I watch the Superbowl for the game. However, if I’m well prepared and I’ve got my snacks and beer out in front of me before kickoff, I watch commercials, too.
This year, the commercials reminded me of prom royalty who all accidentally wore the same dress. Dockers wants men to “wear the pants.” Dodge believes you are a spineless yes-man who only feels strong while driving. FloTv personal televisions are a cure for men whose girlfriends have removed their spines. Did some memo circulate Madison on Avenue this year? “During a recession, males feel shame. Tell them your product will restore manhood.”
It isn’t just the Superbowl. There’s a new company called “Man Cave” that sells grilling products to men using the business model from Mary-K makeup and tupperware—have little parties, convince men they aren’t manly, and tell them your products will make the difference. Man Cave has a set of fake rules like “a man never turns down a free beer.” Now, I’m a big fan of free beer. I work at a bar. I’ve played a lot of rugby. I love free beer. But I drank beer long before I was a man. Being a man has nothing to do with what brand spatula you use or what beer you drink. Being a man means doing what’s right, even when it’s difficult.
I think we’ve witnessed a gradual wimpening of American culture, in which being a man is somehow associated with acting like a child. Selfish frat boy culture infected America’s most powerful businesses and politicians. Meanwhile, every immature schulb on tv dates some hot, inexplicably tolerant mother-figure. Advertisers even call expensive machines like four-wheelers “big boy toys.” Pop culture’s new vision of normal is the fifty-year old little boy.
There’s another ad campaign, for Diesel designer jeans. The ad reads, “smart has the brains, stupid has the balls.” May I suggest that no one wearing $145 jeans has the right to lecture me about balls? True courage requires intelligence. A lot of football is about just that, intelligence under pressure. Courage means knowing the risks and acting anyway. Berate brains all you want, but guts means knowing what you’re getting into.
Now, I don’t always make bright decisions. I enjoy snowmachines and four-wheelers as much as the next guy. In fact, I can operate a front-end loader and gut a fish, and I have performed first aid in the back-country and have acquitted myself well in bear and moose encounters. But what I did in the past doesn’t make me a man. Being a man means steeling your principles, glaring down reality, and dealing with it.
Advertisers aren’t alone. Political pundits love childishness. Whole campaigns translate to “do you feel weak, vulnerable, pushed around? A vote for me is like buying your balls back!” They sell moral compromise as “common sense” that experienced guys will get. They bully those who point out that the world is complex. If you don’t understand it, they say it doesn’t mean you’re ignorant—just listen to their simple version, and assume anything more complicated is a lie.
Being a man is not about what you buy or who you vote for. It is about the person you have forged yourself into. For years, our country was run by a group of grown children, playing moral-historical dress-up in times that weren’t grand enough to live up to their own self-regard. (A phrase I must credit to Josh Marshall.) They were cowards who surrendered American freedoms the minute something frightened them.They pulled American citizens from their homes on nothing more than suspicion, held them without trial and tortured them in secret prisons. They did medical experiments on prisoners and locked them in camps away from their families. Then, they tried to make us ignore it by saying that Arab-Americans aren’t “real” Americans like you and me. They sunk to acts no western culture has since World War two, because they were cowering with fear and they needed to feel safe. I’ll say it right now: torture is pussy shit. It’s un-American and cowardly, and it will remain so no matter how many fat guys on tv pretend it’s up for debate.
No pitchman in the world can make you a man. That’s the whole point.
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