When I heard that the guy who played TC in the original Magnum P.I. died I watched some old reruns of the show. As an 80s baby I remember watching Magnum P.I., Night Rider, and A-Team with my dad when I was a kid. Thankfully in those days it was still ok to have shows that appealed to men. Of course plenty of women liked those shows generally to see the male leads, but that is what you want. As I call the James Bond appeal. Get men to watch for the action and women to watch for the handsome male lead. On the flip side, if you make a female led action movie with an attractive woman who isn't an annoying feminist (basically the opposite of that stupid Charlies Angels movie) I'd be inclined to watch.
But it further reinforced why I tend to watch stuff from 2014 and prior and really need some heavy recommendations to try shows that come out today. Also back then they had shows like Dynasty, Falcon Crest, and Knots Landing to appeal to women. Just makes me realize how entertainment would change overnight if they could simply acknowledge that men and women tend to enjoy different things or maybe they watch the same thing for different reasons. There is a reason as a kid my brother and I loved G.I. Joe and Thundercats while my sister was into Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake.
And yet he will still crave to leave his family to die gloriously in battle with the boys somewhere. Crave to feel like the suavest coolest man in the room that turns every woman's head. You can't be a proper Patriarch of your own little family while also spending your time cultivating those particular skills, nor should you.
Mid life crisis' are older than most of the Hollywood machine, and those are what those desires and instincts become when they are completely buried and unfluffed. A man who has by all means done everything right for his life and family, still having to compensate with his mortality and baser instincts telling him he has not.
The problem is that discipline and control are shunned by the greater culture. People are constantly bombarded by retarded messages like "be yourself" and "do whatever makes you happy" without the ability to properly parse short term rushes from long term happiness. So they lack the ability to properly find contentment in these minor bits of escapism, and instead find themselves in it and drop everything to emulate it.
We might not be able to live the life of Bond or die in valour like Leonidas, but we can identify as an attack helicopter just like Airwolf.