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.