Writes John Paul Brammer in "What’s the Deal With Men? In his new essay collection, 'The Male Gazed,' the writer and film critic Manuel Betancourt explores society’s portrayals of masculinity" (NYT).
Grappling with nuance.
May 28, 2023
"Toxic masculinity. Fragile masculinity. Like most pop-sociological truisms that gain traction on social media, these are great buzzwords but they fail to grapple..."
"... with nuance.... 'The Male Gazed,' by the queer Colombian writer and film critic Manuel Betancourt, is a smart, refreshing essay collection.... Take one of the collection’s most compelling essays, 'Wrestling Heartthrobs,' which shows the author 'wrestling' with his attraction to the high school jock archetype, especially Mario Lopez’s singlet-clad character, A.C. Slater, in 'Saved by the Bell.' 'The image of the wrestler, even one as charming and unassuming as that of Slater, can’t help but conjure up both aggression and eroticism; the male body so revealed is both a come-on and a threat,' Betancourt writes. 'It is manhood distilled.'... Betancourt later dons a singlet himself, literally stepping into his high school fantasies so he can harness their carnal powers to appeal to other men and to become, if only on an aesthetic level, one of those jocks who excited him. His outfit is a celebration and a self-flagellation all in one."
Writes John Paul Brammer in "What’s the Deal With Men? In his new essay collection, 'The Male Gazed,' the writer and film critic Manuel Betancourt explores society’s portrayals of masculinity" (NYT).
ADDED: This made me think of the famous nude wrestling scene in the 1969 movie "Women in Love."
Writes John Paul Brammer in "What’s the Deal With Men? In his new essay collection, 'The Male Gazed,' the writer and film critic Manuel Betancourt explores society’s portrayals of masculinity" (NYT).
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40 comments:
Jumbo shrimp.
Wait until these guys find out that the Greeks wrestled in the nude...
Grappling With Nuance. Oh yeah, I think I saw them live around 1987.
"'It is manhood distilled.'... Betancourt later dons a singlet himself, literally stepping into his high school fantasies so he can harness their carnal powers to appeal to other men and to become, if only on an aesthetic level, one of those jocks who excited him. His outfit is a celebration and a self-flagellation all in one."
When you're a garden variety queer antagonist seeking to attack traditional expressions of masculinity, but all you actually hit is Dylan Mulvaney.
Have none of these supposedly intelligent queer people ever done a propositional inventory on their own psychological pathologies? We know you secretly want to get with the straight jocks, but at least try to hide your projections a bit better homos, this is just embarrassing...
Who knew that masculinity meant queer. It always seemed to be the opposite before.
Well...given today's first two posts, I'll say that today's men sport a decreased level of testosterone than at any previously measured state. They also have less sex, fewer babies. I'm sure some of it is what we eat. Some of it is the lack of physical exercise- or even movement- by many in today's younger set. But I'm sure it's also to do with being identified as a criminal-in-waiting by virtue of your gender, from the moment you get into a pre-school setting (and for many it begins in the home).
First we drugged a couple of generations of boys, then we spent the next decade excoriating them for not being feminine enough. The testes got the message and quit producing testosterone. And now we have the same people who created the Beta Male Society (on both sides of the political aisle) questioning aloud 'What is a male?'.
These same people cannot answer what is a woman. And we wonder how and why we got to this point. Articles about 'what is a man' or 'what is masculinity' didn't used to have to be written. They could just post an image of any number of men and everyone would get it. "Oh yeah. Now that's a man." Today? No one is sure.
What is a man?
If …
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son! - Kipling
Note: I am to the right of John Wayne myself!
Schools, sports, military, show biz, the Church.
Full of them, all.
The Navel Gazed
"'Wrestling Heartthrobs,' which shows the author 'wrestling' with his attraction to the high school jock archetype."
Hmm, so a very particular kind of male does the gazing. Is his attraction toxic, fragile, or some combination?
What do lefty "girly-men" know about masculinity. (Kudos to Arnold.)
What do lefty "girly-men" know about masculinity? (Kudos to Arnold.)
Query - Is there ANYONE writing in the New York Times who would not find something written by a "queer" to be "smart and refreshing"?
I've noticed a definite male bashing theme in today's Althouse posts. Not sure why, other than it's a day ending in Y. but wouldn't it be more decent to defer this line of posts to a weekend that has not been reserved by a greatful nation to honor the toxic males who made the ultimate sacrifice for the nation on the Fields of Flanders, Omaha Beach, Pork Chop Hill, Khe Sanh and other desperate battle fields?
Althouse was really triggered by that Korean Airlines story. She and Inga are off the reservation about "toxic Masculinity."
Thank you for the Kipling! It just goes to show that the peculiar demands made of modern men to do everything but claim nothing are not all that new after all. Everything in that poem is still true today... except:
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it
I'm so worried for my two white, straight, cis sons. None of those adjectives was supposed to matter by now - that's what I was told back in my youth. But they certainly seem to carry a lot of weight now.
"Thank you for the Kipling!"
The NYT op-ed that's the subject of the next post has a lot about "If" (though I didn't include any of that in my post about it).
"Althouse was really triggered..."
You're an avid misreader, ie, a troll.
Funny how all the article AA picked today are subverting men and masculinity. I wonder what Meade thinks.
Wrestling tales always remind me of Kinbote in "Pale Fire." By his own admission, "a tricky wrestler." Stay away, boys.
I didn't click through but the words "nude" and "Women in Love" flashed me to a scene I haven't thought of in decades. Is it Oliver Reed? If I haven't guessed correctly I don't want to know. Completely hijacked me from whatever the gist of this post is, and I'm quite content to stay in the memory.
Well, now someone has written about it. I always thought wrestling and football would be the best sports for a homosexual male. All that grabbing and rubbing of other males in tight pants. Not to mention the locker room and showers.
Also, likely why I had an aversion to both. I only like wrestling with girls and didn't even feel emasculated if they pinned me.
"'Wrestling Heartthrobs,' which shows the author 'wrestling' with his attraction to the high school jock archetype,"
Given that every high school wrestler is gay*, I'm not seeing a conflict.
*No straight guy thinks to himself, you know what would be both fun and exciting? Rolling around the floor clinging to sweaty guy who's just my size.
“What do lefty "girly-men" know about masculinity. (Kudos to Arnold.)”
It doesn’t really matter what they know. Beneath the chattering froth, I see dudes just continuing to be dudes, mostly indistinguishable from the men of my youth. That isn’t going to change. This guy is never going to be in line at a saw shop behind three children with their one-armed logger father who’s still logging.
“Althouse was really triggered..."
“You're an avid misreader, ie, a troll.”
Maybe it’s due to his senility.
Here's a quick hint: If you're spending a whole lot of time gazing into your navel and contemplating "What is it, to be a man...?"
I've got some sad news for you. You're not a "man" in any sense of the word. You're a self-involved narcissistic twit in possession of a penis. And, that's about it.
None of these freaks are men, as I understand the term. They're predominantly self-involved nutters that should never have received a moment's attention from anyone, on any subject.
Find me one of them that's actually, y'know... Done something "manly". Ever. The majority of them have no idea at all what it is, having never been exposed to it in any way, shape, or form.
I still remember the Sunday School teacher who encouraged boys to emulate David, and girls to emulate Ruth. I've long felt David and Ruth have qualities that both boys and girls could emulate.
Beyond that, the cardinal virtues are a good guide. Wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. The word virtue comes from the Latin vir, or man.
Girls chase boys chase girls, and when we capture each other, we enjoy a gay revelry in feminine and masculine gender ambition... perhaps on the Isle of Lesbos.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"Althouse was really triggered..."
You're an avid misreader, ie, a troll.
5/28/23, 10:50 AM
Hilarious. I guess you and Inga are tired of being criticized. This reminds me of when I was banned from left wing blogs for disagreeing about single payer health care. They didn't want to hear it.
Is there ANYONE writing in the New York Times who would not find something written by a "queer"
ChatNYT
The transgender spectrum is politically congruent ("=") and a source of pride and leverage for the fourth leg that brays for religious/ethical sanction of wicked solutions.
“What do lefty "girly-men" know about masculinity. (Kudos to Arnold.)”
“It doesn’t really matter what they know. Beneath the chattering froth, I see dudes just continuing to be dudes, mostly indistinguishable from the men of my youth. That isn’t going to change. This guy is never going to be in line at a saw shop behind three children with their one-armed logger father who’s still logging.”
Toxic Masculinity is something that the left wallows in. Even ultimate metrosexuals like Bill Gates screw around when they can. You just flat don’t see it here in rural MT. Didn’t see it that much in NW PXH. I think that it is one of the things driving the working class, regardless of race or ethnicity, towards the Republicans. It’s only the effete elite college grads who buy it, and are moving in the opposite direction.
All this garbage talk about masculinity just supports my decision to avoid American women and my advice to all young American men to look abroad for, uh, broads.
Queer privilege: write about your lust for a teenage boy, and it makes the NYT. It's so cute!
From the same movie, when the Oliver Reed orgasms and immefiately passes out or falls asleep atop his momentary object of desire, trapping her under his bulk: male power and toxic masculinity at the same time.
"All this garbage talk about masculinity just supports my decision to avoid American women and my advice to all young American men to look abroad for, uh, broads."
Four words: Catholic Brazilian white women. Especially from Santa Catarina or Rio Grande Do Sul. Try Florianopolis...tons of German hotties down there and they love American men. Smart. Educated. Lots speak English. They make adorable children if I say so myself. Emotionally supportive. If a young lad reads this, you may even get lucky and run into one here in the US studying if you know where to look...don't give up!
Everyone thinks Asia, which isn't a gaffe, just avoid Japan (the Japanese are bad at sex). Just remember though that your children run the risk of being ethnically disowned by both the Asian and American sides of their culture.
Meanwhile, men just do their same old shit: follow sports, fix stuff, pitch a ball to kids and stand sideways in the mirror to check that gut.
"trapping her under his bulk: male power and toxic masculinity at the same time."
Who among us . . .
Lilly mentions queer privilege and boy-lust, which also reminds me of Nabokov, who IIRC was advised by a publisher that "Lolita" really didn't have any potential. But maybe if he made Lo a boy, and set it in the countryside.
The term “toxic masculinity” is both sexist and also wrong. There us nothing masculine about toxic behavior. But there is something dangerous about othering masculine mindsets and behavior. When the lights go out, we’ll all wish we would have preserved masculinity.
RideSpaceMountain said...
"Just remember though that your [half Asian] children run the risk of being ethnically disowned by both the Asian and American sides of their culture."
I wonder how much that is true on the American side. For Blasians, sure, assume that as a default position until proven otherwise. But for Eurasians... In my urban Catholic grade school in the 1970s, the half-Korean guy with the Irish surname and the half-Filipino guy with a German name were no different from the rest of us. Maybe their home life was different, but it was not that way at school.
And all of us were ethnically mixed, including yours truly, mostly German, Irish, and Italian. We saw ourselves as examples of the Great Melting Pot that we saw on Schoolhouse Rock. And we saw that ideal including the aforementioned dudes.
'ADDED: This made me think of the famous nude wrestling scene in the 1969 movie "Women in Love."'
I hope it's better than the one in Borat.
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