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Don't even start to think what I know you're starting to think. They're STRAIGHT.
I Love You, Man, is apparently a bromance.
This noun is homophobic and juvenile.
I Love You, Man = homophobic and juvenile?
What is a “bro-mance”? According to the Urban Dictionary, the word “describes the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males.”
In a not-gay way, of course, because that “straight”-ness has to be made explicit.
In order to subvert any kind of potential suspicion, they have to come up with ridiculous word antics.
The whole genre that has preceeded this “new” one, including but not limited to Superbad, Knocked Up (anything with Seth Rogen), Beerfest, Old School…is not without their blatant heterosexism and homophobia. That’s on top of the blatant sexism. And “retarded” jokes. And probably their fair share of fat jokes, even though Seth Rogen, Vince Vaughn (another usual suspect) and many more famous male comedians are rarely on the cover of US Weekly with the headline, “TOO OVERWEIGHT TO PROCREATE?” above them.
Just in from Star magazine: Seth Rogen still not on a diet! How does he maintain that rotund shape?
For the people who claim that this term comes from classic philosophy, since he did endorse extremely close male to male relationships, let’s consider a few things.
- Socrates was gay, friends. In modern terms, he was gay. Look it up. Read Plato’s Symposium, and tell me that there isn’t proof that Socrates was the town harlot.
- Let’s say they weren’t all 100%, tipping off the Kinsey-scale gay. The times then were different than now, since they killed off kids with “deformities”, had multiple slaves, and had sex with women primarily to procreate. They also did things like trample people over with elephants. That doesn’t disprove the theory that non-gay platonic male affection was essentially invented back then, but that does place the theory under completely different circumstances that simply cannot be translated into today’s jargon as “bromance.”
- As Stephen Colbert says, “All or nothing.” Claim bromance comes from one of the big three classical philosophers, but then you absolutely must promote gay sex amongst the military to build a more emotional (and therefore effective) fighting force.
Bromanticism
The term is not only homophobic. It’s really sexist against men. This is a mutated form of self-hatred propagated by males, against males. It assumes that males cannot have a platonic, respectful, and — dare I say — loving friendship that is not physical. Because they are incapable?
It stifles the male identity into not being able to be loved by another man for their personality or friendship. There must be a motive. That motive, with straight males, is generally sex. But deeming it a ‘bromance”, it makes it okay. It’s special and different and absolutely not gay.
Ideally, there should be exploration and encouragement, without stifiling of identity. Not schoolyard self-deprecation to save oneself the hassle of being called names like, “faggot” because of how you enact appreciation and friendship.
Some guy did a lot of research on bromance and should be given a bromance prize of some sort.
I liked Watchmen. As a comic book-fan unacquainted with the original comic book series, it was really interesting to see the deconstruction of the superhero.
Equally interesting were the audience of pale-skinned, glasses-wearing males in the theater. Scattered in-between were the female counterparts. But in the theatre, my sister (whom I dragged to the premiere) and I were the only two females visible to us that were escort-less.
The group of three men behind us, were loud during the opening commercials. There was one ad featuring Danica Patrick, the NASCAR driver. Danica Patrick is also lucky enough to be in a future post regarding GoDaddy girls and neanderthals.
The one on seated on the end, his blue-jeaned legs spread with bony knees protruding through the top, hid behind a giant trough of popcorn.
“Damn!” he said, during one of her monologues describing her near-fatal crash.
“How does a chick that hot get into nascar?”
His friend must be a fan, or at least a casual biographer.
“Her daddy’s a driver.”
He went on to ask a new question a few minutes later.
“Is it gay to play the violin?”
The sage was unsure.
“Will you play it all the time?”
“Well there are these lessons. They’re $120 an hour. But then you have to rent the violin for forty, so it ends up being about 180 dollars.”
“Yah, that’s kind of gay.”
“Oh, I thought it could just be something I did on the side.”
“But that’s three dollars a minute. And it’s not the guitar or the drums.”
The third friend concurred.
Dr. Manhattan from the comic book series
Then only a few minutes into the 2 hour and 46 minute narrative, the first giant blue penis showed up.
Their reaction: “OH, DAMN! That thing is huge!”
It’s always been quixotic to me, the way the muscular masculine ideal has been idealized, and yet was only somewhat recently considered by the mainstream as homoerotic. I’m thinking specifically of Hancock, the scene where he points out the numerous “homos” of outfit-wearing comic book stars.
There’s a tenuous balance between being masculine and awesome, and a bit too flamboyantly masculine. Why would it not be all right to play a certain instrument, but it’s okay to pay to watch an only somewhat-clad giant vaporize Vietnamese soldiers?
On the female nudity front, there was surprisingly little. Of course, it’s almost necessary to have a sex in a movie like the Watchmen, and it was during that scene. It didn’t feel gratuitous, though in the context of sex during a fanboy flick how could it not, so I give it a thumbs up on being — if only fractionally — progressive.
“Rosa Parks didn’t do nothin’ but sit her black ass down.”
- Cedric the Entertainer Barber Shop
We like our (raced) activists sacrificial, unassuming, demure.
Consider the following activists: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Harvey Milk.
What the general public knows, or thinks it knows, is that Rosa Parks was a meek, married woman with tired feet. Little referenced is the fact that she was the secretary of her chapter for the NAACP and had studied nonviolent social change.
Her refusal to give up her seat to a white man was the third documented event of its kind. Not, say, Claudette Colvin, who did the same as Parks, but as a 15 year-old girl nine months prior in 1955. It was Parks, however, that took the spotlight.
Instead, we like to think of our raced activists as people who are non-violent folks, “just wanting to be equal to the white man.” Note MLK’s “I have a dream speech” in which only black and whites are mentioned, leaving out everybody else.
Note also the tragic misunderstanding of Malcolm X as a violent monster, in retaliation for his affirmations that blacks should be treated as people. He spoke in favor of self-defense. For that, lost his chance at having a day named after him, like his peaceful “don’t-fight-back” counterpart.
Whites on the other hand, can be go-getters. Harvey Milk, for example, was ambitious and driven. He became an icon, and the greater public is getting around to loving him for it. At least in the movies, anyway. Not once in his cinematic depiction was “greatness thrust upon him” the same way people like to think Parks did.
What does this mean?
