Real men will do anything to obtain access to a woman’s body, including pretend to be caring. (Real men are not caring.) Real men don’t change.
Scene 1:
[A puppy runs up to 2 women in a park.]
WOMEN: Puppy!
[The puppy’s owner, a MAN, approaches.]
MAN: I’m so, so, sorry. Is he bothering you?
WOMEN: No! Awww!
Scene 2:
[MAN 2 sits in a cafe. WOMAN 2 has approached him. Both look toward camera.]
WOMAN 2: Is he yours?
MAN 2: Yeah. He’s my first mate.
[It’s revealed WOMAN 2 and MAN 2 are looking at a puppy sitting in an inflatable boat in a fountain. MAN 2 salutes the puppy.]
Scene 3:
[MAN 3 sits at a cafe. WOMEN 3 have approached him and are playing with his 2 puppies.]
WOMEN 3: Where did you get them?
MAN 3: I rescued them from a shelter.
WOMEN 3: You did that?
Scene 4:
[Men are lined up at a puppy rental booth in a park. MAN 4 has just rented a puppy.]
MAN 4 (advising men in line): Get the lab.
Scene 5:
[Jim Beam logo appears on screen.]
NARRATOR: Guys never change. Neither do we. Jim Beam. “The Bourbon” since 1795.
—Commercial for Jim Beam.
The Guys Never Change campaign was developed at Energy BBDO, Chicago, by chief creative officer Dan Fietsam, creative director/art director Noel Haan, creative director/copywriter Derek Sherman, director of film and digital production Brigette Whisnant and agency producer John Pratt.
Real men don’t care about the environment. Real men are not caring.
Yale Project on Climate Change (YPCC) and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, Global Warming’s Six Americas 2009: An Audience Segmentation Analysis, May 20, 2009 (available at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/pdf/6americas.pdf):
The Dismissive are distinguished by their certainty that global warming is not occurring. They have thought about the issue a good deal and consider themselves well-informed. They are quite certain that even if it is occurring, it is not caused by human activities. They believe scientists are in disagreement on the issue, and quite a few believe that there is a consensus among scientists that global warming is not occurring. They believe that no one is in danger of being harmed and anticipate that there will be no impacts on people or the environment. YPCC 67.
…
Almost two-thirds of the Dismissive are men (63%), the largest gender split among the six segments. Their ages closely mirror national averages. YPCC 71.
…
The Dismissive strongly disagree with egalitarian values: they don’t believe wealth should be divided more equally, that government should meet everyone’s basic needs, or that discrimination against minorities is a serious problem. Seventy percent oppose government programs to get rid of poverty. YPCC 72.
American men and women have some very different perspectives on the climate crisis. Women are more likely to believe global warming is real, harmful, that we need to do something and that addressing it will have benefits. Women also have a more positive view of being environmentally friendly.
Men are less concerned about global warming and more likely to think that addressing it will entail negative personal and economic consequences. ecoAmerica 11.
———————————————————
See also Amanda Marcotte, “Global Warming and the Centrality of Irritating Liberals”, pandagon, December 8, 2009 (“I’m forced to conclude that it’s because denying the reality of global warming achieves the central goal of wingnuttery: pissing off the liberals. And boy, is it effective! Those liberals sure get steamed when they think about how reckless behavior will result in millions of unnecessary deaths.”) (available at http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/global_warming_and_the_centrality_of_irritating_liberals/); Paul Krugman, “Climate Rage”, The Conscience of a Liberal, December 8, 2009 (“First, environmentalism is the ultimate “Mommy party” issue. Real men punish evildoers; they don’t adjust their lifestyles to protect the planet.”) (available at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/climate-rage/).
Real men are not caring. Real men are protectors.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: So President Obama was quick to claim that it cost U.S. taxpayers a billion dollars for every thousand soldiers sent to Afghanistan, remember this? And he has yet to mention how much it costs to send a soldier to Haiti. He has not even—in fact, it didn’t even matter to him. But it was a factor in sending soldiers to Afghanistan. That’s about U.S. national security. This is about domestic U.S. politics. Haiti is about U.S. domestic politics, in addition to the humanitarian effort that is behind this. Of course, we are not suggesting that we shouldn’t send soldiers to Haiti. Do not misunderstand. But why is there no concern about the cost from the White House, when there was so much concern about Afghanistan? After all, isn’t the job of the U.S. military first and foremost to protect the national security and interests of the United States? No, it’s not. The U.S. military is now Meals on Wheels. It always is with democrat presidents.
—“Limbaugh: ‘The U.S. Military Is Now Meals on Wheels. It Always Is with Democrat Presidents.’”, Media Matters for America, January 15, 2010 (available at http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201001150025).
Real men are not caring. Real men are not sensitive.
Gerard Butler puts Jennifer Aniston in his trunk, and laughs when she cries and begs him to release her.
Butler handcuffs Aniston to the bed in a hotel room, and pays for the room with her stolen credit card.
Butler tells Aniston he wants to kill her.
Butler laughs when a hotel employee tells Aniston she’s unattractive.
Butler points a gun at Aniston and laughs while they’re in bed.
Butler tackles Aniston when she escapes from his trunk and tries to run away.
—Trailer for The Bounty Hunter, directed by Andy Tennant, written by Sarah Thorp.
Real men are not caring.
Once again, however, Cheney did not let reality dissuade him from his course. As the disaster has unfolded in Iraq, he has continued to insist against all evidence that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, that the dictator was aiding Al Qaeda, that nothing the Bush administration has done was a mistake. Those who have known him over the years remain astounded by what they describe as his almost autistic indifference to the thoughts and feelings of others. ‘He has the least interest in human beings of anyone I have ever met,’ says John Perry Barlow, his former supporter. Cheney’s freshman-year roommate, Steve Billings, agrees: ‘If I could ask Dick one question, I’d ask him how he could be so unempathetic.’
“[Ayn] Rand’s political philosophy remained amorphous in her early years. Aside from a revulsion at communism, her primary influence was Nietzsche, whose exaltation of the superior individual spoke to her personally. She wrote of one of the protagonists of her stories that ‘he does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people’; and she meant this as praise.”
“While driving back from the speech later that day, Bush mentions Karla Faye Tucker, a double murderer who was executed in Texas last year. In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. ‘Did you meet with any of them?’ I ask.
“Bush whips around and stares at me. ‘No, I didn’t meet with any of them,’ he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. ‘I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’ ‘What was her answer?’ I wonder.
“‘Please,’ Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, ‘don’t kill me.’”
PAPPAS: Last time you had a feeling, I had to kill a guy. And I hate that. It looks bad on my report.
—Point Break, 1991.
Real men make tough decisions. Real men are aggressive. Real men are not caring. Real men are not sensitive. Real men don’t care what others think.
“Obviously, we are gratified that the Iraq strategy we have long advocated … has become the policy of the U.S. government, because we believe it is the right policy for the country and the world. But we feel no joy and little satisfaction. It would have been much better if Saddam could have been removed without war, or if he had been removed at the end of the previous Gulf War. We wish a peaceful resolution were now possible. But it is not. Wishes are not facts. Saddam has proven—he had proven by December 1997—that he will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come.
We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam’s regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people’s pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.”
Real men are not caring. Real men impose discipline.
STEELE: Good morning y’all, we’re back in the house. We’re talking a little bit of Constitution and a little bit Supreme Court. And a whole lot of saving America’s judicial system and saving our rights as citizens and not having empathetic judges decide cases, but rather judges who are actually understanding the rule of law and what the Constitution and those laws are all about. And how to apply the facts to the law and the law to the facts. And adjudicate my case. I don’t need some judge sitting up there feeling bad for my opponent because of their life circumstances or their condition. And short changing me and my opportunity to get fair treatment under the law. Crazy nonsense empathetic. I’ll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind. Craziness.
Michael Steele, Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, May 8, 2009 (via Matt Corley, “Steele on Judges with ‘Empathy’: ‘I’ll Give You Empathy. Empathize Right on Your Behind!’,” Think Progress, May 8, 2009, available athttp://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/08/steele-empathize-behin/).
