Masters of the Universe tries to manage the absurd masculinity of He-Man – it should just accept masculinity is absurd

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once said that the most tragic thing about masculinity was that it had a symbol. He didn’t have He-Man in mind when he made this comment. He died in 1981, two years before the original cartoon’s debut. But he might as well have. (He was talking about the phallus, if you’re wondering).

It is difficult to think of a more quintessentially Freudian creation than Mattel’s hyperbolically muscular hero: a man who, in the words of his evil nemesis Skeletor in this new remake, draws his power from that “strong, powerful thing hanging between your legs”.

The central conceit of this take on Masters of the Universe is to make, in effect, a male Barbie movie. Taking a similarly gendered toy product as its prompt, the film tasks itself with answering the question of what He-Man means to audiences in 2026. I suspect phrases like “fresh take”, “modern sensibility” and “toxic masculinity” were used with considerable earnestness at various pitch meetings in the film’s pre-production process.

The story unfolds as follows. A brief prologue introduces us to the young Prince Adam (He-Man before he becomes He-Man) of Eternia not as a mighty warrior but as a boy struggling to live up to the manly prowess of his father’s expectations. At the bottom of his class in a militaristic world of combat, he is considered by pretty much everyone as a likeable but weedy young boy, ill-equipped to face the world as a proper man.

Then the evil Skeletor shows up, usurps his father’s throne, and forces Adam into exile on earth, where he must embark on a journey of self-discovery so that he can one day return to the world of Eternia where he belongs and regain his father’s throne.

The film treats the idea of a flawed, contemporary Adam with conspicuous sincerity, though the first act mines Adam’s embattled masculinity for comedy. We encounter him working in HR, specialising in conflict resolution. His work badge features pronouns. He attends seminars on consent, shares “his truth” freely, and listens compassionately to the truths of others. He is emphatically not the He-Man we remember. Yet, supposedly, he has power, or at the very least is going to.

The continuous jabs at the mismatch between modern society and the masculine ideals embodied in Mattel’s original He-Man toy are presumably attempting to offer a more nuanced, or at the very least more irreverent, take on the He-Man character.

This assumes that comedy always subverts things. It doesn’t. Instead, the humour acts as a kind of permission structure, signalling self-awareness as a means of excusing the moments it actually takes seriously.

There are endless jokes made at the expense of contemporary woke culture. There are some jokes made at the more absurd elements of the franchise’s mythology and iconography. But no jokes are made at anything fundamental to the franchise’s lore or logic.

The film does not invite laughter at the expense of male physique, the importance of bravery, or the combat-based rules by which this entire fantasy world is governed. Indeed, it is here where the humour dries up, choosing to find its “heart” at the moments of physical conquest and sacrifice as Adam returns to Eternia and, well … I shan’t spoil it, but I suspect you can guess the rest.

What Masters of the Universe gets badly wrong is the assumption that the franchise needs to be explained or justified, that He-Man’s phallic symbolism requires management and modernisation rather than, simply, play.

He-Man was never supposed to make sense to begin with. If it had a virtue, it was that the absurdly phallic franchise allowed young children of any gender to hold just a little lighter the gender ideals expected of them. He-Man’s bulging biceps and absurdly one-dimensional characterisation allowed him to embody masculinity in a way no actual man could. And, paradoxically, that made masculinity feel less real as a concept as a result.

The original 1983 cartoon was produced to sell toys, and it sold them most effectively when it was delirious, incoherent, and utterly indifferent to the anxieties of adult interpretation. Even the original live-action film was confident enough to produce the camp masculine spectacle that the franchise represents. This new film is too afraid of its shadow to simply let He-Man be what he is, and trust modern audiences to know what to do with him.

Alexander Sergeant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.