Vanity And The Modern Man

Men are obsessed with decorating

A home should be clean, but the magazine rack doesn't need to match the curtains. Betty Crocker and Heloise trade recipes and argue about the best way to remove carpet stains, not guys. Reading IKEA catalogs, poring over patterns, matching the bedroom with the bathroom -- all of these are consumer infiltrations, brought on less by the opposite sex than by marketing gurus and commercial bombardment.

Men look up to vain role models

It's no longer Bronson, McQueen, Wayne or Stallone. This summer's lineup looks like a minor league soccer team: Depp, Pitt, Farrell, Cruise. Tom Cruise? He's the size of an action figure. Like it or not, leading men like Jude Law have cultural influence, and in his case it's a feminizing, domesticating influence. Hollywood affairs were once oblivious sidebars to men. There was a time when sports heroes, like the unattractive Nolan Ryan and crazy-eyed Mike Singletary, trumped actors. In the 1980s, The National Enquirer was a garbage magazine for garbage readers, but US Weekly and the other checkout-line rags have figured out how to suck people in. It would be unimaginable for men in the 1980s to care about what J.R. Ewing did offscreen. Ask an ’80s guy: "Did you see what Jude Law was wearing?" and see how he reacts.

Men work delicate jobs

Men like to live up to a certain standard, a certain level of providing income. The image of a career, however, has become more important than the actual work. Today, men seek clean, domesticated, polite, sedentary jobs. Fathers used to be firemen, farmers and construction workers, which meant getting their hands dirty.

Moreover, to be a part of the working class today is quietly frowned upon, even when many plumbers collect $150 an hour. Being a blue-collar worker nowadays implies a lack of education, therefore, less earning power, but it's not necessarily true. Being fiscally attractive to women almost requires a desk job, resulting in a certain level of snobbery for working class people, which is why immigrants perform so much low-wage, "uncivilized" work. Men have become snobs.

you’re so vain…

There's a reasonable level of vanity. Most men are really overgrown boys, unable to adjust to their age. The fear of marriage results in a prolonged teenager status. FYI: Getting married does not equal domestication or feminization. In fact, it is the hairless, greased man-child who is being domesticated and feminized. The hairy guy working the night shift to support his two kids is not domesticated; that's what a man does.

Other cultures around the world haven't fallen into this rut yet -- at least not as deep as we have. There's a line from The Burbs, a movie where Tom Hanks plays one of these American domesticated doggies -- a character in whom we can almost see the transition from Burt Reynolds to Colin Farrell -- where Bruce Dern says to Hanks: "Are you completely p*ssy-whipped? Why don't you just take your balls out of your wife's purse? Make a stand for one time in your life!" In other words: Get a grip. Forget about all that body-image and diet propaganda. Eat normal food, do pushups and -- unless you actually are neutered -- act like a man. So, how's that tree coming along? Are you ready to chop it?