Can the decline of the American male be traced in the career of Dennis Quaid? He started out as a strapping, hot-headed youth (The Right Stuff), matured into a bona fide sex symbol (The Big Easy) and then got relegated to playing guilt-ridden fathers (The Day After Tomorrow). In Smart People, which opens next Friday, he is cast as an embittered college professor who somehow manages to combine a stoop and a paunch.

As if to confirm just how un-glamorous the traditional American he-man has become, the European Space Agency announced last week that it was no longer looking for the kind of daredevils that pioneered space exploration in the 1960s and 70s -- the men immortalised in Tom Wolfe’s famous non-fiction book. “We are not interested in the Right Stuff; we want the right staff,” a spokesman for the Agency said.

Remarks like this have triggered a bout of soul-searching among middle-aged males on the other side of the Atlantic. For instance, in The Decline of Men: How the American Male is Tuning Out, Giving Up and Flipping Off His Future, Guy Garcia argues that men have become demoralised by the non-stop assault on traditional masculinity. “Trapped in the Reebok canyon between the Vagina Monologues and Brokeback Mountain, many men are afraid to even stand close to other guys, paranoid of looking gay just when they most need to give each other a helping hand,” he writes.

Or perhaps it’s the fault of Donald Trump. That is the view of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in The Broken American Male (and How to Fix Him). “His narcissism and boastfulness scrape the skies, just like his buildings,” he writes. “If wisdom’s highest manifestation is the human ability to discern a cause greater than oneself, then Trump is mired in an abyss of self-absorbed darkness so thick that it blights any ray of hope.”

Fortunately, there is a cure. At least, that’s the view of Smart People. Dennis Quaid tries a number of different ways to reclaim his masculinity, including breaking in to a car pound, before finally hitting on the right one: Sarah Jessica Parker. Apparently, sleeping with the star of Sex and the City has a remarkably rejuvenating effect on even the most depleted of males (though it hasn’t worked on her husband, Matthew Broderick, whose career path is remarkably similar to Dennis Quaid’s).

The notion that a “broken” American male can get his mojo back by becoming involved with a sassy career girl is a popular theme of recent Hollywood comedies, from Knocked Up to Superbad. It’s the story of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, but with the gender roles reversed: Men can only be roused from their emasculated slumber by the kiss of a bold and confident woman. Testosterone is still with us, it seems. It has just migrated from men to women.