Men! There’s something scary out there and it’s coming to get us
Cover of Hell House
Five or so years ago, my friends and I heard about these right-wing Evangelical Christian haunted houses, called Hell Houses, that tried to scare sinners into going “straight.” A favored tableau was of a gay man dying of AIDS, all alone, unloved, with Satan taking his soul and causing him great pain for eternity. Scared straight. A perfect ploy for the lines of young teens and families who came in droves for some spooky fun.
My friends and I thought this was a great idea- except instead of scaring people straight, we’d scare them queer. We’d make them reject normative white, straight, middle class gender and masculinity by showing them really scary things, like George and Laura Bush doing it Missionary Style. Creepy, right?
Our Hell House was a joke, a fundraiser actually for a local queer rights group, but perhaps we should think about a nationwide campaign to scare people away from worshiping a certain sort of straight, white masculinity that is extremely dangerous to everyone- men, women, queers, and people of color- and this kind of masculinity seems to be on the rampage. Two items flitted across my screen today that made me afraid, very afraid, of the sort of masculinity that can only be called creepy.
The first was the appearance by the really creepy and super straight (now) evangelical “gay conversion therapist” Richard Cohen on the Rachel Maddow Show. You should really watch the clip to see how scary Cohen is. His work converting gays to straights is based on blatantly false claims- like homos are more likely to molest children and that being homo is influenced by race!- and is not sanctioned by a single therapeutic body in the US.
Cohen’s work, however, is the basis of much of the legal discussion in Uganda about the need to sentence homosexuals to death since they’re clearly “choosing” their lifestyle AND they represent a constant danger to society.
Rachel Maddow trashes gay-to-straight therapist | Raw Story.
Okay, so Richard Cohen and the gay conversion folks have the blood of gay Ugandans on their hands. And that’s scary. But so is this ad for Dockers. Here’s what the text says:
Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by boamy non-fat latte, men were striped of their khakis. And left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave… We need heroes… We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency… It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to wear the pants.
Let’s see- “disco by disco” and “androgyy”- could that be code for Gay (actually, disco could be code for gay and/or Black)? Hmm. And “cities crumble” is code for let’s see, it’s right on the tip of my tongue…. Black and poor? And children misbehave because someone’s to blame. Who is it? Oh yes, women.
If this sort of advertising doesn’t scare every man into wearing khakis, what will? But actually, it’s straight, white men (the very ones most likely to wear these khakis) who should be afraid of this kind of masculinity more than anyone. It forces them to be “heroes” and really super human. Instead of relating to other humans, they must relate as the “pants” and can never actually be weak or afraid or part of a group- but rather must charge ahead into battle like John Wayne on T.
And if you are a straight, white men – listen to me on this- you should be afraid of the pants themselves. If being a real man means wearing something as tacky as Dockers khakis, well, that’s more or less like having Satan drag your soul to hell.
So be afraid. Everyone. Of what is out there. And avoid the Dockers. Why not try some nice skinny leg jeans in a bright and happy color instead? I promise it will make the world a much less hellish place.
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Rachel did an outstanding job interviewing that asshole last night!
Amen Brian. Amen. She was calm and to the point and he looked like the bad person he is.
In response to another comment. See in context »Just looked, it’s up on youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8bsdNijr2Q
Frankly I thought he looked insane!
I feel so sorry for that Cohen character. It must take a Mt. Everest of self-loathing to make a life’s work out of denying who you are on a fundamental level.
Laurie, you say the guy was ’super straight’; but i’m sorry, he was setting off my gaydar over thousands of miles of fiberoptic cable. He’s married with children? Puhlease – i really feel sorry for them…
Mom once shared a piece of wisdom that has always stayed with me, “heaven and hell are things that only exist right. Here. On. Earth.”
I’d reckon that Mr. Cohen already resides in his own version of the latter.
I think you’re time would be better spent not feeling sorry for someone who is most likely the cause of pain in the lives of some many others. Not to mention how often people like him are used to rationalize both violence and hate. There is nothing sympathetic about the man, any suffering he’s experienced is well deserved and probably falls far short!
In response to another comment. See in context »didn’t say i was losing sleep… and i’m doing perfectly fine managing my own time, thank you.
In response to another comment. See in context »Rachel was great last night…and that Dockers Ad is atrocious!
http://www.thehamandlegsshow.com
Dockers pants as a symbol of lost manhood? Who knew?
The many horrors of Business Casual, and the challenge of wearing dockers without looking like a compete dork.
Show me an office where people can wear jeans to work, and I’ll show you an office where people really get stuff done.
Once upon a time Americans invented tough pants called Levi and khakis for their hard jobs, made by hard working American men and women from cloth woven in the south. Today real men who don’t have real manly jobs wear crappy cheap jeans and khakis to look studly made by women and children in sweat shops in China, the same place we buy those plastic forks. I think real American Men have better things to worry about than this idiotic and clueless ad.
Okay- seriously- go watch this Docker’s ad- it’s so much worse than I thought:
http://www.slideshare.net/anemasculatingtruth/an-emasculating-truth
Who the hell, wtf, are you serious, who are these people? The biggest laugh is at the end when they show some wimpy guy in wimpy pants, hello how about showing some roughnecks in the texas oil fields who wear cartharts the ad…see if they would be caught dead in these pants…so if I wear fucking dockers I’m a man? We’re losing our juice? I swear to God after seeing this I will never be seen in dockers, not that ever would anywhere but just for laughs I’ll kick in Levis as well.
In response to another comment. See in context »men in Carharts, nice, real nice!
In response to another comment. See in context »I do not wear jeans, they are made of thick, heavy, uncomfortable material. The “jeans are comfortable” meme is fascinating as it is 100% false, yet virtually every clique and niche of pop culture believe it to be true. Sure, they look casual, but they are not the standard bearer of egalitarian comfort. I typically wear black, grey or navy blue dress pants to work.
As for the message to straight men and heroes and masculinity, the sad truth is agreeable men do not get laid. Doesn’t Tiger Woods wear khakis?
Wear what you will, but I’ll stand by my statement, “where people CAN wear jeans”. I’m not referencing the fabric so much as the emphasis on personal productivity over the dress code. I find that Denim does poorly in cold and damp conditions, but does well in environments with sharp edges. To each his /her own, but make the choice available.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’ve never let a man’s pants come between me and what I want!
No, “disco” isn’t codeword for gay, and certainly not black. (Black culture is stereotypically super-macho, especially in the eyes of middle class white dudes who sport Dockers.) It’s just that disco, with its Dionysian flamboyance, lacks a certain . . . gravitas. It actually has some strong heterosexual connotations, but it’s definitely a world apart from the cool stoicism associated with traditional masculinity. It’s too ‘pagan’ (in the Paglian sense), too Greek, not Teutonic enough.
And, come on, this sort of run-of-the-mill breadwinner masculinity doesn’t create unrealistic expectations for men. Superhuman? Hardly. All it asks is a return to a culture wherein men cultivate their brawn for the sake of “gentle” causes — like helping old ladies, doing fix-it jobs, walloping spoiled brats, etc.
You’re reading way too much into this, Laurie. As, uh, “academics” (how can you call yourself that without snickering?) are wont to do.