| |
 |
|
|
Volume 4
Issue # 1
July 22, 2003
"Feminine Masculinity or Overt Chauvinism
"
By Guest Commentator Joseph Planta
|
|
The question "Are you a NeoLad or a Metrosexual?" is asked in this past
Saturday's National Post style section. Printing up an interesting piece
about the state of masculinity in the North American world this very moment,
the Post proclaims that men, it seems, can be broken down into two categories.
Of course none of this is accurately true, as fluff pieces like these
run in our Saturday or Sunday newspapers to spark debate amongst style
conniseurs and advertisers alike. For us, humble readers, it makes for
good copy in between full page ads for the casual wear conglomertate or
the latest touring musical. It turns out that these two new paradigms
of masculinity are the latest observations from The Atlantic's social
commentator, David Brooks. Brooks's musings have been noteworthy since
he pointed out the "important socio-economic class of the 1990s," was
what he termed the 'bourgeois bohemians.'
|
David Brooks
The Atlantic
|
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel Live
|
Take Jimmy Kimmel, the mysoginist pig who rose in the cultural radar
from showing bikini-clad women jumping on trampolines on his Comedy Central
hit, The Man Show, to his current front as ABC's late night talk show
host. Along the way, he called football games, so he's the epitome of
neoladdism, male chauvinism "but meted out with a large portion of irony."
Brooks calls it 'retro-sexism' as it's political incorrectness that's
unshamed because it's too self aware. Metrosexuals on the other hand,
have their leader in David Beckham, the soccer superstar who apparantly
gets away with changing his hairstyle and painting his nails so often,
in a previous era, you'd have thunk he was a poof, or gay, to use the
vernacular.
|
|
Both the NeoLad and the Metrosexual are straight, and in our ever evolving
socialisation, it's interesting to see how they stretch the boundaries
of commonly held definitions of masculinity. To wit, while the NeoLad
enjoys leering at women, the Metrosexual equally enjoys leering at himself.
While the Metrosexual will wear five o'clock shadow for style, the NeoLad
would sport five o'clock shadow to exude nonchalance.
|
David Beckham
Real Madrid
|
|
|

Depeche Mode
Cultural icons?
|
What one surmises from
the National Post’s piece and Mr. Brooks’s observation is that, though we
still live in politically correct times, more and more, pigs like Jimmy
Kimmel are getting accepted. Soon, we can start calling waitresses’ baby,
and other females we encounter, doll. And if I encounter a slightly unappealing
female, I can make that heretofore forbidden crack: "She is so unattractive
that she could eat corn through a fence." And at the same time, masculinity,
thanks to voracious advertising and marketing executives, is coming out
of the closet, so to speak, that such are the habits of the evolving Metrosexual
that it’s all right for invariably straight and urban-dwelling blokes to
use Bioré pore strips, just before heading off to the strip bar, or listening
to Depeche Mode as often as Nickelback, or choosing to order a Manhattan
rather than a pint of Guinness. Such are the habits of the evolving Metrosexual.
|