Manliness and the Men of Brokeback

[vkm91941]

Did anyone else see this article?  It's good stuff, very insightful, expecially the part about symphonic music and Beethoven's Fifth and there's this great poll on who's more manly and our boys were ahead last time I looked. 

http://www.newsday.com/ny-etman4699083apr13,0,4099497.story

Enjoy! I sure did....

[Ellemeno]

Thanks for posting this, Victoria.  This was an interesting surprise:

>> These days, the city of Casper, Wyo., has an openly gay mayor.

I wonder what Ennis would have thought of that.

[kirkmusic]

Nice one.  I've never liked the "manly" archetype.  I hated Tom Cruise for years because his character in Top Gun was such a cocky, "manly," testosterone fueled, shallow excuse for a human being.  I was a teenager then and a bit more judgemental.  But I liked him in Born on the 4th of July, and even more in Interview with the Vampire and Magnolia.

I had very little patience for guys who always seemed to be proving what big tough men they were.  It's like, relax dork.  If you're really a man we'll get it without you proving it.

[vkm91941]

I had very little patience for guys who always seemed to be proving what big tough men they were.  It's like, relax dork.  If you're really a man we'll get it without you proving it.

so do I Kirk..I absolutely hate that  testosterone neandrethal driven attitude. But it's possible to be manly without all that...that's what I loved about this article it points that out.  Both Ennis and Jack are manly men without all that macho posturing  in fact Jack is a true nurturer, the parent figure if you will, in the relationship. Ennis does not earn his parenting stripes until after Jack's death, when it finally dawns on him what he has sacrificed to his fear. How he was once where his daughter is now with choices and chances.  And he makes the decision to make himself available to her at least by realizing he needs to go to her wedding.

The memory that Jack has of Ennis that haunts him right to the end is that of the "sleeping on your feet like a horse" flashback, in which Ennis almost gives into his nurturing nature.    But Annie Proulx makes it clear in the story that he can't, even then, look Jack in the face. Cannot admit that it is Jack he embraces.   It is finally through negotiating the shirts with Jack's mother that Ennis makes the leap to adulthood, finally developing into the kind of man who is worthy of Jack--sadly, however, it is too late.

[ednbarby]

Beautifully put, Vic.  Sorry to do that "ditto" posting no-no, but there's nothing I could possibly add.

[Sheyne]

Wow.. Thanks for posting that, Victoria.  One my professors at uni, who lectures on the way society defines masculine and feminine roles, would have a coronary reading that.  It was a marvellous critique of a difficult subject, one that seems to have been written about by a "man's man"..  *sigh*

Great article.  Thanks again for posting it.

[littleguitar]

Interesting article, thanks Vic!  It's actually really similar to my final paper for my gender and communications class last term... I love this subject!

[Kd5000]

I remember in the late 1970's thru the mid 1980's, there was talk of masculinity evolving to a more sensitive male.  Alan Alda in MASH was the personification of the new male. Whatever happened to that? 

Ennis and Jack were such males of their times, particularly Ennis. WHo knows what direction the male is evolving into becoming. IS the ALpah MAle (THE AVIATOR) dead, as GQ I believed asked. I suppose not quite, as ppl like BIll Gates, industrialist, super rich, philanthropist are held in such high self esteem. 

What became of the men's movement. DId that wither away? Fire in the Belly, Iron John,  books like that seem so 1990's right now.

Every decade seems to have it's take on what it means to be a man.

By the way, I thought things like symphonic music, gardening, etc were supposed to have a civilizing affect on males, to counter the agressive social expectations expected in work, life, sports etc.   Just what I've been told.    They seem to have a different take on classical music, particularly Beethoven.

[j.U.d.E.]

Sorry, just bumping for later..

~ j U d E

[starboardlight]

Quote from the article;

Mansfield tries to rescue manliness from all this fretful ambiguity by defining it as "confidence in the face of risk,"

wait a second. isn't "confidence in the face of risk" a quality we all aspire to, man or woman? if a woman is confident in the face of risk, that that make her masculine?