In Which You Want To Be A Man, Don't You? Wait, Do You?

The Big Game

by GREGORY SIDMAN

Boy, oh boy...to be a man. Seems to hold a lot of resonance today. And Sunday’s Superbowl commercials have an affinity for transmitting the typical nostalgic, saudade kind of resonance about coming to terms with the fact that most men aren’t the archetype of how men “should” or could be — self-reliant, self-confident, dominant, charismatic and, essentially free Americans.   

I mean all of this in a vague, non-analytical, unsystematic, improperly researched, balls-in-your-face, hastily put together kind of way. I’m dipping into this with a thick brush, and I’m taking broad strokes. I’m writing this like a man. In fact, I’ve half forgotten which ads lead to these thoughts. And I only watched the game till halftime. And I was half-watching, anyway. 

But, luckily, the most poignant commercials were limited in number, were almost broadcast consecutively and at the exact moment when I was paying extra special close attention: the Dodge Charger “Man’s Last Stand” ad and the Dove “You’re a Man” ad. The depictions of masculinity, and even the products hocked, are almost at odds — or they at least point to a duality of rough play and cleanliness.

At odds, except for one deep down little bit of emotion that strings them both together, tight like Siamese twins: the utter dissatisfaction with the inane details of being a grown up; those details which seem to get in the way of ‘being a man’; which are so common and pervasive that they seem to consume the existence of men, which forces men to not be men.

 

As a way to cope with this sad narrative, this mirror of their banality, men, of course, have a few options: drive away from your wife, kids and sense of responsibility as fast as you can in a Dodge; wash yourself obsessively with a bar of Dove, attempting to clean your filthy life from your body and your memory.

And as a third option, as shown in the 10,000 Bud Light commercials broadcast within a four hour period: drink yourself numb, and casually conceal your alcoholism and prosaic self-hatred with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. An ironic sense of humor which acknowledges the fact that you don’t feel as if you stack up against classic examples of American masculinity — and that it’s easier not to try.  

Commercials play with male assumptions about grown up, manly masculinity the way boys play with toys. And obviously, they only let guys in the playhouse if they know the magic password. By the way...do you know the magic password? You think it’s Charger? Nope. Dove? Nah-uh. Flo.tv? Wrong.  

It’s less obscure, and you probably say it every day when you wake up: “I hate myself.” You can hate your life, your wife, your job, your car, friends and parents too, but first things first: hate yourself.

Hate yourself with the same uninspired self-pity as Robin Williams’ Peter Banning hates himself in Hook. Hate yourself, buy a car, and never grow up. Boy, oh boy — now that growing up without growing old has been replaced with growing old without growing up, we’re all lost boys.  

Gregory Sidman is a contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Los Angeles. This is his first appearance in these pages.

photo by Lilja and Inga Birgisdóttir"Boy Lilikoi" - Jónsi (mp3)

"Ammaelolnidur" - Jónsi (mp3)

"Happiness" - Jónsi & Alex (mp3)