The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: Cioran on February 23, 2009, 09:49:08 pm
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It's clear that a central theme of the strip is masculinity. Onstad asks: What does it mean to be a man in modern America?
Each of the various male characters is an answer to the question. Onstad examines them both individually and relation to one another. He studies both their internal and their external characteristics.
Some roles are approved of (Beef), some regarded with compassionate condescension (Lyle), and some dismissed as inappropriate or false roles (Pat).
Onstad looks to the past for help in answering the question. Older characters, pre-eminently Cornelius and Ramses Luther Smuckles, are held up as paragons of masculine virtue.
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Onstad asks: What does it mean to be a man in modern America?
It means you have a c*ck and testicles and live between Canada and Mexico during the 20th or 21st centuries.
Not rocket science, people.
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I think that modern feminism has, in many ways, emasculated the straight American male. Ray and Beef represent two extremes of man's attempts to re-invent himself and his relationship with women to adapt to the changing emotional landscape.
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It's not an accident that the Great Outdoor Fight is one of the most famous arcs. It is exclusively about manhood. The first three men defeated by Ray are three utterly rejected male roles: the aggro husband, the new age freak, and the redneck.
I am still not sure of the meaning of Ray's final victory.
Phillippe, the immortal unstained child, is different: he does not represent a possible answer. He is a special symbol of something that sustains all the other characters. They will come together as one and fight without quarter to protect him. Ray accidentally hitting him with a missile remains one of the most shocking moments in Achewood.
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I think that modern feminism has, in many ways, emasculated the straight American male.
I don't understand how feminism has emasculated the straight American man. Let's see. Women can vote. OK, so can I; I'm not disenfranchised. Women can work, and let's assume the feminist ideal that women make as much per dollar as men. Doesn't negatively affect me, I'm still getting paid.
So basically, what it boils down to, is that feminism means that I do the dishes and other household chores half the time instead of none of the time.
Anyone who calls his manhood into question over taking out the trash never had much to begin with.
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Guess what: you are not the only person in the world.
I'm the only one that matters. Everything else is Not My Damn Problem.
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I don't understand how feminism has emasculated the straight American man. Let's see. Women can vote. OK, so can I; I'm not disenfranchised. Women can work, and let's assume the feminist ideal that women make as much per dollar as men. Doesn't negatively affect me, I'm still getting paid.
So basically, what it boils down to, is that feminism means that I do the dishes and other household chores half the time instead of none of the time.
Anyone who calls his manhood into question over taking out the trash never had much to begin with.
What's emasculating is that feminists have argued that "anything men can do, we can do better." And this has led not to equality, but to a increasingly large sub-class of women who expect little of their male partners and relatives and then hold themselves up as morally superior.
We have an entire generation of man-children who always have been (and possibly always will be) taken care of by women (mothers, girlfriends, and wives) because women have convinced ourselves that men, being men, are inherently irresponsible and incapable of taking care of themselves. The expectation fulfills itself, and men become more and more dependent on the women in their lives to care for them as we devolve into a downward spiral of female-superior inequity inside the home while economic male-superior inequity continues to dominate outside of it.
Meanwhile, men attach their identities still more firmly to their job titles and salaries, which, in this economic climate, can only spell disaster.
Okay, I admit I'm just trying to start a fight here. But somebody run with this one, please? This board has been TOO QUIET lately.
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Read any Sunday comics page: every single week, many of the punchlines involve a man being mocked for his stupidity, laziness, venality and turpitude.
The Simpsons is paradigmatic in this regard. The male Simpsons are all morons, while the females, even the baby, are quietly heroic.
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It's not an accident that the Great Outdoor Fight is one of the most famous arcs. It is exclusively about manhood. The first three men defeated by Ray are three utterly rejected male roles: the aggro husband, the new age freak, and the redneck.
I am still not sure of the meaning of Ray's final victory.
Ray could not have achieved final victory without Beef. Symbiosis was needed.
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What's emasculating is that feminists have argued that "anything men can do, we can do better."
I have never noticed feminists arguing that. I always thought that the argument was simply, 'anything men can do, we should be allowed to do and get paid the same for.'
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This board has been TOO QUIET lately.
Yeah, but I'm not sure making the board into an undergrad Sociology seminar would be an improvement.
Bring less exegesis and more funny, Poindexter.
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We have an entire generation of man-children who always have been (and possibly always will be) taken care of by women (mothers, girlfriends, and wives) ...
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Okay, I admit I'm just trying to start a fight here.
A Fight CLUB is more like it.
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I have never noticed feminists arguing that. I always thought that the argument was simply, 'anything men can do, we should be allowed to do and get paid the same for.'
Do you think? Is it possible I'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of inspiring conversation?
Nah.
What I mean to say, is that some feminists have over-exaggerated women's inherent strengths in a violent backlash against centuries of perceived oppression. It's a natural reaction, but not necessarily a helpful one.
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I have never noticed feminists arguing that. I always thought that the argument was simply, 'anything men can do, we should be allowed to do and get paid the same for.'
What's occurring is a change from distinct sex roles to no sex roles. A new stable source of identity has not yet been found.
This change is occurring because of economics and technology. Feminism as an ideology is a product of industrialization.
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Read any Sunday comics page: every single week, many of the punchlines involve a man being mocked for his stupidity, laziness, venality and turpitude.
The Simpsons is paradigmatic in this regard. The male Simpsons are all morons, while the females, even the baby, are quietly heroic.
Yeah, and most comics aren't funny. Even when they are, they're not always true. Don't tell me you think the zeitgeist is all trippin' that cats can talk and run record labels or that stuffed animals are alcoholic line cooks.
You wanna prove that men aren't intrinsically stupid, lazy, venal and possessed of turpitude, well... then behave in an intelligent, hardworking, deep and upstanding way.
Boom. Problem solved.
Whining about how the mean ol' zeitgeist has your little pecker in a vise grip sounds like deflecting responsibility and thus perpetuating this alleged conception.
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What's occurring is a change from distinct sex roles to no sex roles. A new stable source of identity has not yet been found.
This change is occurring because of economics and technology. Feminism as an ideology is a product of industrialization.
Who needs to find identity in sex roles? Why not in one's unique personality?
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Feminism as an ideology is a product of industrialization.
Oh yeah? Then explain the 1950s, homeslice.
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Who needs to find identity in sex roles? Why not in one's unique personality?
What is the personality? What does it consist of?
Oh yeah? Then explain the 1950s, homeslice.
I am going to go with the Gregorian calendar.
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What is the personality? What does it consist of?
I sincerely hope I don't come across like a condescending ass* here, but are you serious? All one's individual quirks, one's interests, one's propensities, one's hobbies, one's obsessions, one's talents, one's dislikes, one's fears, one's prejudices. Some of these come from society, sure, but many of them are inborn, and you're not going to succeed if you counter by claiming that there is no innate individual personality. I've seen it. Babies -- babies who are unaware of their sexuality or gender role -- display personalities, unique and differentiable. So do pets which are spayed and neutered before their sexual maturity and thus devoid of any hormonal conditioning-to-destiny here.
If you're identifying the individual with, or primarily shaped by, or somehow intrinsically linked to, the sexual roles one would historically have played, then you're living in the wrong chakhra, I fear. You completely gloss over artistic talent, or scientific/intellectual propensities, or sense of humor.
* more so than usual
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I'll see your condescension and raise you one by pointing out that what you have just written is a reaction not to my question but to assumptions in your mind.
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I'll see your condescension and raise you one by pointing out that what you have just written is a reaction not to my question but to assumptions in your mind.
No, I answered the question on what I believe the personality is. Second sentence.
But, since we're on the whole assumptions kick, let me make a few and be done with this point, as it bores me:
Let's assume that this cultural phenomenon of the man being "the stupid one" is true. Lord knows, I don't see it, but then again I watch Battlestar Galactica, where the men and the woman are equally fallible (and, I might add, I don't walk away eyeing my Roomba suspiciously).
So, the world is permeated with this mass media image that men are somehow inferior or stupid. So what? IGNORE IT. Aren't patience and forebearance ostensibly "manly" virtues?
But what if it can't be ignored? Well, then why not try to convince people that they're wrong? Or discredit them somehow and render their arguments null? Or intimidate them into dropping the point? Or bargain with them to at least shut up? Or, failing that, punch them in the face?
Aren't the powers of reason, shrewd arguments, intimidating presence, business acumen, and brute force all ALSO ostensibly "manly" virtues?
What is considered a stereotypically "womanly" trait? Complaining and nagging.
So, do I see you ignoring people with flawed male stereotypes, or convincing them otherwise, or discrediting them, or intimidating them, or bargaining with them, or punching them?
No.
I see you COMPLAINING about it.
And you wonder why this stereotype persists.
Now THAT's some condescension, Sparky.
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I dunno.
I always figured that the way I had to be handled with kid-gloves at times had nothing to do with my gender and everything to do with my Issues.
I get a new excuse? Hooray for Zoidberg!
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assumptions assumptions assumptions blah blah blah
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yeah just cut it with the fonts thing i'm too old to argue on the internet much less strain my eyes while doing so
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Also:
Have you considered that maybe white male authority figures are made to be the idiots because they're the one group that sort of can't complain about being oppressed in any way? I mean, foolish characters are a major part of didactic storyteller and without at least one or two fools, comedy rarely works at all. But if you make that character black, you're being racist, if you make that character Jewish, you're antisemetic, you make that character a lady, you're being a sexist.
Maybe it's just the last demographic refuge of foolish behaviour without getting boycotted by some schmuck who wants to be on the cable news?
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Sort of like the way that a lot of movie villains are British.
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Yeah. My racist, homophobic, xenophobic coworker bitches about the plight of the white straight male all fuck*ng day.
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cf. also Fight Club. There is anger among a lot of American white men, it helped fuel the rise of the right during the late nineties and at the core of Bush's political base. They feel attacked somehow. But what is the real cause of the anger? The racism et cetera is epiphenomenal. What is at the root? Onstad is dealing with the issue without falling into cardboard answers, like Fight Club's 'fascism lite', or leaving out elements he doesn't like. This is part of the great achievement of Achewood.
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We have an entire generation of man-children who always have been (and possibly always will be) taken care of by women (mothers, girlfriends, and wives) because women have convinced ourselves that men, being men, are inherently irresponsible and incapable of taking care of themselves. The expectation fulfills itself, and men become more and more dependent on the women in their lives to care for them as we devolve into a downward spiral of female-superior inequity inside the home while economic male-superior inequity continues to dominate outside of it.
So now instead of being pressed into thankless servitude you're doing stuff for us because we're inferior and need looking after. Also it was your idea. I love it when a plan comes together.
I don't buy much into the idea the feminism has emasculated males, not really. There are always some reactionary assholes but in real life I don't think I've ever met someone who treated me like I might not be able to do something because I'm male (not anything I actually can do anyway).
One thing that I might agree with is that it's fairly set into our society on some level now that women are somehow 'special', possessed of an ephemeral quality that makes them 'strong' and empathic and so on.
Just in case Bobby asks for an example, have you ever heard the claim that a woman's ability to give birth makes her inherently more creative and constructive than us destructive men? Admittedly an opinion I've only encountered in blogs and similar places and therefore ignored, but some people believe it. This veneration of women could lead to males feeling less validated but I don't think it actually has. You could also make the argument that it could damage women by putting too much of a burden on them. In fact I think it might be part of the same cultural thingy that caused us to label women as 'delicate' in previous decades, it's just more (apparently) empowering now but no less silly.
I do agree that what a man expects out of his life and what is considered correct behaviour has changed quite a bit in the last few decades but I wouldn't put that at the feet of 'feminism'. I think it's got more to do with guys growing up and saying 'man those old dudes are racist, misogynist, homophobic douchebags, let's not be like them. Also I want to know how to knit'. It's more of an internally propelled change that might be informed by feminism (and the civil rights and gay rights movement and the improvement of education in general) but not caused by it.
One thing I Have had to deal with in day to day life is being told that I hold certain opinions because I have been influenced by the 'liberal media' or feminists or political correctness or whatever. Even by some people who are my friends but hold very different views to me on some issues. I struggled with this for a while but I don't think I hold any opinions that I can't justify based on my own internal morality. So my behaviour and attitudes may be more pleasing to feminists and the politically correct (isn't that term just bile on the tongue these days?) than those of men 30 or 40 years ago but I'm not acting this way to please them, I'm doing it because it's how I want to live my life.
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anybody else get the feeling cioran is just going *tick* *tick* *tick* down the page with the [taketh away]s
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I am still not sure of the meaning of Ray's final victory.
He won on his terms. He could have beaten the shit out of Beef, and been the Socratic form of the American male. But in the end he decided that friendship was more important, and took radical measures to fix matters to his liking. As such he was in fact more manly than the manliest men of the GOF.
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I like the ones where you can see the cat's c*ck.
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Onstad asks: What does it mean to be a man in modern America?
one man's answer? (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07122005)
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Whining about how the mean ol' zeitgeist has your little pecker in a vise grip sounds like deflecting responsibility and thus perpetuating this alleged conception.
Fuck yes.
I get so tired of dudes whining about how every commercial makes fun of men and breast cancer getting more 5k "fun runs" than prostate cancer. You're a man. Getting the best chair in the living room and deciding when the sex is finished has a certain set of responsibilities, one of which is not being a whiner.
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What is the personality? What does it consist of?
Really, Cioran, if in the middle of a discussion you have to ask what the concept of "personality" means, clearly not to be illuminated on the subject - since you seem to be familiar with other words which are both more obscure and hilariously pompous ("epiphenomenal", did they teach you that word at Talk Like a Dick school?) - , but to provide diversionary support, chances are you're the type of person who wouldn't know what to do with a personality if you ever got one.
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Oh no, it's starting to get ugly in here.
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The tone is rough, but I hope Cioran takes it in good sport. I'm up for a little stir once in a while, that's all... I saw that he/she just registered, and surely wouldn't want him/her to lose interest in the board nor anything, because of a kind of a rickety start.
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I think it's great. We haven't had this much activity on a weekend in months.
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It all seems like it should be a bit embarrassing - at least for people with a severe case of the dignities.
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I have been inoculated against such infirmities.
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one man's answer? (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07122005)
I reckoned the OYO was an emoticon for tits.
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I don't buy much into the idea the feminism has emasculated males, not really.
I think you're right. The idea that is has is just poor thinking. As I said above the cause is industrialization, automation - changes in the material circumstances of life. This is the cause also of feminism. (Think: Why did feminism arise first in the United States and Britain in the 19th century?)
Exhibit A is the Aches from 2 Feb 09. http://achewood.com/index.php?date=02022009 . In panel seven men of today are described as having not the stones to confront a wage-slave in quest of information regarding a trivial task, whereas men of the past mined ore in suits, bought huge tracts of land on which to house their females, and got unapologetically puzzled of an evening in a mustache/headgear combination that today would get you ushered swiftly in the front door of "The Manhole Bar & Disco" without having to drop bread.
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(Think: (...)
ah, le charmant.
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There is one more man in that strip: the man of today who is aware of this. The observer, the Achewood reader, who knows the man of yesterday and the man of today, and the difference between them. But does he resolve to resurrect the best of the past? No. All he can do is imitate the names of long dead titans. Much as the reader might name-drop Enkidu and Gilgamesh but never think of beginning his own quest for immortality.
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There is one more man in that strip: the man of today who is aware of this. The observer, the Achewood reader, who knows the man of yesterday and the man of today, and the difference between them. But does he resolve to resurrect the best of the past? No. All he can do is imitate the names of long dead titans. Much as the reader might name-drop Enkidu and Gilgamesh but never think of beginning his own quest for immortality.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Reverse Ouroboros.
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Is that like the reverse cowgirl?
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Much as the reader might name-drop Enkidu and Gilgamesh but never think of beginning his own quest for immortality.
Gilgamesh's search for immortality, though, was merely one dead alley on his true and overarching quest:
To bring the friend he loved so dearly back from the dead.
He thought that the secret to eternal life would be the secret to undoing the senseless final sentence that is death.
But ur-Noah leveled with the man, immortality is not the power to bring back those you love, merely the power to see everyone you love die and die forever.
His real quest far far nobler than any chase for life eternal and even more in vain.
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Why vain?
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Because, as spake the esteemed and venerable Scank in "The Crow":
"There ain't no coming back, there ain't no coming back, this is the really real world, there ain't no coming back."
Short and brutish lives are ours, zimmerman or Uruk king, and there ain't a lick of magic anywhere to save us.
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But, really, if we're to have a troll, let it be one that can parse.
Also, serifs purportedly tire your eyes less.
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But, really, if we're to have a troll, let it be one that can parse.
Also, serifs purportedly tire your eyes less.
But throwing up Ancient Near Eastern terms is a way of keeping away these trolls that can parse.
A parser guard, if you will.
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But, really, if we're to have a troll, let it be one that can parse.
Sure, that sounds reasonable now, but before you know it you have to answer a riddle any time you want to cross a bridge.
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Nah, they're modernized now. You have to slide in a smart card (e.g., a CAC) and enter your PIN.
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It's okay, Cioran; I, having committed to ruining my life by majoring in Lit / Philosophy, not only tolerate, but actively enjoy rigmarole of this sort. SOME OF US MUST HOLD THE FORT.
((I can't see this font that's raising such a ruckus, though; full disclosure.))
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dejavroom: on the printed page (or e-paper, apparently) yes, serif fonts are easier to read because the serifs, they lead from one letter to the next, hither and yon, &c.
but every usability experiment regarding lighted monitors regardless of tech, even the ones that validated the point above, demonstrated that sans-serif fonts on said lighted monitors are far easier to read than those with serif.
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dejavroom: on the printed page (or e-paper, apparently) yes, serif fonts are easier to read because the serifs, they lead from one letter to the next, hither and yon, &c.
but every usability experiment regarding lighted monitors regardless of tech, even the ones that validated the point above, demonstrated that sans-serif fonts on said lighted monitors are far easier to read than those with serif.
So really, it's a limitation of the human eyeball. When presented with a lit source, it can't focus on a serif'd font in its field of view.
Eyeshot the serif?
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But throwing up Ancient Near Eastern terms is a way of keeping away these trolls that can parse.
A parser guard, if you will.
Bobby, your puns are putting an Acha in men head.
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Chooper: Mmm, wasn't aware of that.
Bobby: Let's just tariff the serif. Problem solved.
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Bobby, your puns are putting an Acha in men head.
can'd
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Because, as spake the esteemed and venerable Scank in "The Crow":
"There ain't no coming back, there ain't no coming back, this is the really real world, there ain't no coming back."
Short and brutish lives are ours, zimmerman or Uruk king, and there ain't a lick of magic anywhere to save us.
Gilgamesh had to try. A man got to know.
I don't think this is a matter concerning which it is wise to jump to conclusions.
Have you adopted that view after having searched reality top to bottom, or have you adopted it because you like the way it makes you feel?
There is more looking to be done, my friend. At the very least, eat some god damn peanut butter.
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It's okay, Cioran; I, having committed to ruining my life by majoring in Lit / Philosophy, not only tolerate, but actively enjoy rigmarole of this sort. SOME OF US MUST HOLD THE FORT.
Hall: That's a tough statement. You sound as if you are down on all academics.
Shah: Well, in the past few years I have given quite a few seminars and lectures at universities, and I have become terrified by the low level of ability. It is as if people just aren't trying. They don't read the books in their fields, don't know the workings of them, use inadequate approaches to a subject, ask ridiculous questions that a moment's thought would have enabled them to answer. If these are the cream, what is the milk like?
Hall: Are you talking about undergraduates, graduate students, or professors?
Shah: The whole lot. Recently I've been appalled at the low levels of articles in learned journals and literary weeklies. The punctuation gone to hell, full of non-sequiturs, an obvious lack of background knowledge, and so on. I went to a newspaper and looked up the equivalent articles from the 1930's. A great change has taken place. Forty years ago there were two kinds of articles: very, very good and terribly bad. There seemed nothing in-between. Now everything is slapdash and mediocre. Why are so many famous persons in hallowed institutions now so mediocre?
from http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/sufi-shah.html