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In the first Despicable Me movie, Gru adopts Agnes, Margo, and Edith and initially is distant and cold showing a lack of care towards them. He adopts them intending to essentially use them to achieve his goal, of capturing the moon from Vector, his competitor. Gru has a complicated relationship with his mother, one where he constantly seeks her approval and validation from childhood to the present. It causes him to develop issues with affection as he grows up lacking it, which he later projects onto Agnes, Margo, and Edith. He carries this harsh demeanor onto his neighbors around him, rarely allowing himself to open up and show his caring side. As the movie progresses he begins to slowly appreciate and show compassion toward the girls by reading them to sleep and bonding with them, yet still never fully allowing himself to carry their father-daughter relationship. He gives them up for adoption to achieve his goal of capturing the moon but finds dissatisfaction with it as he doesn't have his girls. Through accountability and forgiveness, Gru wins them back by promising to never let go of them again, gaining their trust back. He goes to their long-awaited ballet show and creates a puppet book about their journey, in which he shows how their love and bond have allowed him to heal from his childhood issues with his mom and find peace in the concept of family, accepting them as his daughters. Gru show a side of manhood that is fatherly and the importance of being a positive male figure in your family, especially as a father. Although he makes mistakes, he forgives and holds himself accountable, showing his caring side. He allows himself to feel his emotions and process them, a trait men are often shunned from and rather encouraged to suppress which is seen by Gru's arrogant and stand-off, closed-off attitude in the beginning of the movie. It shows how men are allowed to experience emotions and show affection. Gru represents the ideal model of a father figure. Especially throughout the other movies as we see their bond continue to flourish and how he prioritizes them, finding pride in his daughters. He is protective, open-minded, and understanding towards them. He even embraces femininity as he plays dress up with them fills his home with more girly decorations and toys and has a more put-together lawn and backyard to accommodate for his daughters. He empowers his daughters and encourages them with words such as discussing Margo's intelligence, Edith's adventurous side, and Agnes's creativity. He encourages femininity and views it as something powerful, showing how manhood can accept femininity and depict the ideal father figure.

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Lucy is Gru's love interest. She works with Gru as a spy in order to track down criminals using Gru's past tactics and villain strategies. From the bat, Lucy is depicted as strong, witty, and intelligent. During a small fight scene between Gru and Lucy, Lucy uses similar weapons as Gru and uses even new strategies Gru hasn't used before winning against him. She is shown as equal to Gru and her character is not diminished by being portrayed as weak due to her femininity. Gru grows to admire her and values her strength and intelligence while still viewing her as equal and not as less than or weaker for being a woman. He becomes more soft around Lucy portraying once again how men are allowed to open up and show more vulnerable sides of themselves. Lucy allows Gru to grow as a person and dive more into his emotional side, strengthening Gru's compassion and positive outlook on the world. As he goes on to marry her, he still views her as his companion and doesn't push roles onto her allowing her to be herself. He supports her throughout the rest of the movie and continues to admire her. Gru shows the side of manhood associated with love and relationships and the aftermath of "winning the girl". He cherishes her and views her as equal, never using her femininity against her or forcing her into roles. He demonstrates the value of relationships especially those with women. He empowers them and supports them pushing the narrative that their gender doesn't affect their performance, how they can still achieve what a man can. This is also seen through even the villains Gru goes against such as Scarlet Overkill, a woman. Women are illustrated with traits of leaders and Gru's represents the way men should react towards femininity as a positive quality rather than a weak one.

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Gru's relationship with his minions shows the ideal father figure as a caring and supporting one. Although in the first movie, Gru comes off as cols towards his minions and only uses them as an army, he genuinely cares about them as he takes time to memorize each of their names and likes. He cares for them as his own children and displays as a strong father figure for them and one they follow and admire showing the father figure side of manhood in a good light.

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Gru in the first movie has a strong drive towards accomplishing his goal of capturing the moon. He uses the girls in order to carry out his plan, which he later regrets. Gru's character depicts the importance of following your goals and maintaining that determination to prevail forward, however, he also focuses on the message of ensuring that those goals don't harm those around you. His goal of getting the moon resulted in him putting the girls up for adoption and straining that bond between them leading to distrust. When he eventually reaches his goal he feels the dissatisfaction of losing what he valued instead, his girls. Gru's character shows the importance in manhood of valuing our relationships and ensuring that our actions don't harm those around us pushing the message of serving as a positive figure to those around us and close to us.

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Grus character represents how people can be flawed, yet can grow from their mistakes as seen by his shift of perspective from a negative and gloomy one to a more positive one as he builds his relationship with the girls and Lucy, learning to appreciate life more and family. It shows how positive manhood is depicted by learning from our mistakes and holding ourselves accountable, as well as putting the effort to be a good person to those around us.