I think this video speaks for itself. In ten years this man has got more muscly, more orange, and more coiffeured than his 20 year old self could ever have imagined.
My one question is: what will he look like when he’s 40??
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/via The Daily Edge: http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/man-interpretive-dance-with-himself-921651-May2013/?utm_source=twitter_self
As David Beckham hangs up his custom-made designer football boots for good, I would like to say a few words in honour of the metrotastic sporno star.
Terrible pun headlines aside, most of the response to this news has been kind to the ageing footballer, remembering Becks as an honourable captain of England and a committed team player. One journalist did say that at times he could be a petulant peacock, but can’t we all?
However if you thought this is the last we will see of the man of many hairstyles, on our TVs, in our newspapers, and in our underwear, then think again. For Beckham isn’t retiring at all. His main ingredient in his career portfolio over the last few years has been his tarty metrosexual display. When he was given the illustrious job of carrying the Olympic torch to the London stadium last year, it wasn’t in recognition of his passing skills, but rather for his untiring service to metrosexuality.
I think it’s interesting that in the same week a much loved star of pitch and beauty parlour has been celebrated, journalists and a certain Labour politician have been going on about a so-called crisis of masculinity.
I will write a proper response to that soon. But I think it’s worth pointing out that one reason sports journalism doesn’t completely annoy and depress me unlike most mainstream media output, is that it is positive about men and what they do. Beckham has been a perfect subject for all those lovely long column inches, and will continue to be so for many years to come. I’ll only get maudlin if he hangs up his hair gel for good.
I must say I was a little bit surprised to hear recently that Spare Rib, the feminist magazine that began in 1972 and ceased publication in 1993, was about to make a comeback. It is one thing that a lot of contemporary feminists spout a kind of souped-up retro mumsy cupcake version of 70s feminism. It is another that an actual relic of that era has come back to haunt us.
Or haunt me, should I say. For I don’t know many women of my generation (in our 40s) who both had quite as strong a feminist-influenced 1970s childhood as I did, but who have also rejected that part of their heritage. I remember seeing Spare Rib lying around my family home, and as I got old enough, picking it up and reading it. It is not really possible to recall the actual process of what? feminists might say ‘consciousness raising’; I might call it indoctrination. But I know that Spare Rib was part of my early education about gender politics, that has taken quite a lot of soul-searching and pain to begin to ‘unlearn’.
The resuscitator of Zombie Spare Rib, Charlotte Raven, is only about a year older than me. I met her when I first went to university. I found her a bit severe and scary. Charlotte lives in a ‘big, beautiful house in north London’ and is married with two kids. I can’t help but feel as I read about her rediscovery of Spare Rib, that Raven’s view of 1970s feminism as rebellion, and radicalism, and fighting ‘oppression’ is a romantic and nostalgic one, that doesn’t relate to the reality of the 1970s or of the 21st century. And that her enthusiasm for that period and this project, may be borne in part from getting older and ‘settling down’. Some people buy fast cars, others try sky diving. Could this be the signs of a mid-life crisis?! Is my rejection of my feminist upbringing the mirror opposite?
Because if I am completely honest, whilst I haven’t ‘settled down’ like Raven, and also would not go to a ‘consciousness raising group’ if you paid me, I can relate to that desire to bring something back to life, to feel urgent and angry and right. Looked at through a different lens to my usual one, I can see some of my ‘anti-feminist’ fervour as a (subconscious) attempt to rekindle some of my youthful passion and energy.
But maybe I’m a bit too self-aware to start thinking I can put on my pixie boots and leg warmers and go back to the 1980s with its demos, parties and political meetings. And actually, I remember some pretty grim things about those days. Youth is attractive if you wilfully forget the confusion, anxiety and terror that goes with it (don’t tell me that’s just me I know I’m not alone in that).
I am happy to be where I am and who I am now. I don’t need Zombie Feminism to drag me back to where I’m from.
Earlier this week I watched (for the first time) American TV Show Justified, about a cop working in small town Kentucky, amidst gangsters, drug dealers and evangelical Christians. The episode I watched featured a great guest performance from well known American comic Patton Oswalt. He and his co-star played a lovely Stan and Olly routine as they bungled their way through some dodgy moonlighting police work, destined to go wrong.
The next thing I knew Oswalt was the subject of a Salon article by Molly Knefel chastising him for failing to speak out against rape and violence against women. Oswalt had previously defended Daniel Tosh against a feminist blogger who slammed him for making rape jokes. Feminists are angry with him for showing empathy for the victims of the Boston bombings, but not for women who are raped or assaulted (- by men. I don’t think this row is about lesbian rape). Knefel wrote in Salon:
‘What is challenging, though, is speaking out against the normalization of sexual violence, the degradation of women, and the role and responsibility that men have in either perpetuating or combating rape culture.’
Then over on twitter Oswalt got more stick for what? Not getting down on his knees and confessing his sins to the Good Lady of Feminism?
I am annoyed about how the feminists have picked on an individual man in the public eye, and seem to be taking him to task for a complex socio-cultural set of issues in society. He’s just a guy who makes jokes. He’s not Obama or Bono – he hasn’t set himself up as a spokesman or a moral crusader. But more so I am annoyed that feminist writers are peddling a narrative – again- about men, those dirty dogs, and women those poor innocent damsels. It’s very Mills and Boon in a funny kind of way. As I said in what became a rather ‘controversial’ article – Rape Culture and Other Feminist Myths:
‘My instinct is that holding onto special victim status has some pay offs for feminists. They can continue to present gender politics as a binary opposition between men (potential rapists) and women (perpetual potential victims of rape). Basically, the concept of rape culture is misandrist, and it does not allow for the fact that women are sometimes perpetrators of sexual assault, and men are sometimes on the receiving end.’
I am glad Patton Oswalt stood up for himself to a degree, and didn’t let the feminist mob walk all over him. But I hope that one day, a high profile man (or indeed woman, or anyone who identifies however) actually takes on the myth of ‘rape culture’ and challenges the nasty misandry that underpins it. Women rape too. Men can be victims of rape. Violence in our culture has more men victims as a whole than women. More men commit suicide and suffer injuries at work than women. The ‘rape culture’ schtick is WRONG.
I of course say this often. But when I speak out against feminist rape culture fantasies people attempt to ‘silence’ me. I had my Rape culture myths piece taken down from The Good Men Project, and when I questioned feminist versions of rape culture over at cyborgology blog, my comments were deleted and I was chastised for being ‘unscholarly’. But its the dodgy statistics, misandry and – yes – hysterical premises of feminism’s precious ‘rape culture’ that is unscholarly.
Yes Patton Oswalt has a ‘platform’. But so does feminism. And when it comes to gender issues any man is at risk of being sent to the wolves if he speaks out of line. I believe any subject should be fair game for comedy. And I’ll be taking suggestions for jokes about feminists at the usual address. We could start with this lovely lady as inspiration:
h/t Henry for the Red video.
Thanks everyone for their messages here and elsewhere, when I took a bit of a breather from the trials and tribulations of being that – er- notorious ’internet troll’ Quiet Riot Girl.
But friends, enemies, frenemies and strangers. I’m back.
How’ve you been?
Xx
Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play
And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn
-Florence and the Machine
This is a short note to say I won’t be around much in the public rooms of the internet for a while. I’m not able to speak/write freely or tell of my present situation so, in those circumstances, I am ‘going dark’ for a bit.
Friends can always find me in the usual ways.
See you soon, in the full light of day. It’s always darkest before the dawn.
XXQRG
