The Real ‘Nice Guys’: Why The World Needs More Of Ryland Grace, Duncan And Superman

One could have imagined the poor, victimised Jarhanpur versus the evil, colonising Boravia plot point to be the most controversial element of Superman (2025), given its eerie similarity to the Israeli expansion into Palestine. However, the most controversial element, on social media, was a scene where Superman (David Corenswet) saves a tiny squirrel from dying during a battle scene in Metropolis. 

Many people, myself included, love that scene to bits because that is the Superman we love—who cares for life, who wants to save every innocent creature. And yet, a large section of netizens fumed at the scene as frivolous, needless, taking away from the action and making the ‘man of steel’ look like a ‘simp’ and a ‘wimp’.

A scene of pure ‘niceness’, in a world where so many men claim to be the ‘nice guys’ on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, became a contended decision and even the director James Gunn had to step in to explain why that scene was necessary to establish Superman has a ‘heart of gold’ (Kryptonian?).

The night is dark and full of terrors. The internet is flooded with abuse, fascism supporters and an endless stream of misogyny and violence and alpha male podcasters. And yet, despite it all, when the credits rolled at the end of A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms (AKOTSK) series, something deep inside me beamed with hope, peace and kindness.

And isn’t that the purpose of art? To help us feel. To help us see the world beyond our limited vision. To know that at the end of the day, humanity can persevere. 

Watching  A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is like sitting on a cloud-soft comfy couch, covered in the softest fleece blanket, with a warm bowl of soup, a fireplace ablaze nearby and soft rain pattering against the windowpane. 

The 30 minutes each week remind us of what humanity ultimately needs—kindness and hope and love. And after almost a decade of the uber macho, hyper aggressive, brash and abrasive male leads and male-centric stories on revenge and war which ooze toxicity from their pores, and push forward the narrative of violence as essential to manliness, the world needs more of AKOTSK, more of ‘nice guys’.

The latest entry to these on-screen nice guys is the 2026 movie adaptation of Andy Weir’s 2021 science-fiction masterpiece—Project Hail Mary. Ryan Gosling as the geeky, mathematics loving, biology expert Ryland Grace is a ‘nice guy’ in its truest essence. He is not one willing to die to save the world voluntarily, he knows he is not brave enough. And yet, when he is stranded in space and has a choice between saving himself and a stranded alien buddy, he chooses bravery. 

He is never seen hitting on women to establish his charm, or saving kids or beating up bad guys—all traditionally ‘good’ guy tropes. He doesn’t rise up from a sea of suffering humans to say, ‘I will avenge you all’. He just does nice things, without spelling them out for others and without hammering the audiences with evidence on why you must root for him. 

One can argue that all movie protagonists are ‘nice guys’. After all, we root for them to win against the villains. But ‘nice’, in the post-truth, woke age of today is about domination. The strong men on-screen even look the same, especially in India, From Dhurandhar to Kabir Singh. There is an aesthetic—rugged, masculine. However, all ‘good guy’ examples listed above are clean, shaven and not ‘raw’. They are not sporting expensive brands to showcase power. Or good armour, as in the case of Duncan the Tall.

Sure, the ideologies  of ‘nice guys’ in Dhurandhar and others are different; one is clearly ‘better’ and ‘nicer’, with a neatly-defined objective. The filmmakers want us to root for Ranveer Singh because he is a nationalist. Sounds fair. But in movies like Animal, Arjun Reddy, or even Vikram Vedha, the lead guy is ‘nice’ because he is the protagonist and there is a worse guy to be defeated; hence all his violence, misogyny, snark, or domination is justified because he is a strong lead guy. 

Fans clap when Ranbir Kapoor’s character says extremely misogynistic and violent dialogues, portraying him as an Alpha. In terms of Australian sociologist R. W. Connell, this kind of masculinity falls under the category of ‘hegemonic masculinity’. This is characterised by competitiveness, authority, physical and emotional toughness or even aloofness, and sometimes, financial success. It is how high they stand, in purely wilderness terms, as an alpha above others who can ‘win’ via domination.

Neither Superman, nor Ryland Grace, nor Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) are alphas. They are men choosing to be good, doing good things as a moral choice and not in a game to win or to dominate. Duncan fights against a crowned prince not because he wants to prove he is the best Knight, but simply because the prince abused a poor girl and he chooses to stand with the weak, as any good knight should. 

Grace doesn’t need the trademark snark and sarcasm peppered with misogyny to prove his scientific acumen, unlike the ‘nice guy’ geeks of Big Bang Theory. From Sixteen Candles to Revenge of the Nerds, the geeky guys have been portrayed as nice and as victims because women only want hot guys. 

Weir’s book, or its movie adaptation by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, does not fall into this trap. Grace is brilliant, as proven by actions, and not by his belittling of other people’s intelligence. In fact, he accepts his flaws on multiple occasions, lending to the positivity and realism cinema needs desperately. He never has to prove he is better than the women scientists around him. 

In a 2024 research paper, titled, Indian Masculinity in Transition: A Case Study of Selected 21st Century Hindi Films, authors Deebha Sithta and Saad Ullah Khan dissect a “paradigm shift in the depiction of typical 'mainstream macho masculinity' to more 'ordinary and evolved masculinity' through a few selected popular Hindi films such as Ki & Ka (2016), Kabir Singh and Badhaai Do (2022)”.

It notes, “Other men’s approval somehow demonstrates the criteria of Manhood. It is them who watch us, rank us, and approve our entry into the realm of manhood.”

As a fan of George RR Martin’s work, especially the extended A Song Of Ice and Fire universe, the Hedge Knight novellas stand out the most for me. Maybe it's a subconscious bias; it is also rumoured to be the author’s favourite work in the series. 

Martin adores his series for “ultimately being about kindness”. And yet, it defies everything that has come to define male-centric media in recent years. Think of the highest grossing movies from Bollywood and beyond and the posters that come to mind have a ‘strong’ male lead—symbolised and accentuated with explosions in the background, a gun in hands, a sexy woman by his side or maybe far off in the distance and very bold, aggressive texts. Generally, they’re brimming with action even in a still image.

Dark shadows, dark clothes, dark stories and darker filming styles have somehow become the benchmark of ‘good storytelling’. This is not to say that one cannot enjoy dark themes in movies, but more than often, some filmmakers (and audience) confuse dark storylines with toxic masculinity. The male lead has to be detached from humanity even as he fights to save humanity. He could be fighting a villain, a gang, a government, or an alien species hell bent on destroying earth, yet his personality remains that of emotionless stoicism—often bigoted and implicitly misogynistic, but always strong, fearless and above the mortality and morality of regular men. And loud. Oh, so, so loud. Words are not so much spoken as much as yelled in fury, even to express love. 

Then, fighting through these storms, James Gunn’s Superman in 2025 parted the dark clouds to showcase a rainbow of hope, positivity and a non-problematic male lead. He saves a squirrel from a falling building (a scene which offended many used to heroes blindly shooting and blasting bystanders in pursuit of justice).

Polar opposite of Zack Snyder’s dark, grim and macho Man of Steel (2013), Gunn’s Superman was full of colour, hope and humanity. Whereas Man Of Steel lets a building blow up with dozens of innocent bystanders, Superman flies across the globe to save a puppy. To ensure an ‘enemy’s’ child isn’t hampered, he suffers through life-threatening Kryptonite exposure. He loves his girlfriend and doesn’t make her a butt of any joke; doesn’t chase and harass her till she agrees with him. He does get angry in one scene, as any human can sometimes, but he doesn’t follow it up with threats of violence. (Cough cough, Kabir Singh and Animal).

Most importantly, he wears bright colours, like the original comic book, which was envisioned to have a character which brings hope to humanity. None of these things make him less strong or formidable. Rather, they make him stronger. His acts of kindness allow the audience to exit the theatre with a smile and hope for a better tomorrow. Just like Duncan sails off to the future with his kind squire egg amid greenery and mountains, ensuring justice can prevail. Just like Grace’s final scene—bright, colourful and full of hope for the next generation.