"Real Men"

Real men don’t like books.
Real men are not thoughtful.
Real men are idiots.

[Women in a book club are discussing a book in a living room.]

WOMAN 1: …so much passion…

[Other women agree.  MAN, in a “Marmots” jersey, walks through.]

MAN: Have a nice book club!  I’ll be at the game.  [MAN spots beers in a bucket of ice on the table and stops.]  Whoa.  Here…we…go.  [MAN sits between two of the women and begins passing out beers.]  So what’s the story?

WOMAN 1: We were discussing the relationship of two women…

MAN: Two women?

WOMAN 1: …who are thrust together by war…

MAN: Ooh, thrusting.  Okay, I’m with you.

WOMAN 1: …a war neither of them understands.

MAN: Awesome!  Good times!  [MAN takes copy of Little Women out of WOMAN 1’s hand and uses it for a coaster.]  I love book club.  [MAN singles out WOMAN 2, sitting across from him.]  I’d like to hear you read some words.

NARRATOR: It’s a sure sign of a good time.  The just right taste of Bud Light.  Here we go.

WOMAN 3: So then do you like Little Women?

MAN: Yeah, I’m not too picky.

—Bud Light Superbowl ad, 2010; see Noel Murray, “The Highs and Lows of This Year’s Superbowl Ads”, The Onion A.V. Club, February 8, 2010 (available at http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-highs-and-lows-of-this-years-super-bowl-ads,37983/) (“But you’re not being hard enough on the ‘book club’ ad, which continues Budweiser’s long history of depicting anything even remotely cultural as wimpy chick stuff, largely intolerable unless there’s plenty of cold beer around. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the general response to this year’s Super Bowl commercials will be mild-to-strong disgust over how anti-woman so many of them were. I know it’s the norm for ads during sporting events to play up how ‘man time’ is sacred and ‘woman time’ is lame, but I’ve rarely seen that theme take such a hostile turn.”).

Posted 2 years ago
1 note
Tagged: are idiots, don't like art-wine-classical music-books, are not thoughtful, .
Real men are idiots.Real men are primitive.Real men are aggressive.Real men don’t change. Why are there no female sex scandals? The question, raised by The Daily Beast’s Rebecca Dana has preoccupied me ever since I noticed it. Everywhere I went over the long and much-partied recent weekend, I raised the question, and here is the answer I got: Nobody knows. …We can guess. The first guess is that women are simply smarter than men. Say what you will about Woods, it’s not his wholesome image that has suffered, it’s his standing as a sentient being. A person with the wit of a mosquito knows better than to leave a voicemail message on a mistress’ phone or to text women who, from the angelic looks of them, would sell their own dear mothers for a chance to appear on Inside Edition. Few women are that stupid. Few men aren’t. The other possibility that strikes me is that women seem not to have the evolutionary urge to couple with cheaply dressed strangers. They have a stronger need to mother — to have a child and then raise that child. The male equivalents of the sort of women who have courageously come foreword to claim their reward money for entertaining Tiger are evolutionary bad material. No woman would want them as husbands and fathers. They are what Darwin called dreck, which is Yiddish for cocktail waitress. Since recreational sex can lead to diapers, women have to be prudent. As they say down at the Fed, they have to consider the out years. This is why women more than men link sex to love and commitment. I’m not saying that all of them do or all of them do all the time. I’m just saying that there seems to be few women who behave as Tiger Woods did. Even women who have no moral compunction against multiple affairs draw the line at a number somewhat below Tiger’s. Men, like the poor polar bear, have seen their ecology change. Their youthful aggression, so useful for wars of choice (not to mention necessity) or merely hunting saber-toothed tigers, is now just a social menace. Their urge to have sex with just about any woman with a pulse makes them crude laughing stocks. Tiger Woods has become a punch line — and so have men in general. (Thanks, Tiger.) We are a sorry lot. Almost no one, save maybe lachrymose country western singers, will defend the cheatin’ man. But it could be that the urge to get closer to cocktail waitresses and denizens of dimly lit hotel lounges is in some way linked to the drive to conquer, to prevail — to succeed. It could explain why all this time into the Age of Feminism, years after women were liberated, women make up less than 20 percent of Congress and only 3 percent of those top CEOs. The reason the Glass Ceiling has not broken is that women have other priorities — maintaining relationships and being a mother. This is the way it is, and this is the way it has always been. As any of Tiger Woods’s cocktail waitresses could tell him, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. N’est ce pas?—Richard Cohen, “Why Is There No Female Tiger Woods?”, Post-Partisan, The Washington Post, December 14, 2009 (available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/12/why_is_there_no_female_tiger_w.html).

Real men are idiots.
Real men are primitive.
Real men are aggressive.
Real men don’t change.

Why are there no female sex scandals?

The question, raised by The Daily Beast’s Rebecca Dana has preoccupied me ever since I noticed it. Everywhere I went over the long and much-partied recent weekend, I raised the question, and here is the answer I got:

Nobody knows.

…

We can guess. The first guess is that women are simply smarter than men. Say what you will about Woods, it’s not his wholesome image that has suffered, it’s his standing as a sentient being. A person with the wit of a mosquito knows better than to leave a voicemail message on a mistress’ phone or to text women who, from the angelic looks of them, would sell their own dear mothers for a chance to appear on Inside Edition. Few women are that stupid. Few men aren’t.

The other possibility that strikes me is that women seem not to have the evolutionary urge to couple with cheaply dressed strangers. They have a stronger need to mother — to have a child and then raise that child.

The male equivalents of the sort of women who have courageously come foreword to claim their reward money for entertaining Tiger are evolutionary bad material. No woman would want them as husbands and fathers. They are what Darwin called dreck, which is Yiddish for cocktail waitress. Since recreational sex can lead to diapers, women have to be prudent. As they say down at the Fed, they have to consider the out years.

This is why women more than men link sex to love and commitment. I’m not saying that all of them do or all of them do all the time. I’m just saying that there seems to be few women who behave as Tiger Woods did. Even women who have no moral compunction against multiple affairs draw the line at a number somewhat below Tiger’s.

Men, like the poor polar bear, have seen their ecology change. Their youthful aggression, so useful for wars of choice (not to mention necessity) or merely hunting saber-toothed tigers, is now just a social menace. Their urge to have sex with just about any woman with a pulse makes them crude laughing stocks. Tiger Woods has become a punch line — and so have men in general. (Thanks, Tiger.) We are a sorry lot. Almost no one, save maybe lachrymose country western singers, will defend the cheatin’ man.

But it could be that the urge to get closer to cocktail waitresses and denizens of dimly lit hotel lounges is in some way linked to the drive to conquer, to prevail — to succeed. It could explain why all this time into the Age of Feminism, years after women were liberated, women make up less than 20 percent of Congress and only 3 percent of those top CEOs.

The reason the Glass Ceiling has not broken is that women have other priorities — maintaining relationships and being a mother. This is the way it is, and this is the way it has always been. As any of Tiger Woods’s cocktail waitresses could tell him, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

N’est ce pas?

—Richard Cohen, “Why Is There No Female Tiger Woods?”, Post-Partisan, The Washington Post, December 14, 2009 (available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/12/why_is_there_no_female_tiger_w.html).

Posted 2 years ago
Tagged: are aggressive, are idiots, are primitive, don't change, .
Real men are idiots.Real men are not domestic. CONAN: You know, you, I think you’ve done a very good job in your work, you have written I think very honestly and accurately about what idiots guys are.  That seems to be something that you have accomplished in your films—you’ve captured the idiocy of young men.  Is that fair to say?JUDD: Yes, I mean, men are morons.  Right?  [Applause.]  And we want our comedy about morons.CONAN: Yes, about moronic behavior.  Are you drawing when you—do you draw on things from your own life?  Or, your own, uh…JUDD: Yeah, yeah, I am king moron in my world, I think.  Because who wants—?CONAN: I challenge you, sir!  I am the moron king!JUDD: I mean, my worst moron stories are just so, so terrible.  One terrible thing I did is when my wife, Leslie, had our first child, I didn’t know what to do with a baby—how to take care of a baby, and I was at my friend’s house…—Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, season 1, ep. 36, July 27, 2009.

Real men are idiots.
Real men are not domestic.

CONAN: You know, you, I think you’ve done a very good job in your work, you have written I think very honestly and accurately about what idiots guys are.  That seems to be something that you have accomplished in your films—you’ve captured the idiocy of young men.  Is that fair to say?

JUDD: Yes, I mean, men are morons.  Right?  [Applause.]  And we want our comedy about morons.

CONAN: Yes, about moronic behavior.  Are you drawing when you—do you draw on things from your own life?  Or, your own, uh…

JUDD: Yeah, yeah, I am king moron in my world, I think.  Because who wants—?

CONAN: I challenge you, sir!  I am the moron king!

JUDD: I mean, my worst moron stories are just so, so terrible.  One terrible thing I did is when my wife, Leslie, had our first child, I didn’t know what to do with a baby—how to take care of a baby, and I was at my friend’s house…

—Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, season 1, ep. 36, July 27, 2009.

Posted 2 years ago
Tagged: are idiots, are not domestic, .

Real men are idiots.

—Sarah Haskins, “Doofy Husbands,” Target Women, July 31, 2009 (available at http://current.com/items/90569059_sarah-haskins-in-target-women-doofy-husbands.htm).

Posted 2 years ago
Tagged: are idiots, .