What it takes to be a man

A few days ago, I found myself listening to a sports talk radio station. Setting aside the fact that I may very well be slowly mutating into 'one of those' types of men, there was an intriguing advertisement. A company (whose name I cannot recall) is offering catering services for those wishing to host a party to watch this year's NHL playoffs. The two most intriguing parts of the advertisement, though, are these:

1. All of the bartenders and caterers which work for your party are gorgeous women dressed in incredibly revealing clothing.
2. The tagline at the close of the advertisement is that they offer "a place for men to be men."

Now, this blog's focus on language thus far has discussed the implications of words such as 'yob,' 'hooligan,' or other decidedly negative nouns. The radio advertisement here, however, poses an intriguing problem. Here, we see an assertion that being masculine involves the following:

• watching sports
• drinking copious amounts of terrible beer
• spending time with women dressed in very little amounts of clothing
• not spending time with women which they are 'attached' to, such as a girlfriend or a spouse

What is noticeably absent from this model? Performance. It now, apparently, does not require any sort of performing aspect which asserts one's masculinity, individual cunning, or any other such aspect of the Stalky model. Rather, any man can still remain masculine by reclining in an armchair and, perhaps, gesturing lewdly at a woman in a short skirt. Equally, the advertisement infers that men are only 'masculine' while doing things such as these, and not while attending the opera with their wives, or walking the poodle around the block.

Clearly, this blogger ought to stop listening to the radio.

"Get me to the church on time"

And now another cinematic masterpiece, "My Fair Lady" with Rex and Audrey speaks to me through Engl 342.

In one of my favourite books and plays and movies, "Get me to the church on time" is well known song of the end of bachelorhood. Just before this number, Alfred Doolittle claims that Henry Higgens has "delivered him into middle class morality" - "happy I was, and free" he says. Money left to him by plot twist changes his life and makes an honest man of him. Which he deeply resents. He remains distinctly lower class, but now he has the means to marry and lead a "normal" middle class life.

This number does little to forward the plot (in the movie anyway) but contains the last vestige of the reformed Eliza's connection to her street waif ways - even her father has "moved up". It's prominent place in the film harkens to the comments the play makes on class values and the sensibilities of class transition (as much as it is possible).

After all, Higgens "passes Eliza off" as upper class with a new accent and dress. At the beginning of the movie he claims that it is not our values or salary that make the English hate each other but rather they make those judgments at the moment of speech, which places the speaker in their distinct social stratosphere.

So, this film shows one version of "the yobs winning" in that they can disguise themselves or buy their way into institutions and values of upperclasses. In the end though, Alfred Doolittle's accent and view of the middle class remains, as does Eliza's discomfort in her new upperclass position (her accent, now changed keeps her from going back) until she finally clinches it with Higgens (which happens in the stage version) - after all marriage can move people between the classes.
(In a hilarious line, she says that she'll marry her upper class beau - as soon as she can support him. "I don't want him to work - he wasn't brought up for it as I was.")

Language also comes into play here (connecting it more directly to our discussion of the actual term yob or hooligan). The idea that words and speech places an individual distinctly and irrefutably in their place, "creates" them. "The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she acts, but how she is treated" - the difference between a lowerclass man and a yob (in the derogatory sense) is the value placed on their specific role in society. Or, rather, that they have a role at all. As Stephen mentioned, it is the middle class that wants all to be middle class, to have classlessness. This is not necessarily a bad thing (though it could be argued either way), but a thing to be conscious of.

(Another point: when Eliza says that she can do without him, he claims to have created this in her - but when she leaves it is he who is lost. One could go on for hours - a genius genius film, play and text [Pygmalion])

Can't Escape the Yobiosity

So, this class has coloured my reading of most texts lately, but I don't think this one is just me.

I recently saw "Run, Fatboy, Run" which is essentially a British-styled poignant comedy written and directed by Americans. It stars that guy from Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and was pretty great actually. I laughed and did actually warm what little heart I have to heat.
(Spoiler Alert - this will spoil bits of the plot but since it's a romantic comedy in some respects, you all know what's going to happen. Actually, they avoided many of the cliches or played with them so you'll still really enjoy it.)

However, there is a speech in it by the main character Dennis (That Guy) where he explains that he wants to be able to finish something, to feel like a man and to prove that he is good for something. The movie was essentially a funny version of performative masculinity - I mean he has to finish a marathon to prove to the love he left pregnant at the alter that he is worth something. And he's competing against a well off and eloquent Hank Azaria. Who (it is implied in a hilarious scene) has an impressive penis. And he's able to get into the marathon by running for a charity - the National Erectile Dysfunction foundation (yeah, the shirt has a limp banana on it). And when the news is reporting on the race as he limps along gamely at the end they start the broadcast by exclaiming "The lonleiness of the long distance runner." And I think that makes it pretty clear.

Seriously though, we have a man performing in order to gain the respect of a woman and son. This performance is disconnected from sexual performance in both a literal and literary sense, and eventually proves that he can satisfy a male role as father and stable provider if not companion (though hope is implied!).

Does this relate to yobs? Well, we see a distinct separation between Dennis and Whit's (Hank Azaria) positions financially and in terms of social graces. Dennis likes a pint, a smoke, a round of poker and takes his son out to make fun of joggers. Hank is not aristocratic (he's American, one of the few times Azaria doesn't have a hilarious accent) but he's well dressed, fit, dominant and takes "spinning" classes a la The New Man. However, Whit fails what Stephen has mentioned in blogs and blurbs as the one clear indicator of masculinity in this crazy world - fatherhood.
His obsession with order and high priced posturing disconnects him from the messy and impulsive world of boyhood - and what is a yob but a boy? Dennis, on the other hand, gets along with his son (at the start) because he is so immature - they play stupid games in the park and pick boogers. Classy (pun intended).

So, could it be argued that the yob/boy dichotomy is at once as much an inducement as an indictment to low-class ideals of masculinity? If we wish to avoid snobbery we have to look at all the implications of yobbism as a concept of masculinity - could what we see as infantalization also be our negative framing of the tendency to feel closer to the "simple" things in life? A pint, a bit of mess, a larf - though boys are not men, they become them. How we look to and shape boyhood will truly affect the man.

At the end of the film, Dennis grows to a man - cinematically this is shown with renewed posture, confident speaking, "grown up" clothes and vocabulary. But, he also plays silly buggers with his son as before, and does not immediately enter into a deep relationship with the mother - he asks her out. Thus, though he has achieved a rite of passage, he stays distinctly connected to the boyishness that made him charming in his crassness. Just as we cannot dismiss the boy inside the man, we cannot dismiss the yob inside him either.