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Then again, perhaps the show's obsession with struggling white masculinity is what makes it relevant in an era when men issue death threats to women who critique video games and conservative politicians lament that the entire country is ruined because two men can now marry each other. True Detective's men—and, for that matter, women—are literally rendered impotent even as they project an aura of badassery. Frank struggles to produce a child. Velcoro is terrified that his "fat pussy" child was fathered by his wife's rapist. Woodrugh requires Viagra to get erect around his girlfriend. Even Bezzerides alternates between bad sex and joyless porn-watching. Moreover, the characters are threatened by modern life—Velcoro hates the aforementioned e-cigs because they feel "like sucking a robot's dick." True Detective is hardboiled where Philip Marlowe is a moping loser and Sam Spade has erectile dysfunction.On the Creators Project: 'True Detective,' Serial Killers, and Art House
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Does Pizzolatto feel the same way about this season's characters? Is Velcoro—a man who defends the murder of his wife's alleged rapist against her wishes by saying, "By any natural law, I had a right"—merely a throwback "real man" who unfortunately exists in the wrong time? Are these violent losers characters we are supposed to root for?I think both of these men are straight-up heroes—they're flawed men, but they're not corrupt. They're kind of throwbacks, for better or worse, to a different kind of masculinity. They're real men.