Don’t be shallow, part II

The ovarian cramping from all the Jude-viewing has subsided, although apparently I have now passed it along to obsessedmuch, who has finally received my icon choices. Sorry, sweetie.

I would like to take this moment to say thank everyone who filled out the poll and responded to the questions in my previous post. You’ve all made excellent points about lookism and the downside of The Pretty. You’ve also been very honest about your feelings, and I appreciate that greatly. I mean you’ve all been so great I kind of wish I was writing a paper on this or something, because this is some great information about how human beings respond to aesthetic stimuli.

I think it’s pretty evident, based on your answers, that the vast majority of us would like a Man, however the Boys are not to be discounted. Nor are The Others, no matter how intimidating or disconcerting their beauty may be. Also, my profound apologies for not including something for The Others, i.e. I Like Women, Dammit!. I didn’t meant to be sexist or elitist. It has also been pointed quite a bit that perhaps I have left out what most of us really want which is The Boyish Man. Or as lalejandra called him, The Dude. (I should point out that when she first said The Dude, I thought of The Big Lebowski).

This Boyish Man/Dude perhaps is not everybody’s ideal, but I will say hands down that he’s certainly mine. This is the man who wears his Brioni suits during the week and then comes home, kicks off his shoes and then cooks dinner barefoot. This is the man who reads the Wall Street Journal and then wants to talk about the morning Boondocks/Doonesbury strip. The Boyish Man is the guy who flips between CNN and the Cartoon Network and on the weekend runs around picking up his dry-cleaning in his Pumas. This is the man that I would like, and it seems that more than a few people agree with me, and several more are already married to him. I happily congratulate you.

I haven’t drawn any enormous, mind-blowing conclusions from the conversations I’ve had with you lot, in fact, I suspect that you’ve only confirmed what I’ve already believed all along:

The grass always appears greener on the other side of the fence.

Some of us are more inclined to empathize, some of us figure if you’ve made your pretty bed, you better bloody well lie in it. And since all of this is some how the fault of Mr. Law, I will take a moment to talk about fame and something that’s rather close to my heart – The Idea of Perfectionism and Entitlement.

IMO, perfection is something that simply does not exist. It’s an ideal that people strive for but will continue to find elusive. Perfection is the brass ring on the Merry-Go-Round that you will break your neck trying to reach. No one is perfect. Not you, or me, or even Jude. Yes, he is a Beautiful Man, but he is still only a man. He gets spots. He got divorced. He’s not perfect. He’s just a person who bleeds and thinks and believes, and he’s entitled to be so and do so, just as you and I are entitled to do the same. At the end of the day we’re all just people, no matter how we look. We’re not perfect; and we’re all going to die one day and that won’t be perfect either. What’s important is how we treat one another, how we get along, and the respect, trust and love that we earn. No one is entitled to anything from anyone else simply because you are attracted to them, or they are attracted to you, or you own all their movies and think they’re really hot.

And that’s that.


*In a completely un-related note, why has no one talked about the fact that Adam Brody is going to be in Mr and Mrs Smith with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? That’s a whole lot of aesthetic appeal right there, you know. I was going to talk about Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow with Angelina and Jude, but then I saw the trailer, and yeah, oh well.

Don’t be shallow, part III

Pursuant to the last two entries, I would like to point out that at no time have I meant to insinuate that one can only be a Man if one wears suits, is in possession of a white-collar job and drives a bloody Volvo.

“Men” are not required to own more than one button-down shirt or have more than three pairs of dress shoes. Men can live in bloody shacks, kill their own food, and wear jeans 365 days of the year (Viggo) or never wear shoes (Peter) and look gorgeous in skirts (you name it). They don’t have to own Brioni or Ferragamo. Messieurs Levi and Taylor work just fine. Saying you must wear a suit to be a Man is like saying you must wear stockings to be a Woman: it’s fucking ludicrous.

Clothing does not make the man; material possessions do not make the man. A man is made up the things he does and the way he carries himself. Men are made up of deeds and actions, and preferably putting the toilet seat down. I have never meant to imply otherwise, and my apologies if anyone thought I had.

*No offense to the Volvo owners out there, either, I know you all have cars of bloody steel. Volvos are like the Cher of cars – completely indestructible, in the good way.

-Conversation Terminated-