Russell Adler & Toxic Masculinity
This rant is sponsored by @fleshqounds /j
Can we pretty pretty please talk about how Adler treats people?? Specifically how he treats them like trash????
Adler is just so so very deeply the stereotype of the “perfect” man, especially during the time of the Cold War and Vietnam. He’s the perfect soldier, cold and calculating and unafraid to inflict brutal violence onto his enemies (and to an extent seems to enjoy doing so), but he comes off as charming and suave when you first meet him in-game (emphasis on first meet him).
But then as the game goes on, you get to see the cracks. How he treats Park, and generally how he treats people who he considers “beneath” him (Bell especially).
Because the stereotypical perfect American man is, by nature, a misogynist. He isn’t perfect to other men otherwise, and women of that time are used to being treated like that, so they don’t know any different.
You can even see this in Black Ops 6, the charm, and cockiness, and even in the way he interacts with Harrow, Park, and Sev, you can see the underlying misogyny.
I’ll grant you that he is as much as I product of his time as literally every other character. But that’s the thing. Woods is as much a perfect soldier as Adler is—aggressive, revels in being in the fight, refuses to retire even when injured—but without the superiority complex and blatant disregard for others. Mason doesn’t act like Adler either. Hudson has the same sense of superiority (since he literally is superior to everyone in the safehouse) but lacks the brutality that Adler showcases again and again.
Russell Adler IS the perfect “America’s Monster”. Because he certainly isn’t human.
Ach I just go insane every time I stop and TRULY think about the man he is.