Bring Back (Manly) Men
I have a confession to make: I'm only doing this subject so I can have a picture of Harry Styles in my article. Literally, this post can blah-blah something, Harry Styles, the end, and it would make sense to exist in this space. Any space.
Only his name without any content has this much influence.
Why is Harry currently on the radar? Other than he needs to be on every possible radar until he’s 102 years old, every day, every moment; I’m sure you heard about the last week’s “Bring Back Manly Men” fiasco. I won’t mention the name of the right-wing commentator feigning outrage at Harry’s Vogue cover where he’s donning a Gucci gown, compelling her into making this comment.
I figured all those right-wing people are not necessarily even that crazy; previously irrelevant, they just found a new profession in the Trump era - professional trolls who figured out their phony outrage make some serious cash.
She also has a book coming out, and all this fuckery is a quest to a bestseller. I won’t contribute to it. You know it. You read it.
I really didn’t sweat Harry’s response on this, as I usually do with public shading. The whole fun in shading is seeing it going back and forth between people. But this would be like a toddler going after a statesman. I heard this woman speak once or twice and she is actually eloquent, makes a few drops of sense here and there, so I can not see the pile of nonsense she put together as anything else than professionally trolling:
“There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. It is an outright attack. Bring back manly men.”
Marxism?
There is a brilliant opinion piece on the subject by Van Badham for Guardian, where she says:
“Their adherents chimed in at full social media volume, echoing claims that a gorgeous young man playing designer dress-ups was an obvious Marxist plot to destroy norms and shred tradition. “It is an outright attack,” claimed the book-promoter, who really should be shown some photographs of the Soviet march on Berlin. When Marxists attack, they tend to use tanks and plant flags on the Reichstag, not muck around with Vogue photoshoots.”
Is it the charisma, talent, looks, or all of the above; the polarizing essence of Harry Styles is his absolute reign in - not giving a fuck about unnecessary noise. It must be so calming to be so superior, not having to sweat anything in life.
The Trump Project, as I now also endearingly call it, created a certain space for a culture war, as I mentioned in my previous post. As Van Badham again says in her Guardian piece:
“The culture wars that so many of them fought for a Thousand-Year Trump have certainly polarized discussions of gender, race and sexuality around the west, but they haven’t brought them victory. The Trump project they championed now lies in smoky ruins, overrun by an extraordinary democratic coalition of liberals, leftists and also those conservatives who’d just plum had enough of this gestural nonsense. In this context, the strange outcry against Styles reads like a band of ousted imperialists spray-painting “Democracy sux!” on a smashed wall.”
Gestural nonsense. Phony outrage.
The most peculiar thing about The Trump Project is not even his politics; I’m convinced it’s not what makes his following. Rather, it’s in the way he makes his supporters feel. As Tim Miller says in his piece for The Bulwark - “They are personally empowered through his words.”
Influence. They crave it. They never had it. Influence is higher on the list of people’s want list than beauty, youth, or wealth. The worst thing you can be in the 21st Century is without influence.
Harry posted a pic on his Instagram yesterday with the caption - “Bring Back Manly Men”. He’s wearing ruffles and is eating a banana. The book promoter who called him out plead to bring back manly men tweeted in response:
"When people try to tell me I don’t have influence, and then @Harry_Styles dedicates an entire post to my tweet.
I inspire global conversation."
Influence.
Again, Van responds to this brilliantly:
“Attack on Harry Styles is no tactical strike. The actor/singer/model/dreamboat has been photographed in all manner of tutus, kilts, heels, and fancy manicures before this. He’s hardly likely to renounce his famous passion for a costume because of some Trumpist mean tweets. If there’s a “POINT” to the outrage, it’s not really to exert influence in debates about performing social gender. It’s just to be publicly unpleasant about the influence of others, like Styles, and to affirm some tribal costume markers to keep grinding their grift among those who remain uninfluential and aggrieved.”
It's to be publicly unpleasant about the influence of others.
The Trump Project fiasco is literally being unpleasant about the influence of others (Obama’s birth certificate). And what is a typical Trump supporter? An uneventful human being in dire need of importance, purpose, and influence.
Being a “conservative”, a patriot, and a hater of everything that is different gives them a sense of purpose they did not have before. And this is the cheap, lazy marketing of Donald Trump. A worldly con - a billionaire with a hot wife and golden bathrooms. American Dream for the third-world countries and uneducated, gullible clowns all over the world. “A weak man’s idea of a strong man”.
As for policing manly men? Coming from the conservative following of a president that wears stacked heels and more makeup and spray tans than all of Harry’s gigs combined; I always hated the analogy of a masculine/feminine binary.
Men don’t have to be masculine and women don’t have to be feminine if they don’t want to.
My friends annoyed me with the choice of men they always envisioned for me; shaved heads, sitting in a restaurant with a steak in front of their pumped-up “alpha” bodies, with an unavoidable cigar in their mouths, and whiskey on the table, wearing visible brands - a literal idea of hell for me.
All of the above is just about the exact opposite of manly to me. Narcissistic. Insecure.
And men like Harry Styles? Alpha men never understood why women like men like Harry Styles. Sexy. Secure. Uncomplicated. Unbothered. Unthreatened. Did I say sexy?
Did you ever sleep with a man popularly viewed as fluid, as opposed to those gym rats with cigars in their mouths, traveling the world, sitting on a table with 17-course meals on every Instagram pic? No? Girl, there’s a world of pleasure you’re missing out on and you are not even aware of it! You’ve been fed lies, girl.
Just this week, not one but two world politicians that are publicly against same-sex marriages and unabashedly homophobic in public, got caught up with men. One in his Zoom video where a naked man walked behind him, staring into the camera, probably unaware it was on. Another, and this blows my mind, got caught by the police, breaking quarantine AT THE ORGY WITH 25 NAKED MEN.
They Are What They Say They Hate.
Please read this piece by Tim Miller.
And don’t forget about this lesson initiated by Harry Styles just minding his business in a dress on the cover of Vogue: IT’S TO BE PUBLICLY UNPLEASANT ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF OTHERS. It applies to everything. Hate comments on your social media posts, gossip, etc.
All is just being unpleasant about the influence of others.
