"Sling Blade" killed a manly man. Umm Hmm.

The movie “Sling Blade” tells the tale of Karl Childers following his release from a psychiatric hospital. Karl was a mentally retarded man, who had been confined to a psychiatric hospital since he killed his mother and her lover when he was a 12 years old boy. Early in the movie, Karl befriended a young boy named Frank Wheatley. After meeting Frank’s mother, Linda, and her best friend, Vaughan Cunningham, Karl decided to accept Frank and Linda’s offer to live her and her son in their garage. Before long it became apparent that Linda’s boyfriend, Doyle Hargraves, was a violent alcoholic with a short fuse, and that he needed to be dealt with. Eventually Doyle decided to move in with Linda so that he could torment frank and get rid of Karl. Fearing that Doyle would inevitably harm Frank and Linda, Karl killed Doyle with a lawn mower blade.

Although Frank, Karl, and Vaughan were technically males, they were not masculine men. Frank was just a boy, and Karl was just a boy trapped inside a man’s body. They were still learning right from wrong. They had not yet developed a concept of what it meant to be masculine, let alone exhibit such traits. In addition Vaughan was a homosexual, and a very feminine one at that. Doyle was the only important masculine male character in the movie, and therefore his character was used exclusively to depict to the audience what it meant to be masculine.

Doyle treated Linda poorly. He worked construction so he made a pretty good living, but he didn’t help Linda out with any money though. He had his own house so that he could cheat on Linda with other women, and he was disgustingly mean to her son. He was always drunk, and regularly threatened Frank and Linda’s health and safety. On one occasion, Doyle demanded that Karl and Vaughan get out of his house because he doesn’t like “cocksuckers and retards.” However they were at Linda’s house, and when Linda reminded him of that fact and suggested that he get some of his other girlfriends and go home, Doyle replied, “You know better than to talk to me like that when I'm hurtin', Linda. Don't make me knock the piss outta you.” At that point Linda told Doyle that he needed to go home and sober up or she would leave him for good, to which Doyle replied, “If you even think about leaving me, Linda, I told you: I'm gonna kill you deader than a door nail.” In addition to that, he was just plain rude to her. He ordered her around like his own personal servant. For instance, he interrupted a nice family dinner by demanding that Linda go get his guitar immediately, and on another occasion he even had the nerve to ask Linda, “What am I supposed to do about supper while you're out runnin' around with that fag?” because she had made plans to spend time with her best friend that night. In conclusion, "Sling Blade" exhibited a negative portrayal of masculinity by depicting the sole masculine character, Doyle, as a horrible person.