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Modern masculinity too ambiguous
Sunday, September 5,
1999
The Male Body: A New Look at Men in
Public and Private
by Susan Bordo. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 358 pages. $25.
Challenging the reductive
Mars-vs.-Venus logic of pop psychologists, Susan Bordo
writes, "For all of our differences ... men and women do not
come from different planets."
As it has long done to women,
advertising now makes men into sexual objects, and men, too,
receive mixed messages about how to behave. The chapter,
"Gentleman or Beast? The Double Bind of Masculinity," notes
that our society's standards of manhood require that men be
both aggressive and sensitive, which may (for example) be
very confusing to a young man on a date: should he "be a
man" and kiss her or would that be insensitive, possibly
even sexual harassment?
The book tends to focus more on
heterosexual male bodies but does address how gender and
sexuality intersect. For example, Bordo laments the change
from film idols like Fred Astaire and Cary Grant, men whose
appeal lay in their charm and wit, to the more
hyper-masculine stars in current movies. Rupert Everett's
character in "My Best Friend's Wedding" so appeals to
heterosexual women because, though his sexuality prevents a
romantic relationship with Julia Roberts' character, he
represents a Cary-Grant-style masculinity absent from most
straight male characters today.
"The Male Body" offers a
thoughtful, engaging analysis of American masculinities in
the latter half of the 20th century. Like Susan Douglas's
"Where the Girls Are" (1995), Bordo's is a scholarly work
that wisely refrains from piling on the jargon. In a style
that, though less punchy than Douglas's, remains frank and
personable, Bordo weaves a nuanced analysis of advertising,
film, pop culture, literature, and her own personal
history.
Despite the cover's discreetly
blurred photograph of a male torso, the book is not afraid
to be direct in its discussions of men - O.J. Simpson, Bill
Clinton, James Dean, Marlon Brando, to name a few - so, if
candid discussions of male anatomy offend, this book may not
be for you. But most people would benefit from reading about
the ways in which gendered expectations shape men's behavior
as much as they do women's. As Bordo writes, "We're all
earthlings, desperate for love, demolished by
rejection."
PHIL NEL
(Phil
Nel is a visiting instructor of English at the College
of Charleston.)
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