Dr. Robby Perfectly Explains What’s Wrong With Young Men On ‘The Pitt’
"We don’t teach men to express their emotions. We just tell them to man up and then we let them get their lessons in manhood from toxic podcasts."
The Pitt is a new medical drama streaming on Max. Each episode follows one hour in in the emergency department at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital. The entire first season will end up being a real time depiction of one 15-hour day in the ER. Not only is it engrossing and extremely binge-watchable, The Pitt has been praised by those in the field for being an accurate portrayal of the medical community.
In charge of the day shift is our fearless leader, Dr. “Robby” Robinavitch, played by executive producer Noah Wylie. Dr. Robby is knowledgable and wise. He is adept at both of his job’s dual roles: saving lives in the ER and mentoring/managing the department’s personnel.
One plotline from this season involves a woman named Theresa who swallows syrup of ipecac in order to induce vomiting so that she can seek professional help for her son David at the hospital. David is an anti-social teenager who has made a list of girls he wants to hurt. Theresa fears for the safety of others but David flees the hospital before he can receive help.
Dr. Robby explains why it is important for Theresa to get her son help and what may have caused his anti-social behavior:
We are failing young men because we don’t teach them how to express their emotions. We just tell them to man up and then we let them get their lessons in manhood from toxic podcasts. And these young men then feel isolated from themselves and society, and they find community and comfort in all the wrong places.
Dr. Robby, season one episode eleven of ‘The Pitt’
Dr. Robby is alluding to several social issues that primarily affect young men: the loneliness epidemic, incel culture, rising misogyny, mass shootings and existential apathy (“checking out”). The patriarchal model of telling men to repress their emotions no longer works (if it ever did) as it causes emotions to fester under the surface until what has been bottled up explodes, almost always in a way that damages the man and those around him. The lack of wholesome male role models also leaves a leadership vacuum that is being filled with nefarious, profit-driven podcasters and influencers.
Later in the day, the emergency room is overwhelmed with injured survivors from a mass casualty event — a shooting at local music festival PittFest. Theresa and some staff worry that David is the PittFest shooter, but in the end it was not him. Theresa informs David that she is worried about him and petitions to have him placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold.
The season finale of The Pitt streams this Thursday, April 10, on Max.
