Oh good grief. Apparently there’s a talk show for men scheduled to appear on TV sometime soon.
I use the term “men” in its most penumbral sense because:
“We have all the shows in the world that empower women to talk about these things – which they should exist by the way because, let’s be honest, women deserve a safe space to have these conversations – but men don’t talk,” he says. “Even the idea of this show made men scoff, like, ‘Oh, who’s going to watch men talking to each other?’ That’s how rare this is. This is not The View for men. This is a conversation show. This is a show where men create a comfortable space for each other to go deep and have a conversation and we hope that this stuff happens in real life, too.”
Topics include personal subjects like body image, fatherhood and dating/relationships, but Baldoni also hopes to cover current events when appropriate.
My prediction: this show is going to tank worse than the upcoming “Lena Dunham Gives Harvey Weinstein A Pityfuck” Christmas special on the Disney Channel.
For those who can’t get it: men don’t talk about their feelings, body image or dating relationships. We already have a comfortable space; it’s called a pub or bar, and it’s there where we discuss our problems: the broken transmission on the truck, the dickhead boss, why [insert sports team of choice] sucks so badly this season, why we did badly in [insert relevant competition] last week, and why we have to call off the annual fishing trip (because the doctor says that the wife’s going to have the baby prematurely, or some such bullshit).
Discussion of dating relationships is of the “So, did you score last night?” variety, followed by a sympathetic shake of the head if negative, or a high-five if positive. If we talk about “body image” it’s of the “The Doc says I need to do something about this gut or I’m gonna die soon” type. That’s it.
You got it right, Baldoni: men don’t talk, and we don’t watch shows about men talking either. Maybe if your guest list included actual men (e.g. Clint Eastwood), we might be tempted; but the problem is that such a show would include a few terse sentences, lots of nodding and even more sips of single malt. Unless the men start showing off their latest gun- or new car purchase; oh, then the conversation will flow, you betcha. But that’s not your typical modern-day TV entertainment, is it? Oh no: just look at the list of participants, and note that one is a transgender butch dyke of indeterminate gender who specializes in Wokedom or some such crap. That’s yer conversation fodder eight there, you betcha.
So having turned off real men, all the viewers of this crappy little show will be women and girlymen, and no doubt these same viewers will start Volume-11 whining and hashtagging the moment any one of the participants says anything remotely manly or controversial, or anything that isn’t part of the Universal Pussification Zeitgeist.
Then the show will be ignominiously canceled, and it’ll be All Men’s Fault, as usual. So much for a masculine “safe space”. What bollocks.
I’ve told the story before about my incredulity towards the stupid Hollywood production process as portrayed in the movie “The Player“, and the acid comment from The Mrs., “They aren’t even that smart.”
Here’s proof of that statement.
I could only get thru the first couple paragraphs of the linked article….
Besides, there already ARE shows which feature men talking about things important to them. NFL Today, Inside Baseball, various car restoration shows/home improvement shows, fishing/hunting shows, Dirty Jobs, etc etc…. Hell even cooking shows which feature actual MEN who are CHEFS instead of cartoon men like Guy Fieri or jackasses like Gordon Ramsey, but there are few of those because girl power (and because most cooking shows are watched by women, so why turn off your target audience).
As you pointed out in your Pussification essay, men don’t improve themselves, they improve their STUFF.
Answering the question, “Am I going to fix it, fight it, or fuck it?” will handle a wide variety of situations, but I have a feeling these fairies are going to proudly choose effeminacy.
‘Baldoni’-a cool sounding name gone to waste. How he would have benefitted from someone slapping him and saying, ‘YOU CAN ACT-A LIKE A MAN!”
Unless, of course, they have the Right Stuff. 🙂
(sorry, couldn’t resist the temptation.)
“Lena Dunham Gives Harvey Weinstein A Pityfuck”
When you get to your “5 worst pornographic titles” post, you already have a winner! Dear Lord, I’m about to puke my coffee out.
“Launching on wearemanenough.com on Nov. 28, Man Enough is described as a weekly dinner party that brings together familiar faces from Hollywood to have deep (and sometimes uncomfortable) conversations about what it means to be a man today.”
It was a coin flip between that, or condensed matter physics.
Here’s a good example of the target audience for this hilarious exercise in gayness:
My liberal white male rage: What should I do about it?
Condensed matter physics FTW! Especially the stuff about highly condensed matter at extremely high temperatures and pressures (aka an H-bomb when it goes off).
Zero interest in the show, safe spaces, or media created “dialogue.”
But I can’t say I agree with the thoughts on masculinity, generally. Talking with my closest male friends about our feelings, marriages, parenting, health, and the nature of how we experience life is a critical part of those relationships and a core part of who we are and why we’ve stayed close over 30+ years. We’ve supported each other though all of the shit that life throws at us, and I’m not embarrassed in the least by it. I race motorcycles, carry and shoot guns, and can cheerfully rebuild an engine or transmission; I also sew, do all the cooking for the family, and think an interest in watching other men playing sports smacks of the sort of thing about which Crassus was chatting up Antoninus in the bath. Emotions are a core part of being human, and I’m not going to pretend or suppress them to comport to a perception of a sociological norm. Part of being your own man, at least to me, necessarily includes not giving a damn about whether others think you are; I’ll take Thomas More over John Wayne every time.
Nobody could express things from a “Man’s point of view” like the Wayans brothers on “In Living Color.”
Of course you couldn’t produce that show nowadays with everybody being so pricklish.
That’s a shockingly good point.
I would think there is a vast shortage of anything even resembling a man to be found in Hollywood, or where ever they get actors for the tv.
real men can build a house from scratch. Hollywood men not so much.
Not to today’s housing codes you can’t.
Going to disagree with you *slightly* here:
> men don’t talk about their feelings, body image or dating relationships.
We do talk about these things, but we do it *only* with our closest friends, in private, and only when things are just past the critical part and into the disaster part.
Oh, and body image? No f*king way. I look like Adonis all grown up.
Body image? I have one…every few years or so, when the stars are right, they take me to the South Pacific and have me unrobe. Cuthulu rises, takes one look, screams in horror, and sinks back where he came from.
The amusing part would be a real men’s talk show. Of course, you’d have to get real men, not found much in Hollywood.
But we could debate the relative merits of the 1911 versus the Glock. M-14, FAL, or G-3? And Why the IOC is Full of Obama for deleting Free Pistol.
We already had that show- and it was “Top Gear”.
Discussing feelings? They each felt the others were wankers, and discussed that.
Discussing body image? How many times was the Hamster mocked and discussed for his short stature and capped teeth?
Discussing dating relationships? May was frequently mocked for his lack thereof.
Women have been complaining that “Men don’t talk about their feelings” for as long as I can remember, and when I got into therapy (my Lady has multiple non-trivial issues, and it was clearly necessary for me, too) I slowly realized why. The pople who ‘talk about their feelings’ easily (not limited to women) are usually unwilling to listen to men’s surface feelings. At the same time, most men are unwilling to discuss feelings closer to their hearts with people who dismiss their surface feelings as unimportant. And especially with people who describe said surface feelings as ‘so much macho bullshit’; that’s SUCH a good way to get people to trust you with their vulnerabilities. Moreover, the Therapy subculture is uncomfortable with aggressive feelings, and more comfortable with depressive feelings, and will try to steer any talk to the latter instead of listening to the former.
I have been VERY fortunate in that A) My Lady was willing to work with my feelings as well as her own and B) When I insist on talking about anger and similar aggressive feelings I have had a fair sprinkling of Therapy person (different titles, same job) who were willing to listen once they had determined that I wasn’t about to act out at THEM.
That said, this program certainly sounds like so much piddle and wind.
Thank you for sharing your very insightful understanding.
From the article: “The show aims to be a provocative and heartfelt look into the minds men, as they explore their insecurities, fears and dreams.”
It will be a tawdry burlesque more than a look. These men will say what they think they should. It will probably even be scripted in whole or part.
I don’t want to hear about your fears, man. I know what they are, they are the same as mine.
These “men” on this show will only be cringing:
“The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life’s journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe.” — James Warner Bellah, “Spanish Man’s Grave” in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947