But our culture is not much on promoting manhood these days. Between the repulsive Male Feminists and the Manosphere poseurs, it's rare to find a specimen tough enough to tame the seas and take on the forces of evil at the same time. So we look to the past and find a specimen of what kinds of men the Navy once produced. Men like Dan Adams, the hero of this week's entertainment recommendation, Coronado 9.
Coronado 9 was produced by Revue Studios and ran on independent stations from 1960-1961. Dan Adams was a former Naval Intelligence Officer turned private investigator, who lived in the Coronado Marina District in San Diego. This area is one of the wealthiest areas of San Diego, and Adams had a yacht there. A tough, burly man of means---Adams was anything but a posturing Alpha as we're presented in the Manosphere. One of the most highly-rated episodes involves Adams risking his life to set a troubled and fallen woman on the right path.
Most episodes of Coronado 9 involve Adams trying to help others through situations where the police can't get involved. In one, for example, he helps reconcile an old Navy friend with his wife, who's had an affair and is being blackmailed. Another has him help a Chinese family whose daughter has strayed into the underworld. And others in a similar vein.
What makes Coronado 9 especially fascinating is that the producers seem to have made it a point to stress the gritty realism of a real man with a tough job over the flashier tried-and-true formula plots that came to characterize private-detective shows. Adams had no inside police contact, no partner, and we never see his office. Though he doesn't have a love interest, Adams character is noteworthy for its deferential, often chivalric, attitudes towards women. Thus, in spite of his wealth, political connections, and imposing masculine presence; Adams really comes across as a normal man under the surface. He was a character with whom men could relate, he thought and acted as most men of the period would have done in the same circumstances.
Adams is a character type which sadly has disappeared from the media altogether, and from our culture at large in general. It is sad to see so many men today---especially young men---grasping at whatever straws they can to project an image as a man. Nobody had to tell a man like Adams what a man should be: he simply was one. The downfall of our military has a lot to do with this. Such men were not infrequently molded by military experience in the mid-20th Century. The Culture of Masculinity, which our current Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has sworn to destroy, instilled in young men self-discipline, the value of teamwork and personal initiative, and responsibility. It pushed young men beyond what they thought were their limits into the pursuit of duties; and for ideals greater than themselves. Mabus and his cohorts have given us a military remarkable for its PTSD, depression, criminality, and suicides among military males.
Coronado 9 is a refreshing escape from the banality of postmodern masculinity and a great example of what it looks like in actual practice. Adams takes on a myriad of problems, and is as able with his mind as with his hands. The series is occasionally on free sites, but as of this writing is not. Yet the DVD has all episodes and well worth the investment.
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