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-- John Scalzi rescues a lost LJ post from the distant mists of 2007, presumably before the advent of the [NSFW] Guys with iPhones.
I'm going to tentatively claim this one (and the Slate piece purporting to explain "How macho movies get misread as homoerotic" that he's riffing off of) as further support for my theory that we're entering into a post-homoerotic landscape. It's one thing for straight men to protest that they don't see the supposed homoeroticism in, say, Point Blank or 300, or -- as the author of the Slate article does -- take pains to reject or refute a homoerotic subtext. Those are the familiar old-school moves, based on a classic contagion model of the homoerotic. And what are the traditional ways of dealing with contagion? Quarantine and isolation. Separate the healthy and the sick; minimize exposure risk; regard potential symptoms with a high index of suspicion; develop sensitive diagnostics and, ideally, vaccinations. Because everyone's potentially susceptible.
And that's why the Slate author comes across as either old-fashioned or juvenile. Dude, chill out! When you protest, in defense of straight men taking pleasure in narcissistic identification with the "hot, sweaty men" of 300, "Shouldn't a guy be able to do such a thing without being called gay?" -- you're fighting last century's battles (and over a film set in 480 B.C., no less). I certainly wouldn't say that nobody cares anymore, but let's face it, vast swaths of culture and society have moved on. Retro, unironic avowals of heterosexuality? Not hip, not hot. Sure, "no homo" still has currency, but also inevitably oscillates between "straightforward" ritual disclaimer and ironic performativity. (Conversely, people quite earnestly and sincerely profess that when they say, "That's so gay!" they really, really don't mean that kind of gay because they're totally cool with that stuff and homophobia is, like, so lame.)
These days, no self-respecting straight man would protest the homoerotic too much -- at least, not with a straight face. Over the last decade or so -- marked at its outset by the launch of Viagra, and culminating in the ascendancy of Judd Apatow -- straight men all over the country have embraced the possibilities of a masculine heterosexual insecurity all but completely decoupled from the 20th century spectre of contagious gayness and sexual orientation misattribution.
So nowadays, the fight has shifted to cultural status. These men have learned to relax and love the gay, but that doesn't necessarily mean they support same-sex marriage or gays in the military. When Scalzi cites "the present heterosexual male abdication of anything more culturally, emotionally and intellectually resonant than 'Dick in a Box'", do we mourn, celebrate, shrug, or roll our eyes? If the global economic meltdown is accelerating the Death of Macho, will sexual orientation as well as gender determine the respective winners and losers of this world-historical process? But hey, that's politics -- in the meantime, we can all go laugh together at Brüno, right?
Comments
I don't. I mean, I really don't. What, exactly, is there that straight guys can't do now that used to be perfectly acceptable?
The extent of my list is "really off-color jokes" and "overt bigotry." Neither of which has been acceptable in most circles for some years now. But everything even vaguely covert is, I think, still entirely on the table (witness the Sotomayor hearings, which are nothing but barely-covert sexism and racism).
I think it seems as though heterosexual men are defining themselves by what they're not simply because we're all enculturated with the idea that they are what's "normal." But an expansion of "normal" isn't the same as a loss for straight men.
I think you've got me backwards. What I'm saying is that for a certain definition of performative American masculinity, to be a Man, you can't now do things you used to be able to do, because so many things have become contaminated with femininity. ETA As defined by other straight white men, I mean. The Seth Rogans of the world, who are so terrified of femininity they even reject adulthood because it's tainted with girl cooties. End edit.
It's unmanly to be interested in literature or classical music or clothing or grooming (hence the bizarre rise of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which capitalizes on that while at the same time reinforcing it). Used to be Fred Astaire and Clark Gable and Paul Newman were icons of manhood: but the idea of a guy in a tuxedo as a role model for American men now is somewhat laughable.
Being a cop or a fireman isn't enough to be a marker of male heterosexuality, because oh noes, women and gay men have become cops and firefighters. Women and gay men have invaded all sorts of places and roles that used to be for straight men only, and therefore those roles cannot be used as markers of masculinity. Real Men don't eat quiche or drink lattes or fruit beers; Real Men don't see movies about women or that have fewer than four major explosions; Real Men don't listen to female musicians.
I'm overgeneralizing broadly, based on media representations, and it's heavily influenced by class and race, but I've seen a couple of pieces on this lately, and it's kind of convincing. If one were to take one's cues for gendered behavior from popular culture--tv, movies, advertising--that is what one would begin to believe.
Which brings me around to note that if we're taking Dean fucking Winchester as the role model for performative American masculinity, we're all doomed.
I think it seems as though heterosexual men are defining themselves by what they're not simply because we're all enculturated with the idea that they are what's "normal." But an expansion of "normal" isn't the same as a loss for straight men.
Hmmm. I think we are all enculturated with that idea, but if "normal" is "What Straight Men (and only men) Do", and we've discovered that gay men and women can do those things too, then in a sense, we've narrowed the definition of normal, not expanded it.
What we need to do is get past the idea that Straight White Men set the default. Which is, of course, the problem. But they're trapped in it, in a sense, even more dangerously than the rest of us, since we have to ignore that we're not normal in order to function at all, and they're really struggling with it, because they expect(ed) to always be the default.
Edited 2009-07-15 09:01 pm (UTC)
Media representations overlook the ways in which actual masculinity is performed. Media represents extremes, because extremes are what sell, rather than representing how things are.
And my firefighter cousins would, I think, find the idea that they aren't sufficiently demonstrating their heterosexual masculinity basically laughable -- as, indeed, do I (I should show you my cousin's firefighter competition videos. PLENTY of performative masculinity there. Whoa, nelly.)
There is certainly a (minority) line of thought among men that gay men and women are threatening and somehow "eroding" masculinity. In practice, though, there are plenty of ways to demonstrate Real Heterosexual Masculinity. Writing science fiction novels, however, isn't one of them; neither is being a talk radio host or a newspaper columnist! Just because these opinionator types feel they can't demonstrate their manliness does not mean that manliness-demonstration is impossible. *shrug*
Whether manliness-demonstration is desirable or meaningful or weighted with the same cultural significance that it used to be is, I think, a separate question.
Media gives a set of behaviors that it codes as desirable or not desirable for performative masculinity; but it's hardly dispositive (even though it asserts to be).
Whether manliness-demonstration is desirable or meaningful or weighted with the same cultural significance that it used to be is, I think, a separate question
Well, yeah. Which brings us back to the false dichotomy of gender, and as Rez notes below, the gynophobia encoded in the necessity to be perceived as Male.
The metaphor I'd suggest isn't defense of territory (which, as you point out, is a cynical reversal of the aggression--enacted literally and physically as well as culturally--that is the actual case): it's annexation.
I mean, a dick is a dick, right? We've all got 'em, it's all good, and besides, we've got other things in common, wink wink.
Edited 2009-07-15 11:16 pm (UTC)
If people were logical, then yes, the "all dicks together" thought would work, but people are...people. *G*