I don’t think so given that the point of the performative male is that their doing it to court women, it’s probably more similar to peacocking in all honesty. But also in the grand scheme of heterosexual courtship rituals this is pretty damn harmless all things considered.

Depends what book. A man reading Lee Child is definitely gay. Reading books about a big strong man breaking twinks?

They're not all twinks.

I, a cis straight lady, have read over 20 Jack Reacher books so

I stopped once his brother started writing them because the brother was bad at it.

I think I may have read one during my "check out popular thriller writers" era, I mostly know the show. I'm definitely a fake fan.

The show is basically as close to the books as a show featuring a human playing Reacher can be, but it's still pretty different from the books. Not only b/c book Reacher is even bigger than TV Reacher, but also b/c the show doesn't have most of Reacher's internal monologue.

I was kind of amused to find out that the guy playing Reacher is human-sized (not actually much taller than me) and they just work around that by casting really short people. It brings me joy when I see actors from Reacher in other shows and they look tiny.

The guy who plays Reacher is 6'2" and put on 50 lbs. of muscle to play the role. I am an Ashkenazi Jew from the northeast, so that's pretty big to me. But the book's Reacher is 6'5".

I'm tall and from a family of giants (I'm the family shrimp) in spite of being an Ashkenazi Jew, so I'm used to being the height of tall people, I just didn't expect to be the height of Jack Reacher.

I know a few very tall Ashkenazi Jews, but if you are 6'2", you are the height of Alan Richman, who plays Jack Reacher on TV. Jack Reacher is 6'5".

There are actors who are unreasonably big. The guy who played the Mountain in the first season of Game of Thrones comes to mind, as does Stephen Merchant. I expect Reacher Guy to be that tall, but no. He's just normal person very tall.

i really need to read and/or watch this, don't i

I would suggest both. The show has a huge guy beating up terrible men. The books have a huge guy who is also smart & thoughtful and has highly unlikely politics given his background thinking occasionally deep thoughts & THEN beating up terrible men. Also the books are well-written prose.

Lee Child doesn't like his fans much, but he did make a thing that is catnip to lots of people, and he is a good writer of popular fiction.

The show is about a large man who has a hard time finding clothes that fit and constantly breaks things by just being large around them. It's one of the most fun shows of the last few years.

Fair, but the books are about more than that.

some people are really deep into discourse and get mad at people for whatever reason and make up a reason later

somehow, metrosexuality has returned