Yesterday morning I spent a pleasant half hour, chuckling, as I read this piece at Lawyers Guns & Money: Lumbersexuality and a Crisis of Masculinity by Erik Loomis, and its thread of fun comments. That piece had been inspired by an article by Willa Brown in The Atlantic.
In nutshell mode, what it's all about is some current male fad to grow beards and wear flannel plaid, lumberjack style (plaid being the American term for any old check-pattern, not proper Scottish plaid as in kilt).
As I see it, such a fad, assuming it is actually a fad and not just a practical avoidance of the regular need to shave, whilst keeping warm in winter temperatures, may be just another way of trying to "belong" or conform to a group who think of themselves as "hipsters". That'd be somewhat ironic though, because hipsters proper are not supposed to conform to anything. Or, as the article's title suggests, is this an indication that more males are feeling the need to crank up their masculine side?
Living as I do, close to the Oklahoma-Texas border, the sight of men in beards and plaid shirts is an everyday experience when out and about (not around the house though; husband will not, under any circumstance, wear a checked flannel shirt. Why this is I haven't yet discovered.) In Texoma the sight of beards and plaid definitely does not indicate an influx of hipsters to the region, nor, I suspect does it mean that Okie males need ways of proving their cojones.
If so-called hipsters in more north-eastern urban areas find amusement in aping rural or working-class garb, while embracing "indie" music and movies, along with anything else but "the norm", then I have to feel a little sorry for them. The fact that they are conforming anyway, to a group, seems to have flown over the tops of their deliberately unkempt heads.
I don't like the "ironic" in its fashion translation. One of the nastiest examples was/is the sight of multi-millionaire "celebrities" wearing designer jeans bought already torn and frayed, and designer teeshirts created with "moth-eaten" holes and worn edgings. I don't call that ironic, I call it bad taste - especially as said garments probably cost far more than a year's food ration for a person who is forced to wear naturally tattered clothing from necessity.
Still on the topic of taste - of the bad variety, how about Seth Rogen's new movie, The Interview, due out this weekend? The film's theme is assassination of Kim Jong-un - this described as "humorous". Really? Nobody in the West has much time for Kim J-u, but murder is murder. It's no use wringing one's hands about the murder of black men by American police if you're going to laud and enjoy a depiction of murder of some, admittedly nasty, person in North Korea - and for fun. The ticket price will ensure that multi-millionaires make even more multi-millions of $$$$$$$$ from it! And - by the by - how funny would it be if the target of this schoolboy-type humour were to arrange for a weaponised drone or two to be aimed in this direction?
In nutshell mode, what it's all about is some current male fad to grow beards and wear flannel plaid, lumberjack style (plaid being the American term for any old check-pattern, not proper Scottish plaid as in kilt).
As I see it, such a fad, assuming it is actually a fad and not just a practical avoidance of the regular need to shave, whilst keeping warm in winter temperatures, may be just another way of trying to "belong" or conform to a group who think of themselves as "hipsters". That'd be somewhat ironic though, because hipsters proper are not supposed to conform to anything. Or, as the article's title suggests, is this an indication that more males are feeling the need to crank up their masculine side?
Living as I do, close to the Oklahoma-Texas border, the sight of men in beards and plaid shirts is an everyday experience when out and about (not around the house though; husband will not, under any circumstance, wear a checked flannel shirt. Why this is I haven't yet discovered.) In Texoma the sight of beards and plaid definitely does not indicate an influx of hipsters to the region, nor, I suspect does it mean that Okie males need ways of proving their cojones.
If so-called hipsters in more north-eastern urban areas find amusement in aping rural or working-class garb, while embracing "indie" music and movies, along with anything else but "the norm", then I have to feel a little sorry for them. The fact that they are conforming anyway, to a group, seems to have flown over the tops of their deliberately unkempt heads.
I don't like the "ironic" in its fashion translation. One of the nastiest examples was/is the sight of multi-millionaire "celebrities" wearing designer jeans bought already torn and frayed, and designer teeshirts created with "moth-eaten" holes and worn edgings. I don't call that ironic, I call it bad taste - especially as said garments probably cost far more than a year's food ration for a person who is forced to wear naturally tattered clothing from necessity.
Still on the topic of taste - of the bad variety, how about Seth Rogen's new movie, The Interview, due out this weekend? The film's theme is assassination of Kim Jong-un - this described as "humorous". Really? Nobody in the West has much time for Kim J-u, but murder is murder. It's no use wringing one's hands about the murder of black men by American police if you're going to laud and enjoy a depiction of murder of some, admittedly nasty, person in North Korea - and for fun. The ticket price will ensure that multi-millionaires make even more multi-millions of $$$$$$$$ from it! And - by the by - how funny would it be if the target of this schoolboy-type humour were to arrange for a weaponised drone or two to be aimed in this direction?
