Back to Writings Main Menu
February 2003
The Entertainment of Emasculation
The cardiovascular section of my gym features 15 televisions. It also
has about 60 machines, which leaves four viewers for each screen. It
also means that if you're late to the party, you're at the mercy of
your fellow masochistic, sweat-pumpers and what, for them, qualifies
as distractive entertainment.
In the mornings, this merciless surrender may result in a lesson of
what's wrong with men as taught by the certified female clerics of daytime
talk shows. At night it may result in a lesson of what's wrong with
men as taught by any sitcom featuring a loving, doting, completely moronic
husband as the main character.
Needless to say, during a crowded time of day when few options are
available, a certain amount of profiling occurs. Case in point: on a
recent Tuesday night, my first option was saddling up next to a woman
in her mid forties, casually taking ten steps per minute on a treadmill,
while staring intently and nodding knowingly at the glowing box in front
of her. Oxygen Channel, I thought. I could feel my testosterone shift
in the other direction.
At the other end of the gym was a guy about my age, chiseled and feverishly
attacking a stationary bike as if he was willing it to break free and
take him through the wall. ESPN, I thought. I could swear I felt a new
chest hair pop at just that moment.
We exchanged the male gym greeting, a grunt with no eye contact, and
I started my warm up. After a couple of commercials, an announcer shouted
at me to stay tuned for the "top rated comedy, The World According
to Jim."
So there I was, settling in for thirty mundane minutes of elliptical
bliss, with nothing between me and the loss of 450 calories except Jim
Belushi and his clipped testicles. The whining, the moaning, the bitching
during the first five minutes had me in slack-jawed amazement. And this
was before the wife entered to squash whatever last remnant of manliness,
however minute, existed within his Mr. Rogers-like persona.
To label this mediocrity would be to insult an entire legion of minimalists.
Slackers are much more funny. Not as a sitcom idea, of course, but as
a people. Still, I couldn't blame Belushi for cashing a paycheck. It
was the writers, the producers, the upper brass of the network who all
decided that this banality, this pound-cake flavored slice of sub-par
mediocrity should be shoved down the throat of a nation starved for
something much more satisfying.
Then I realized that wasn't it at all. Historically, television has been
more miss than hit. But have men ever, at any time past, been portrayed
in a more non-Y chromosome manner? Seriously, I got the memo on women's
rights and fully accepted it in the true spirit in which it was written,
but I missed the addendum referring to the neutering of men as a deal
breaker.
It was at that moment when the machine I was on instructed me to "pedal
backwards." I couldn't help but recognize the irony. I wondered,
in the face of real day to day problems, real world issues and a time
where people seem to be fascinated and obsessed with the concept of reality
in general, what the hell happened to all the real men?
As the show ended, the guy next to me headed toward the exit. He hadn't
laughed once during the entire program. My curiosity got the best of
me.
"You enjoy that show?" I asked incredulously.
"Nah. Girl that plays the wife used to be hot on Melrose."
"Ah."
It was a glimmer, however small, of hope.
Enjoy the Issue,
Richard Botto,
Editor in Chief / CEO of RAZOR Magazine - The Definitive Men's Lifestyle Magazine
www.razormagazine.com
