[quote]DickBag wrote:
Maybe this thread should be about what is a “Real Man”, instead of what is manly. Cause I equate bad ass and manly as the same thing.
DBcooper, if you were talking about what it takes to be a real man i would immediatly understand that you meant noble man, respectable man, and so on.
[/quote]
Regarding my username: I used to have a different name and when I changed it for whatever reason this name is what popped into my head. I wanted a name that maintained my anonymity and I just happened to think of DBCooper, whose real identity remains anonymous. But I know nothing about what motivated him so I can’t really evaluate whether his actions were that masculine or not.
About masculinity: I understand that you feel Tony Montana’s actions were masculine in some way, but he was clearly still a sociopath. He shot and killed his best friend and showed little to no remorse for it, especially where his sister was concerned. Masculinity is simply having the qualities of a man, or being manly. That said, as societies change and evolve, so does society’s definition of masculinity. So in essence, those who strive to be masculine in this sense are simply slaves to society like those who you belittled earlier.
If you think that Tony Montana was masculine, then fine. But essentially what you are saying is that part of Montana’s flaws are masculine, which is fine. But women behave this way as well, albeit much less frequently. But when they do, do we refer to their behavior as masculine, or simply bad? If we accept that their behavior is masculine, then naturally we have to accept that part of being a man is acting poorly. To me this is simply acting human. We as a species are inclined toward bad, immoral behavior in all sorts of ways, some more than others. So I reject the behavior of someone like Tony Montana as “masculine” because it simply furthers a negative stereotype about men in general.
I think a “real man” IS a masculine man, but a masculine man that transcends or is independent of these negative stereotypes that society assigns to us. It’s only natural that society has increasingly come down on “manly” behavior and that there seems to be a shortage of “men’s men” when we begin to accept that violent behavior such as Montana’s is masculine in some way. If that is part of being masculine, then naturally society is going to come down on “typical” masculinity. That is why I equate masculinity with morality. Men are fully capable of behaving in moral, upstanding ways and still being “manly”. This sort of behavior serves to improve society’s impression of men. Right now, in advertising we see all sorts of examples of men who are complete idiots. This stereotype, to me anyways, is only logical since even other men equate violence, disregard for others, a total disconnect from our feelings and other such behavior as manly. Shit, I just re-read everything I’ve written and I’m not really making a whole lot of sense here.
Basically what I am saying is that if we as a society accept that behavior like Tony Montana’s is masculine, then we accept that men are inherently flawed. Which is true, but only because HUMANS are inherently flawed. By accepting that flawed behavior on a violent, ruthless level like Tony Montana’s is somehow masculine, we sell ourselves short as men and as such we reinforce all sorts of negative stereotypes about us, rather than reinforce positive ones. So, in my own mind anyways, I try to only equate masculinity with the best qualities of man, not the worst ones. Accepting violence, death, destruction and ruthlessness as a masculine quality rather than a human quality only furthers society’s views of men, rather than reject them. So, in a roundabout way, you have become slave to society’s views of men, rather than independent of them. Which is ironic since most people equate manliness with not giving a fuck about what society thinks.
