Where have all the men’s men gone? Where is Marlon Brando; where is John Wayne; where is Oliver Reed? Sure, I know they’re all likely propping up a bar just a few minutes stagger from the pearly gates, being eyed-up by women and talking about motorcycles, whiskey and boxing-mitts, but where are their successors in Hollywood?
There’s a lot of acting talent out there. Brad Pitt is often underrated in lieu of his good looks and celebrity lifestyle; Jude Law is also superbly skilled, but is too seen as an object of desire, not of pure masculinity; Edward Norton is a fantastically subtle performer, but lacks the presence of the great men who are, for the most part, underrepresented on the silver screen.
It’s an old-fashioned notion that a man should be a man and that that is enough to cement him as an idol. But these six-packed, square-jawed, angel-faced hunks are, for all their lustful allure, a product of an increasingly androgynous society.
These men are prototypes of metrosexual perfection. They are beautiful in the same refined, calculated way women can be. And it is because of the emergence of greater social equality that they exist at all.
Go back to the fifties: men were men and women were women. This mode of existence caused a lot of problems in the real world, but there was also a lot of good in that era because of the stark distinction between the roles of the sexes. Oddly enough, the levelling-out of gender roles in society, which, in theory, should only be for the better, has eliminated a lot of common courtesies which there seems no way of regaining. Men used to respect women because they were somebody’s mother, sister or wife. Nowadays, women aren’t protected by those unspoken shields: they are fair game, and a lot of un-gentlemanly things are said and done because to be a gentleman in the old fashioned sense of the word is sometimes construed as sexist. Well, it probably is, but it’s also probably not a bad thing.
The worst thing about society’s increasingly homogenised treatment of the sexes is that it often seems to neglect one obvious point: men and women are different. They should have the same rights and opportunities, but there are certain things that should be considered when speaking to or about a man/woman that are distinguishable between the two.
It was only as recently as the eighties that true power-shifts began to come into effect. Women were, for the first time, given the shots they deserved in what had been a man’s world. But when this happened, boundaries not only drew closer, but overlapped. Women started wearing power-suits and men started wearing eye-liner. Girls had short hair; boys long. It seems that the coin has two sides which ever way up it lands.
And suddenly all the men’s men disappeared and were replaced by hairless, over-muscled, perma-tanned, g-string wearing Adonis lookalikes who, despite their bulging biceps and heroic features, lacked the rugged charm of yesteryear’s stars.
Okay, so here’s the rub: you look at Brando or Reed and you know they were bastards: old school, heavy-drinking, fist-fighting bastards who were probably awful to be around; all the more if you were wearing a skirt. They aren’t modern men, but they were men and are enduringly attractive for their solid frames, roguish smiles, misbehaviour and good hearts. They were the men that all guys wanted to be and all girls wanted to be with. They could protect you; they could drink you under the table; they could fix your fridge when it was on the blink; they were cool. As inappropriate as it may now be to champion these things on screen, their popularity has stood the test of time for a reason: they are idols from an age that had values. They may not have been gentlemen every hour of every day (much less every hour of the night) but they had respect: respect for each other and other people. But more than that; they were real.
None of them were conventionally good-looking, but they all had that special something that set them apart. It’s like comparing Nicole Kidman and Nigella Lawson. Kidman is almost certainly more categorically attractive: her face is angularly perfect; her figure svelte and toned; her smile brighter than Sirius. And yet Nigella, who carries a little more weight, has a bit of a funny nose and dresses/acts like your mum is, for most men, by far the more desirable. You admire Kidman; you obsess over Nigella, because you believe in her. She is real. And tastier than chocolate.
The closest we have and have had in this era are probably the evermore surprising Leonardo DiCaprio and the late Heath Ledger. Here are two realistic guys who you can identify with. Let’s not shun these idols of masculinity even if the notion of their existence is a bit outdated – their appeal will live on long after Brad’s washboard stomach goes soft, because deep down, men like to be men, or at least like to think they are.
Pick up THE HARE newspaper at Night and Day; Bar Centro; or Tiger Lounge in Manchester town centre, or the Oakwood in Glossop.
E-mail theharenewspaper@hotmail.co.uk with questions, comments or contributory pieces.
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