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You and me together, fighting for our love
My brain feels more and more like a blank screen every day—the kind belonging to an old cathode-ray television, where the program snaps off with a diminishing zap. I dreamed last night of reading and discussing a famous novel retelling Ariadne and Theseus in a historical context, rather like Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958), except that Ariadne was a trans woman. It was nothing especially unusual in the archaeological record of Minoan civilization in my dream.
I am reading this article about the virility of fascism and all I can think is that the first time I saw a photograph of Richard Spencer—the one featured in the profile by Mother Jones, reproduced in the article—"dapper" was one of the very last words to come to my mind. He was not remarkably beautiful. He did not wear his suit and tie with a particular grace. Perhaps he has a magnetism in action that only comes out in voice and movement, but since his most famous public appearance to date involves some Hitler saluting (that he now desires to retcon as "fun and exuberance," as if it is somehow excusable to throw the most unmistakable gesture of Nazi allegiance since 1926 if you do it out of sheer buoyant enthusiasm, like spontaneously embracing a stranger in a crowd rather than telling a racist joke at a party to gauge what else the guests will let you get away with), I suspect I am already immune to it. I am used to disagreeing with both pop culture and people I know about the respective beauty of all kinds of public figures; I can't even remember how old I was the first time one of my peers thought it was weird and alien for me not to have a crush on an actor everyone else had unanimously declared hot. My interest in people's bodies follows as it always has from my interest in their selves, so if you are a neo-Nazi, everything below the waist is kaput. Nonetheless, it remains curious to me that even if I look at Spencer aesthetically, I can't see him as anything special. He does not even trip my "interesting face" meter. What are journalists seeing when they talk about his physical appeal? Is it literally just a combination of whiteness, maleness, and semi-symmetrical features? This is the kind of question that makes me feel alien to ask, but so does watching a lot of human behavior; this just more than most.
I finally got hold of the soundtrack for Pride (2014) and now I can't get several hits of the '80's out of my head. Michael Cisco enthusiastically recommended me Frankie Goes to Hollywood at Readercon this summer and he was right.
I am reading this article about the virility of fascism and all I can think is that the first time I saw a photograph of Richard Spencer—the one featured in the profile by Mother Jones, reproduced in the article—"dapper" was one of the very last words to come to my mind. He was not remarkably beautiful. He did not wear his suit and tie with a particular grace. Perhaps he has a magnetism in action that only comes out in voice and movement, but since his most famous public appearance to date involves some Hitler saluting (that he now desires to retcon as "fun and exuberance," as if it is somehow excusable to throw the most unmistakable gesture of Nazi allegiance since 1926 if you do it out of sheer buoyant enthusiasm, like spontaneously embracing a stranger in a crowd rather than telling a racist joke at a party to gauge what else the guests will let you get away with), I suspect I am already immune to it. I am used to disagreeing with both pop culture and people I know about the respective beauty of all kinds of public figures; I can't even remember how old I was the first time one of my peers thought it was weird and alien for me not to have a crush on an actor everyone else had unanimously declared hot. My interest in people's bodies follows as it always has from my interest in their selves, so if you are a neo-Nazi, everything below the waist is kaput. Nonetheless, it remains curious to me that even if I look at Spencer aesthetically, I can't see him as anything special. He does not even trip my "interesting face" meter. What are journalists seeing when they talk about his physical appeal? Is it literally just a combination of whiteness, maleness, and semi-symmetrical features? This is the kind of question that makes me feel alien to ask, but so does watching a lot of human behavior; this just more than most.
I finally got hold of the soundtrack for Pride (2014) and now I can't get several hits of the '80's out of my head. Michael Cisco enthusiastically recommended me Frankie Goes to Hollywood at Readercon this summer and he was right.
no subject
Yes. Your assessment is correct. That's exactly what they're seeing. That, plus they're not used to seeing young-ish men in suits, even ugly suits (that tweed jacket with that tie, what was he thinking). And also, they're accepting whatever vomit he wants to feed them. "I know he must be a truly great and good man, for he told me so himself."
There's also macho wish-fulfillment. I'm psychoanalyzing but I think I'm right: reporters are looking at Baby Oswald Moseley and seeing a white heteronormative masculine etc. body, which constitutes, by circular logic, a powerful figure because it is white het., etc. and wearing a suit as the Trappings of Power. The writers are secretly wanting to look just like him and have the corresponding liberty to be as crappy as he is and never have to answer to anybody.
If I hadn't been certain before, I would have become so when I read this quote that Jezebel pulls from The Guardian:
The almost entirely male audience cheered when Spencer made his statement about women’s desire for a “strong man”.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAaaauuuuuughhh.
This is Gaston explaining to Belle that she finds his ultra-violent, animal-slaughtering, bullying, self-serving, free-will-denying identity INCREDIBLY HOT. Also see every smug male celebrity who has ever explained that all women are naturally submissive and want to be dominated by a muscle-bound hero.
I feel sorry for the young women who are going to have to live in a world full of boys who have lapped this shit up. I feel sorry for Baby Moseley's wife, if he's married, which I don't even want to know enough about him to check if he is. I am direly amused by the writer reaching many decades back to a time when Anti-Semitic Trash Fire was... less unattractive than he is now, in order to call him "handsome." It's strange seeing this kind of focus on male bodies as objects of desire and veneration, but I guess as long as the bodies are macho, society as a whole accepts it. If we were talking about men as seen as objects of desire by women, or by other men, or by folks who are neither, for that matter, it would be a different story and the general press would be all EW FEMME COOTIES.
All the adulation plus the word "virility" is making me think of Ravenous, of course, where Ives describes his cannibalism experiences and ends with "A certain... virility," and a big reminiscent smile. That's Boyd's moment to back away with his stomach heaving, and I think it's mine too. Can we just make it a Rule of Life that when an individual wants to tell you about his own "virility" that we should all accept that this is code for "I eat people" and back away fast? If we could teach people that in general, I think everyone would be better off.
no subject
Then they need higher standards!
That, plus they're not used to seeing young-ish men in suits, even ugly suits (that tweed jacket with that tie, what was he thinking).
I'm glad it's not just me. That combination was not my definition of well-dressed. David the projectionist could rock that tie with the right suit (and shirt, and shoes, and hat, and pocket square—can you be dapper if you didn't at least enter the building with a hat?) and my husband could wear it terribly for comic effect. Neither is taking place in that photo.
The writers are secretly wanting to look just like him and have the corresponding liberty to be as crappy as he is and never have to answer to anybody.
It is then even more distressing that at least one of the profiles cited by Jezebel was written by a woman, because it means that the viewpoint is contagious regardless of actual feelings—a version of the default male gaze. At least, I would prefer to believe that she did not actually find Spencer himself enthralling, but just got caught by the event horizon of these fascinated tropes.
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAaaauuuuuughhh.
Amen.
I feel sorry for the young women who are going to have to live in a world full of boys who have lapped this shit up.
I'm not thrilled about having to live in it myself! Overheard recently while walking up Holland Street, one college-age-looking young man to another: "So naturally they settle for nerdy guys . . ." It was not possible for me to construe anything from this fragment but some garbage jock-nerd alpha-beta theorizing about what women "really" want and how to insert your unwanted male self into the middle of it. But I agree with you that it will be worse for the generations that grow up with this sort of cultural gaslighting normalized. I'm left thinking of Boyd McDonald: "There is no personal reason why I should care what today's heterosexual men are like, but for the sake of women, I wish their men could be a little less shitty."
It's strange seeing this kind of focus on male bodies as objects of desire and veneration, but I guess as long as the bodies are macho, society as a whole accepts it. If we were talking about men as seen as objects of desire by women, or by other men, or by folks who are neither, for that matter, it would be a different story and the general press would be all EW FEMME COOTIES.
Agreed. It is the straight white cis male body in the subject position, always; everyone else can only look up at it, worshipfully. Oh, man, now I want to re-read Ballard's "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" (1968). I bet he would feel terrible about turning out to be a predictive science fiction writer after all.