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June 27, 2005 In the movies we have the perpetually boyish Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and the nearly pre-pubescent Leonardo DiCaprio, none of whom seem destined to grow up and look or act like men. Even Russell Crowe, who often looks like a man, acts like a adolescent at his first fraternity party, away from home for the first time, drinking too much, behaving boorishly. And in the fashion world we have the nearly gender-neutral metrosexuals, we have girlie-men in floral prints, we have bizarre hair styles, we have the androgynous and the epicene. What happened to men? I think it may have started with Alan Alda. Now there was a sensitive guy, eager to share his feelings, empathetic toward all (except conservatives), soft-spoken, mild-mannered--probably the role model for Tom Daschle, I suspect. They even sounded much alike. Prior to Alda, we had rougher, tougher, more--dare we say?--masculine men playing the leads in most movies and TV shows. Even Desi Arnaz, manipulated by Lucy much of the time, nevertheless was the ostensible head of the house and Lucy didn't overtly cross him. Cowboy heroes could ride and shoot and punch out the bad guys, even though they were often shy and tongue-tied around a purty girl. Paladin, written about elsewhere on this site, was an exception, a gunslinger who could pitch the woo, too, sweet-talking and charming a woman of any age. Even the gay guys in the movies were he-men. There has been a movement in Sweden and Germany recently to force men to pee sitting down. There are times when, indeed, this should be mandatory, such as on a sailboat. The pitching and rolling and rocking motion of a small boat makes steady aim a bit difficult even for the best marksman. But in a public restroom? Don't think so! Fashion designers, except it seems in Australia, have gone the girlie-man route recently. Designers used to confine their efforts to makign women look silly and makign women's feet hurt with bizarrely shaped shoes, but now have branched out into making men look as though they dressed in their sisters' hand-me-downs. I don't really care what men look like, but could the dress affect behavior? Or is it the behavior affecting the dress? Are men who dress in the loud colors outside of a golf course, in floral shirts outside of Hawaii, less likely to join the Marines and fight for their country? Are they less likely to fight off a shark and drag a young woman to shore? Are they less likely to charge into a burning building to sve lives? Doggone if I know. Just asking. And to get back to Tom Cruise, is he simply unhappy that Michael Jackson is recognized as the weirdest guy in California and he's trying to win the title? His incoherent ranting about antidepressant drugs and psychiatry may yet put him on top. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1408798,001100020003.htm http://www.nove.firenze.it/vediarticolo.asp?id=a5.06.22.13.40 http://www.thetyee.ca/Life/2005/06/23/SoftchoMan/ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15752019%255E2703,00.html ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: 63-yr-old physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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