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Toxic masculinity & cleaning your room
Jul. 18th, 2018 10:13 am So because I'm off work (which means working 4-6 hours a day on course planning), I've been marathoning Queer Eye at night. It's a silly makeover show and it frequently made me cry. Go figure. I mean, it's not a perfect show, but it's really, really good, and transcends the medium in some fascinating ways.
I'm not the first person to notice its model of non-toxic masculinity—arguably, that's its greatest appeal. Most of it is about how to be a man—the main difference from the original show is that the category of man is much more broadly and realistically defined than in the older version of the show, encompassing queer men, trans men, and men as a community (the firefighter episode and the one where they makeover a woman). It's much more overtly political, addressing racism, police brutality, transphobia, and homophobia. But at its heart, it's a show about how to be an adult—dress your age, learn to cook for yourself, walk tall, and clean your room.
Clean your room? Sounds familiar.
(There's actually a Queer Eye reference in there, so I'm clearly not the only person to notice.)
The thing is, when you hear a certain segment of J*rd*n P*t*rs*n fanboys talking, excluding the overt incels and MRA and fascist types, "clean your room" is the advice he gives they seem to find most important and powerful. And it's one of the bits of advice that I happen to agree with. I liked the kid who said that his mother had told him to clean his room for years and he didn't listen until JP told him too, which sums up why JP and his fans are garbage humans. But it is good advice.
But unpacking it further, you see why the same advice is given by one of the most famous advocates of toxic masculinity active today, and five famous advocates of non-toxic masculinity. JP's focus is on dominating others, particularly women—see also lobsters. But moreover, he would like young men to "set their own house in order before trying to change the world." This is one of those woo bits of advice that sounds good when written in a fancy script on the background of a sunset but is actually terrible. No one ever has their house in order. Ever. Therefore, no one can ever change the world. Contrast with what, say, Karamo Brown would say—not to speak for him, but you can paraphrase what he says on the show as a need to "be a man" for other people in your life and for your community. While it's usually an individual who gets made over in the show, a lot of the focus is on the relationships between the guys and their loved ones, their work, and their towns.
The other thing that occurred to me is how much of contemporary discourse around masculinity posits the crisis of white, het, cis men as some kind of a new problem. White men, we are told, increasingly feel that they have no place in the world, and that's why they turn to fascism. Which, okay, but isn't the white, het, cis male crisis of identity the basis of essentially every work of literature ever that is considered important?
Which is why I think it's so important to have alternative, better models of masculinity. Not JP's hyperindividualistic (except for sex, which should be collectivized) Fascism Lite, but a masculinity that is a broad umbrella for diverse identities and emphasizes strength through responsibility and compassion (and you will note that these are qualities also necessary in femininity and everywhere else on the gender spectrum). And that's why a silly makeover show made me cry a bunch and why I'm working on keeping my room a little cleaner for the revolution.
I'm not the first person to notice its model of non-toxic masculinity—arguably, that's its greatest appeal. Most of it is about how to be a man—the main difference from the original show is that the category of man is much more broadly and realistically defined than in the older version of the show, encompassing queer men, trans men, and men as a community (the firefighter episode and the one where they makeover a woman). It's much more overtly political, addressing racism, police brutality, transphobia, and homophobia. But at its heart, it's a show about how to be an adult—dress your age, learn to cook for yourself, walk tall, and clean your room.
Clean your room? Sounds familiar.
(There's actually a Queer Eye reference in there, so I'm clearly not the only person to notice.)
The thing is, when you hear a certain segment of J*rd*n P*t*rs*n fanboys talking, excluding the overt incels and MRA and fascist types, "clean your room" is the advice he gives they seem to find most important and powerful. And it's one of the bits of advice that I happen to agree with. I liked the kid who said that his mother had told him to clean his room for years and he didn't listen until JP told him too, which sums up why JP and his fans are garbage humans. But it is good advice.
But unpacking it further, you see why the same advice is given by one of the most famous advocates of toxic masculinity active today, and five famous advocates of non-toxic masculinity. JP's focus is on dominating others, particularly women—see also lobsters. But moreover, he would like young men to "set their own house in order before trying to change the world." This is one of those woo bits of advice that sounds good when written in a fancy script on the background of a sunset but is actually terrible. No one ever has their house in order. Ever. Therefore, no one can ever change the world. Contrast with what, say, Karamo Brown would say—not to speak for him, but you can paraphrase what he says on the show as a need to "be a man" for other people in your life and for your community. While it's usually an individual who gets made over in the show, a lot of the focus is on the relationships between the guys and their loved ones, their work, and their towns.
The other thing that occurred to me is how much of contemporary discourse around masculinity posits the crisis of white, het, cis men as some kind of a new problem. White men, we are told, increasingly feel that they have no place in the world, and that's why they turn to fascism. Which, okay, but isn't the white, het, cis male crisis of identity the basis of essentially every work of literature ever that is considered important?
Which is why I think it's so important to have alternative, better models of masculinity. Not JP's hyperindividualistic (except for sex, which should be collectivized) Fascism Lite, but a masculinity that is a broad umbrella for diverse identities and emphasizes strength through responsibility and compassion (and you will note that these are qualities also necessary in femininity and everywhere else on the gender spectrum). And that's why a silly makeover show made me cry a bunch and why I'm working on keeping my room a little cleaner for the revolution.
