How to Train Your Dragon (live-action)

A complex portrayal of relational manhood within a genre highly associated with dominance masculinity: the Viking warrior epic. Hiccup is emotionally open throughout: he expresses fear, longing, wonder, self-doubt, and love without suppression. His father’s (Stoick) emotional range is real but constricted, operating for most of the film within a narrow register of command, disappointment, and pride. The film consistently frames Hiccup’s openness as his greatest strength. Hiccup questions the entire Viking warrior ideology, framing their violence as a structural problem rather than heroic necessity. Hiccup’s most genuine strength is using knowledge and calm rather than aggression and force to manage dragons. Gobber is perhaps its most underappreciated male character: a man who has lived entirely outside dominant masculine norms (disability, warmth, wit, emotional openness) and who functions throughout as the film’s relational conscience.