When I first heard Hollywood was making a new He-Man movie, I posted on X: “No one ever at any time: We need a movie about the origins of He-Man.”
Having now seen it, I owe He-Man an apology.
Unlike Skeletor, who openly embraces being the bad guy, the petty tyrants of institutional DEI culture believe they are heroes. That self-righteousness makes them funny.
What I did not realize was that America did not need another superhero origin story. It needed a movie willing to mock woke HR departments, DEI workshops, and the corporate language-police culture that has made millions of office workers stare quietly at the clock while wondering what a lobotomy feels like.
On that front, He-Man delivers.
If that were all the movie did, it would deserve some recognition. For years, Americans have been subjected to endless lectures about privilege, bias, microaggressions, decolonization, anti-racism, allyship, and whatever new buzzword somebody invented during a three-day corporate leadership retreat. Entire industries sprang up around teaching normal people how dangerous normal people are.
For years, almost nobody was allowed to make fun of it.
Then along came He-Man.
“Masters of the Universe” gave me flashbacks to the glory days of “The Office,” when Michael Scott stumbled through diversity training sessions while desperately trying to impress Mr. Brown. Back then, workplace comedy could still recognize that HR departments were ridiculous.
In the two decades since “The Office” debuted, much of that humor disappeared. The joke was no longer that corporate bureaucracy was absurd. The joke became us.
Employees learned to speak in carefully rehearsed phrases. Meetings became exercises in virtue-signaling. Every disagreement became a “learning opportunity.” Every awkward interaction became a possible microaggression. White men were told they were simultaneously responsible for every historical injustice and forbidden from speaking too much during discussions about them.
Then enters Adam.
Yes, He-Man himself.
A blond, tanned, muscular hero — the kind of character Hollywood spent years assuring us could never again carry a movie without apologizing for existing.
RELATED: ‘Citizen Vigilante’: Outlaw director takes unflinching look at migrant violence
The movie also does something modern writers often seem incapable of doing: It gives us a villain who admits he is a villain.
At one point, Adam offers Skeletor what modern audiences have come to expect: an opportunity to explain his evil through childhood trauma, systemic oppression, bullying, or some tragic backstory.
Skeletor’s response is essentially: Nope. I’m just bad.
Imagine that.
A bad guy who does not blame society. A villain who does not attribute his choices to historical forces, generational trauma, or someone else’s privilege. Just an old-fashioned villain who enjoys being evil.
Hollywood has not given us many of those lately, maybe not since Edmund in “King Lear.” Sorry. I could not help myself.
But the funniest parts of the movie are not the battles. They are Adam’s experiences working in HR.
One scene features Adam listening to a woman explain that “her truth” conflicts with another person’s “truth.” Adam’s solution is the vague, therapeutic language now standard in modern workplaces: less talking, more listening.
Anyone who has survived mandatory workplace training recognizes the environment immediately.
Then we meet Suzie.
Suzie is Adam’s boss on Earth, and she may be the most accurate movie villain of the past decade.
On the surface, she is cheerful, supportive, and endlessly concerned about feelings. Beneath that surface, she is manipulative, controlling, and ruthless.
We first see her leading what appears to be a DEI-style workshop about consensual listening and emotional safety. Like Adam, the audience immediately begins fighting off sleep.
Later, after catching him looking for his magical sword online during work hours, she summons him to her office.
Not asks. Commands.
During their conversation, she speaks to him with the patronizing tone many corporate managers have perfected. Everything is framed around feelings. Conflict makes her uncomfortable. The workplace must be safe. Communication matters.
Then, for a brief moment, the mask slips. The threat appears. Power reveals itself.
Almost immediately, it disappears beneath another avalanche of therapeutic jargon.
Anyone who has worked in a large corporation, government office, or university has met some version of Suzie.
RELATED: The left’s icons keep face-planting in public
Most of us have never fought a skeleton warrior bent on conquering the universe. Many of us, however, have sat through meetings where nonsense slogans are presented as profound wisdom. We have endured meetings where employees are told not to judge people by race while being instructed to interpret every interaction through race and blame it all on “whiteness.” We have watched everyone pretend the emperor’s new DEI initiative is fully clothed.
What makes these scenes work is that they expose something deeper than bureaucratic absurdity: hypocrisy.
Unlike Skeletor, who openly embraces being the bad guy, the petty tyrants of institutional DEI culture believe they are heroes. They imagine themselves correcting history, advancing justice, and educating the unenlightened through mandatory workshops, safe-space discussions, and land acknowledgments.
That self-righteousness makes them funny.
A philosophical essay can explain why hypocrisy is dangerous. A policy paper can document its effects. Comedy can do something neither can accomplish.
Comedy teaches people to laugh at it with scorn.
And once people start laughing, the spell begins to break.
The movie ends with what appears to be a setup for a sequel. Fine. Give us “He-Man 2.”
But let’s hope America never gets a sequel to the DEI-decolonization-anti-racism regime that dominated so much of public life over the last decade.
Let’s laugh it into history.
And then, if there is time, let’s talk about how the entire He-Man story is really just another version of the mono-myth hero’s journey.
Sorry. That is the religious studies professor in me.
