What Pedro Pascal’s stardom reveals about Hollywood — and its war on real men



Over the past several months, Hollywood has been pushing Pedro Pascal as its next big thing.

Since being cast in Marvel Studio’s next multimillion-dollar franchise-launching film, "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," Pascal has been inescapable. From his heavily publicized appearance at the Cannes film festival to mainstream media cover stories fawning over the actor, he’s playing America’s golden boy.

The single, middle-aged star’s harmless schtick is a massive threat to masculinity.

At 50 years old, Pascal has built a unique cult of personality around himself.

In a recent Vanity Fair article, he is described by internet fans as “Daddy or Zaddy, meaning he’s a handsome, stylish older man they can imagine dominating them in a way they would not object to.” The article goes out of its way to make Pascal seem nonthreatening, often referring to him as “weird” and “sensitive,” describing how he was bullied in middle school for his artistic interests.

Pascal has tried to earn woke points for himself in Hollywood by being the stereotype of a social justice warrior. He has made his Latino heritage a huge part of his identity. In interviews, Pascal has expressed his desire for more “blind casting,” a term associated with increasing diversity quotas and changing the races, genders, and sexualities of pre-established characters.

Pascal is also no stranger to the LGBT movement.

He played the bisexual character Prince Oberyn Martell on the hit series “Game Of Thrones.”Additionally, he supported his sibling, Lux Pascal, when he came out as a transgender woman. When asked about his own sexual identity, Pascal has remained intentionally silent.

This allows fans of all genders and sexualities to be part of his target audience. His use of “gay slang,” language that is heavily influenced by LGBT culture, has also teased fans into thinking he may not be heterosexual.

RELATED: All in the family: Hollywood golden boy Pedro Pascal's loony leftist pedigree

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Much of Pascal’s success has come from his roles in major franchises, like “Star Wars” and “Gladiator.”He’s nearly impossible to avoid, with rumors constantly circling about where he might appear next. After Disney announced it would be rebooting the “Indiana Jones” franchise, fans speculated that Pascal might be cast to play the titular role.

Brands can’t get enough of him and are anxious to include him in every upcoming project. But the single, middle-aged star’s harmless schtick is a massive threat to masculinity.

In the past, the biggest male stars were men like Harrison Ford, Cary Grant, and Sean Connery. They were defined by their strength, their suits, and their occasional ability to make women swoon.

Pascal, on the other hand, is known for his androgynous fashion choices, including when he wore thigh-high boots and short shorts to the Met Gala. He is also known for opposing traditional, brawny male archetypes, as other celebrities like Dakota Johnson have described him as a “soft boy.”

Pascal has given up his masculinity for the sake of Hollywood’s praise. He’s not the only star to have done this, with other male actors like Ryan Reynolds playing into similar tropes to gain attention. They aren’t just playing the humorous, eccentric male leads anymore. Rather, they’re going out of their way to stifle their male attributes in order to please liberals.

Men’s mental health has become a huge issue in America.

Currently, men account for nearly 80% of all suicides in the United States. Among racial and ethnic groups, young white men have one of the highest rates of suicide in the U.S., and they account for nearly 70% of all suicide deaths in the country.

There are many factors that increase the risk of suicide, and mental health is a complicated topic. However, for all of Hollywood’s talk about equity and inclusion, it has gone out of its way to make masculinity look unattractive.

Young white men are constantly called racists, oppressors, or misogynists. Feminists have turned man-hating into a trend, as women increasingly post TikToks that make fun of their husbands and boyfriends. Other women have even joined the “Why I Would Never Date a White Guy” trend, giving superficial reasons for why they are ruling out young, white males from their dating pool.

Pascal has done everything possible to distance himself from the “oppressive male” label that leftists use to destroy men. His constant focus on his own racial identity and aligning himself with LGBT activism are ways for him to atone for his masculinity.

Worse, his plays at androgyny suggest that he is trying to subvert normal male expectations entirely.

Hollywood loves Pascal, and it's doing everything it can to make that painfully obvious. Hollywood's desire for him to be the film industry’s heartthrob reveals that they are finished with traditionally masculine actors. Even once-powerful figures like Robert De Niro and Will Smith have allowed themselves to be susceptible to the film industry’s calls. They have bent their knees to woke agendas, sacrificing their stoicism in the process.

Young white men in America are at risk. They deserve to have good leaders. While that starts in households, classrooms, churches, and their communities, they also come from the culture. Celebrities shouldn’t be afraid to hide their masculinity, but they should showcase what makes it great.

We don’t need any more “Zaddys,” we need men of virtue.

John MacArthur was a bold voice for Christ in an age gone soft



Los Angeles megachurches often resemble their Hollywood neighbors — grand stage sets with top-tier lighting and sound, carefully produced services complete with scripts, soundtracks, and a live audience. They usually plant themselves in the “nice parts of town” — Hollywood Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena. Perfect if you’re after a Sunday pep talk and a little feel-good music to carry you through the week.

But that was never Grace Community Church with John MacArthur at the pulpit.

MacArthur never chased applause or tailored sermons to flatter the mood of the age.

Unlike many pastors leading congregations of similar size, MacArthur, who died Monday at the age of 86, didn’t preach to people hoping to make them “feel better” about themselves. He preached to dying souls, convinced he held the only message that could save them: the gospel — the real, unvarnished gospel of Scripture.

An unapologetic truth-teller

“Being a pastor means you’re a truth-teller,” MacArthur once said. And the truths proclaimed from his pulpit often rubbed people the wrong way, both inside and outside evangelical circles. Statements like, “The whole purpose of the Christian message is to confront the sinner’s sin so you can call the sinner to repentance and forgiveness,” or, “The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment,” clash with a world that prizes non-judgment, self-indulgence, and endless comfort.

But for those who’ve discovered how hollow those things truly are, MacArthur’s words struck hard — painfully, yet like cool water on the cracked lips of a wanderer lost too long in the desert.

He stood nearly alone in the upper echelon of church notoriety, refusing to bend on the bedrock truths of the Christian faith for the sake of publicity, celebrity congregants, TV slots, or social praise.

MacArthur cared about one thing: reaching lost souls with the only message that could rescue them. It either turned you away like an offensive painting or drew you in, like peering into a dense, bristling forest from the window of a climate-controlled, sterile cell.

My family was among those drawn in.

It took us years to find a church home after moving from rural Virginia to Southern California. Until we settled into a small local congregation in northwest L.A., we often trekked to Sun Valley for one reason: the teaching at Grace Community Church. My parents had listened to MacArthur’s sermons for years back east. Amid the chaos of starting over out west, they knew they could rely on him for a feast of biblical preaching — the kind that made the gospel, not man, the focus.

Ministering in their neighborhood

As a kid, I never noticed much about Grace’s neighborhood. My 10-year-old eyes skipped past the barred windows, the tiny houses jammed with large families, the rows of homeless encampments along Wilshire Boulevard. Only when I returned as an adult did I grasp just how far Grace was from Beverly Hills. This was the hood. And Grace Community Church didn’t just happen to be there — they chose it.

Across the street stood Wat Thai, a historic Buddhist temple serving Sun Valley’s Thai, Vietnamese, and Cambodian communities. Just down the road, the Hilal Islamic Center ministered to the area’s Muslim residents.

The church building itself preached its own sermon. Unlike so many of L.A.’s glittering megachurches, Grace displayed a simple cross, adorned only with a wreath at Christmas. No fog machines, no laser shows — just a traditional choir and orchestra. Even after we found our local church more than an hour away, we never missed Grace’s Christmas concert. Just Google it, and you will get a glimpse into how special the church’s worship is.

Grace’s surroundings and the sanctuary delivered the same message: The gospel doesn’t belong to a single ethnicity, culture, or political camp. It doesn’t need to be repackaged or softened to reach the world. It simply needs to be proclaimed, boldly and without apology.

And that’s exactly what John MacArthur devoted his life to doing.

The gospel for all audiences

He never ducked controversy when conviction demanded courage. During the COVID lockdowns, when Los Angeles banned in-person worship, MacArthur stood behind his pulpit and delivered his landmark sermon “Christ, Not Caesar, Is Head of the Church,” in which he boldly declared, “We cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship or other regular corporate gatherings. Compliance would be disobedience to our Lord’s clear commands.”

That Sunday, I sat in the congregation. For the first time in more than a year, after countless Zoom services, I worshiped shoulder to shoulder with fellow believers as the choir and orchestra swelled. Tears filled nearly every eye in the room. It was a moment I’ll carry forever — the last time I heard, and now will ever hear, John MacArthur preach in person.

RELATED: John MacArthur refused to compromise. Gavin Newsom learned the hard way.

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MacArthur’s ministry outlasted the snares that took down so many other pastors with similar reach. He never chased applause or tailored sermons to flatter the mood of the age. Yet he could speak just as powerfully on Ben Shapiro’s stage as he did on Larry King’s. That’s because he never shifted his conviction. The gospel he preached to a conservative Orthodox Jew was the same gospel he preached to liberal Hollywood skeptics and suburban churchgoers.

Long after the lights fade on L.A.’s big productions, the legacy of that quiet, sturdy pulpit in Sun Valley will endure. It reached me. It reached countless others. It stands as proof that when you preach Christ — not entertainment, not cultural trends, not political hobbyhorses — the gospel still does exactly what God promises it will do: save sinners and transform lives.

Big shoes to fill

We lost a giant of the faith this week. Just as we’ve grieved R.C. Sproul, Tim Keller, and other pillars over the past decade, the church will deeply miss John MacArthur’s steady, trustworthy voice. Being an uncompromising Christian is only growing more difficult in today’s climate, even in the so-called Christianized West. MacArthur’s passing widens the void left by those who went before him, and younger voices who might fill it seem few and far between.

I hope I’m proven wrong. I hope many pastors rise with the same fearless conviction. If they do, they likely owe that spirit in part to the influence MacArthur had on believers across decades of faithful service to the Lord and his church.

Thank you, Pastor MacArthur, for ministering to the hearts, minds, and souls of countless people — including my family. Thank you for urging us to cultivate awe for the beauty of Scripture, reverence for the holiness of God, and a deep love for our Savior, Jesus Christ. May you rejoice now in His presence, after a life faithfully stewarded for His glory.

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Her son wears dresses, her daughter’s a ‘boy,’ and it’s all for status



A couple I know well has a Millennial daughter. I’ll call her “Marsha.” For years, she claimed to suffer from a severe case of self-diagnosed gluten intolerance. That fad eventually passed, though Celiac disease is real, and it appears to be on the rise. Nevertheless, Marsha recovered and went back to eating pasta and bread without any problems.

But she and her children have since fallen into a far more dangerous trend.

The transgender fad will fade away. But unlike the gluten fad, innocents are being disfigured for life and denied the pleasures of a normal adulthood — all in service to a runaway social experiment.

Her tween daughter now lives as a trans-identifying boy. And Marsha regularly dresses her preschool-aged son in little girls’ clothes.

These aren’t isolated choices. Marsha has once again been swept up in a social contagion — a phenomenon especially common among her age group. The gluten craze ended with little more than inconvenience. But the transgender trend leads to lasting harm. It encourages confusion, medicalization, and, in many cases, the sterilization of children.

At the height of her gluten obsession, Marsha treated every meal as a kind of dietary emergency. At restaurants, she would lecture the waitstaff about keeping all traces of bread and pasta away from her plate. If a dinner roll appeared by mistake, she wouldn’t just set it aside — she’d demand a completely new entrée, claiming the first had been “contaminated.”

She spoke and acted as if gluten carried radioactive properties. Today, her delusions have grown worse.

Marsha now believes her daughter is her son — and more tragically, she has convinced the child of the same. This is not just a personal fixation. It’s a mind virus, and it’s spreading. And it’s doing real, irreversible damage.

Legitimizing a ‘mind virus’

Elite academic and scientific institutions, now fully aligned with the political left, refuse to entertain any discussion of “rapid onset gender dysphoria” or its potential as a social contagion. Scientific American openly celebrates efforts to silence dissent. The American Psychological Association, joined by 61 other organizations, condemned any researcher who dares suggest that rapid onset transgender identification is real or that it’s affecting children.

When studies present data showing that “transitioning” may harm children’s health, the scientific establishment doesn’t engage with the findings. It demands retractions.

Compare this to the response a few decades ago, when anorexia and bulimia surged among young women. At the time, scholars rightly identified the trend as a social contagion. No sane person would have suggested that someone could be “assigned anorexic at birth.” And no ethical observer would have urged friends or family to support anorexic behavior by celebrating starvation as self-expression. That would have been seen not as compassion but as cruelty — and possibly a sign of mental illness in its own right.

Marsha’s pattern — first falling for the gluten fad, then embracing transgender ideology — shows why this trend deserves the same scrutiny. The signs point to another social contagion. Only this time, the cost is higher.

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  Photo by Jason Davis via Getty Images

Marsha’s parents seek to maintain a presence in their grandchildren’s lives. They want to help those children keep a foothold in reality while monitoring that no permanent damage is being done to their grandchildren. Puberty blockers and sex-change operations on minors are illegal in the state where Marsha and her children live. Many people are praying that Marsha’s current obsession won’t result in irreversible, lifetime bodily harm to her children.

Victimhood carries cachet

Many describe the transgender craze as a “woke mind virus” for good reason. It targets people like Marsha — white, straight, and desperate for meaning in a culture that elevates victimhood.

In an era where claiming oppression earns social status, Marsha fits nowhere. So she compensates. Over the years, she has loudly backed every progressive cause that allows a straight, white savior to feel virtuous: gay rights, Black Lives Matter, and whatever comes next.

But the need to feel oppressed is powerful. During the 2020 race riots, Marsha took to social media to tell her followers she felt “shaken” and “scared.” She claimed someone had stolen a BLM flag from her front porch in the dead of night. According to Marsha, her home security camera caught the grainy image of a figure — white, male, roughly 6', wearing a mask and baseball cap. By sheer coincidence, her compliant husband also happens to be white, male, roughly 6', and never puts up a fuss.

Now, with a “transgender” child, Marsha has finally secured what eluded her: a place near the top of the victimhood hierarchy. She eventually recognized that rainbow-flag-waving white allies had become punchlines in the very activist circles they tried to impress. But a trans child? That’s a ticket to credibility — admittance to the club, with VIP status.

Unlike gluten hysteria, the transgender fad won’t end with harmless dietary quirks. It leaves children scarred, sterilized, and denied the ordinary joys of adulthood. Marsha may see herself as a kind of brave victim. But she’s a willing carrier of a destructive social contagion — and her children will suffer the lasting damage.

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Pride Month is on the run. Here’s how to finish the job.



For years, the stroke of midnight on June 1 triggered a corporate and bureaucratic avalanche of rainbow flags across America. Logos changed colors overnight. Government agencies raced to outdo each other in their displays of “inclusion.” From Walmart to the Pentagon, one message rang loud: Dissent from the LGBT agenda would not be tolerated.

This year tells a different story.

Conservatives tend to back off once momentum swings their way. They declare victory, let up, and give the left room to regroup. That reflex must end.

Pride Month 2025 has limped into view. The rainbow wave has receded quite a bit. Now is the time to send it packing — permanently.

The evidence lines up. Target, still smarting from last year’s boycott, scaled back its displays. Other major retailers stayed quiet. Their social media teams left June’s usual fanfare on the cutting-room floor. Under the Trump administration, government agencies that once issued rainbow-laced press releases now operate under strict orders to stand down.

The tone of the country has changed. Americans have grown tired of relentless cultural propaganda, and corporations — always sensitive to backlash — have noticed. When the incentives shift, so does the behavior.

This change marks a win. But it also poses a risk.

Conservatives tend to back off once momentum swings their way. They declare victory, let up, and give the left room to regroup. That reflex must end. The left doesn’t retreat — it regathers. Letting up now guarantees a resurgence later. We have Pride Month on the run. We need to chase it out of public life.

Don’t mistake temporary silence for surrender. The left hasn’t abandoned its agenda. School boards still promote radical curricula. Teachers’ unions haven’t backed down. Cultural elites remain committed to enforcing a worldview that blends LGBT ideology with abortion politics — united by their rejection of divine order. They’re wounded, not defeated. And this is the moment to press the advantage.

Victory doesn’t come from symbolic wins. It comes from sustained action.

Step one: We need bold churches. Pastors must speak clearly and unapologetically about what Scripture teaches. Romans 1:26-27 speaks plainly about rebellion against God’s design. The pulpit isn’t a platform for public relations — it’s a battleground for truth. If pastors go silent, congregations scatter.

We need men like Daniel, who stood firm in the midst of a corrupt regime and “resolved that he would not defile himself” (Daniel 1:8). A culture in crisis needs shepherds with spine.

If your pastor never addresses these issues, urge him to do so. The flock needs clarity. The country needs truth.

Step two: Congregations must reject the lie that LGBTQ ideology is normal. It isn’t. From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture defines humanity as male and female and defines marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman. That’s not hate. That’s clarity.

Loving your neighbor doesn’t mean affirming sin. It means telling the truth with compassion — just as Jesus did when he told the woman caught in adultery, “Go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11).

Normalizing sin isn’t kindness. It’s cruelty.

Churches must function as sanctuaries of truth, not echo chambers for cultural conformity.

Step three: Take the fight to the institutions.

Run for school board. Run for city council. Run for state legislature. Support candidates who oppose the LGBTQ agenda and the abortion movement without apology. These aren’t separate fights — they’re two limbs of the same ideology. Both elevate the self above Scripture. Both distort what God created.

We need leaders like David, who stood before Goliath and said, “You come to me with a sword ... but I come to you in the name of the Lord” (1 Samuel 17:45). That spirit must guide our political efforts.

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 Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Every seat counts. Every school board, council, and committee sets policy that shapes culture. Leaving them uncontested means surrendering the ground our children stand on.

This is the moment. The left is reeling. Pride Month isn’t gone, but it’s staggering. We hold the high ground. We hold the truth. And we serve the God of whom the psalmist declares, “The Lord is my strength and my shield” (Psalm 28:7).

So hold the line.

Don’t compromise. Don’t wait. Don’t hand back what you’ve reclaimed.

Chase this agenda from our churches, our classrooms, and our public institutions.

Pride Month is on the run.

Finish the job.