s let them see more mainstream movies focused on that.
This Substack author is doing a 3-part series on essentially the same topic, I encourage you to check it out (2 of 3 are published as of this blog going live): https://alinacorbett.substack.com/p/let-him-live
References
American Society for the Prevention of Suicide (ASFP) (2025). Suicide statistics. https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/
Peacock, D., & Barker, G. (2014). Working with men and boys to prevent gender-based violence: Principles, lessons learned, and ways forward. Men and masculinities, 17(5), 578-599.
Statistics Canada. (2023.) Suicide in Canada: Key statistics. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/healthy-living/suicide-canada-key-statistics-infographic.html
Wickelgren, I. (2023 June 8). Where imagination lives in your brain. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-imagination-lives-in-your-brain/
#thehuntforbensolo #savethehuntforbensolo #savebensolo #bensololives #superman #clarkkent #masculinity #toxicmasculinity
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