No, James Cameron, Testosterone is Not a Toxin You Should Vanquish
Psst. Hey, James Cameron.
Hi! Can we talk to you over here for a quick second, buddy?
We read your latest interview with Hollywood Reporter to promote Avatar: The Way of Water, and, uh, it’s a real humdinger, sir.
What got us scratching our heads is your claim that one of the human body’s most essential hormones—testosterone—is “a toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system.”
Sounds like the prior “F-bomb-laden shouting matches” you used to have with studio executives, per the article, have ceased. (Bravo on achieving calm; stress will kill ya!) Your follow-up comment, however, is the record-scratch:
“A lot of things I did earlier, I wouldn’t do—career-wise and just risks that you take as a wild, testosterone-poisoned young man. I always think of [testosterone] as a toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system.”
Yikes, man.
Even Elon Musk—a man with quirky and sometimes questionable health habits—knows you’re wrong:
Testosterone rocks ngl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 4, 2022
We get it; you’re busy making movies, exploring the Mariana Trench, raising the bar for us all, but maybe take a quick second to do a little research into testosterone before attributing it to your anger problems?
You Absolutely, Definitely, Truly Need Testosterone
First, as mentioned before, testosterone is a hormone, not a toxin. Hormones are chemical vehicles that travel throughout the body, delivering messages to enact changes that are necessary for proper function.
Testosterone is a hormone that is most closely tied to your sex drive, your fertility, your body’s ability to store and burn fat, red blood cell production, and even your emotions and mood, per our explainer on testosterone. During puberty, it’s responsible for the development of your penis and testes, your ability to grow facial hair and your voice deepening, and your sperm production.
And your body requires a proper amount of testosterone to both develop male sexual characteristics, but it also needs to maintain a certain level to be healthy throughout your life. (It helps regulate body fat, muscle development, and your mood.)
And because your testosterone drops as you age, we even wrote a whole guide to help guys understand normal testosterone levels.
Average T Levels, By Age
Testosterone Itself Does Not Make You Angry
Sure, James, you’re correct: there’s a connection between your testosterone and how you feel. (To be fair, researchers are still probing that precise link, with fewer agreed-upon findings.)
However, anger and other mood swings only arise whenever your testosterone is out of balance—meaning if you have too much or too little.
In fact, courtesy of our lovely explainer on how anger and testosterone intersect, “researchers found that increases in the thyroid hormone thyroxine, not testosterone, were linked to anger.
Increases in testosterone were actually associated with forgetfulness and poor concentration.”
Conversely, if your testosterone drops too low, you hit something (unfortunately) dubbed “manopause” or “grumpy old man syndrome.” And, yeah, you may get crankier than usual, and generally feel off your game.
That’s why we advocate monitoring for these 13 sneaky symptoms of low T.
If your T levels are out of normal range, either high or low, through testosterone replacement therapy, you can work with doctors to right the ship. (There’s probably a good Titanic joke in here somewhere, right?)
Checking Your T Levels Is Now Super Easy
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Healthy Testosterone Levels Help You Achieve Your Best Self
James, we hope clears up any testosterone misinformation. No harm, no foul here, too. Our bodies are complicated and we’re all learning about them, all the time, just trying to get better. And that’s also an apt benefit of healthy T levels; they keep your emotions measured.
It’d be pretty crummy to look back and realize you were a controlling jerk to your family or something, right?
Ah, jeez; James, we just read another one of your quotes about your new flick:
“I thought, ‘I’m going to work out a lot of my stuff, artistically, that I’ve gone through as a parent of five kids. The overarching idea is, the family is the fortress. It’s our greatest weakness and our greatest strength. I thought, ‘I can write the hell out of this. I know what it is to be the asshole dad.’”
…Bruh.
