"Ask suburban women the question, 'Do you want your children to grow up to be like Donald Trump?' and they say 'no way'."
Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe
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| Hugh Hefner |
That doesn't mean people won't vote for him. Especially men.
Trump lives the Playboy Magazine dream.
Joe and Mika were on MSNBC this morning talking about polls showing that men were about dead even in support of Trump versus Biden, but generally winning against other Democrats--especially Elizabeth Warren--but then observing that Trump was far behind Democratic candidates among female voters.
Women were offended by Trump, Joe said.
Mika agreed.
Donald Trump projects a Hugh Hefner vibe that was in sync with the 1950s and early 1960s heyday of Playboy Magazine. In that imagined "great again" era, depicted in the Mad Men TV series, in the James Bond movies, and in Playboy Magazine, the rich, suave, urbane man-about-town understood and appreciated the finer things. His power and wealth allowed him to purchase a lifestyle that gave him access to women, that ultimate trophy.
James Bond wanted his martinis shaken, not stirred. Hugh Hefner preferred silk pajamas and a smoking jacket around the mansion, but dressed in tuxedos for parties. Donald Trump likes gold, on furniture and mirrors and in bathroom fixtures.
All of them liked beautiful young women, and got them. As Trump put it, "Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
Playboy Magazine was pre-"women's lib." Sex roles and expectations are changing in America. The forward edge of politically correct culture is well ahead of the attitudes of many. The role of women is a front in the culture war.
Democrats are ahead of Republicans.
Women are ahead of men.
The coasts are ahead of the heartland.
The secular are ahead of the religious.
The educated are ahead of the less educated.
College towns are ahead of industrial towns.
The jarring conflict between HR-department woke Democratic correctness and lagging attitudes was evident this morning at 5:30 a.m. PST, when the very MSNBC website video that showed Joe and Mika's discussion of this topic preceded by a 15 second version of this Paco Rabanne ad.
The ad is not politically correct. The ad does not show a sensitive, courteous, respectful man. He does get the girl. Watch the ad:
CLICK. Male Fantasy
The ad's music background is "Power" by Kanye West:
"No one man should have all that power
The clock's ticking', I just count the hours
Stop tripping, I'm tripping off the power. . .
Huh? Ma'fucka', we rollin'
With some light skinned girls, and some Kelly Rowlands."
Trump being a bully, with children by three successively younger wives, living lavishly, and breaking rules of decorum and law with defiance and impunity, is a male fantasy, still out there today, in 2019. At least advertisers think so.
Serious people look at an ad like this and understand it to be crazy, with no relation whatever to the serious business of governing a republic, nor a reflection of actual male thinking. It is no more realistic than Hugh Hefner in his 80s, being lusted after by 20 year old models.
But Trump projects something that Hugh Hefner projected as does the man in the ad: I have virile masculine power and it is great.
Really, really great.
Women were offended by Trump, Joe said.
Mika agreed.
Donald Trump projects a Hugh Hefner vibe that was in sync with the 1950s and early 1960s heyday of Playboy Magazine. In that imagined "great again" era, depicted in the Mad Men TV series, in the James Bond movies, and in Playboy Magazine, the rich, suave, urbane man-about-town understood and appreciated the finer things. His power and wealth allowed him to purchase a lifestyle that gave him access to women, that ultimate trophy.
James Bond wanted his martinis shaken, not stirred. Hugh Hefner preferred silk pajamas and a smoking jacket around the mansion, but dressed in tuxedos for parties. Donald Trump likes gold, on furniture and mirrors and in bathroom fixtures.
All of them liked beautiful young women, and got them. As Trump put it, "Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
Playboy Magazine was pre-"women's lib." Sex roles and expectations are changing in America. The forward edge of politically correct culture is well ahead of the attitudes of many. The role of women is a front in the culture war.
Democrats are ahead of Republicans.
Women are ahead of men.
The coasts are ahead of the heartland.
The secular are ahead of the religious.
The educated are ahead of the less educated.
College towns are ahead of industrial towns.
The jarring conflict between HR-department woke Democratic correctness and lagging attitudes was evident this morning at 5:30 a.m. PST, when the very MSNBC website video that showed Joe and Mika's discussion of this topic preceded by a 15 second version of this Paco Rabanne ad.
The ad is not politically correct. The ad does not show a sensitive, courteous, respectful man. He does get the girl. Watch the ad:
CLICK. Male Fantasy
 |
| Paco Rabanne |
The ad's music background is "Power" by Kanye West:
"No one man should have all that power
The clock's ticking', I just count the hours
Stop tripping, I'm tripping off the power. . .
Huh? Ma'fucka', we rollin'
With some light skinned girls, and some Kelly Rowlands."
Trump being a bully, with children by three successively younger wives, living lavishly, and breaking rules of decorum and law with defiance and impunity, is a male fantasy, still out there today, in 2019. At least advertisers think so.
Serious people look at an ad like this and understand it to be crazy, with no relation whatever to the serious business of governing a republic, nor a reflection of actual male thinking. It is no more realistic than Hugh Hefner in his 80s, being lusted after by 20 year old models.
 |
| If you don't like it, up yours! |
But Trump projects something that Hugh Hefner projected as does the man in the ad: I have virile masculine power and it is great.
Really, really great.
4 comments:
You report on a detail of a much larger, much more pervasive issue: Patriarchy
It could be said that the fundamental feature of a racist, misogynist, bigoted culture can be linked to patriarchy, not to mention the power structure of all religions.
I could go on, but just Google it.
In my day, I went for two types good, gentle guys and bad boys, alternating between the types. (I finally caught on to myself, thank goodness!)
Good guys could look even unattractive, be shorter,etc., if they were intellectual, or if they were on the "woke" path doing good deeds.
Bad boys better be good looking and sexually attractive, suggesting that they could, well, - perform. Money had nothing to do with it.
Trump is a corpulent, flabby and stupid excuse for a man, - so - nope!!
Patriarchy, testosterone, materialism, egoism, misogyny, addiction, fearful, in denial, naive, posturing, individualism, macho, homophobic, driven, competition...just a few of the terms that come to mind when describing the worst of the American male, or what Hemingway called the "American boy-men." They're caught in a trap, wearing "mind-forged manacles," isolated from their brothers. Read "The Heavy Bear" by Delmore Schwartz; he had their number long ago. The damage they do is incalculable. They and their promoters make me sad and I pray for them.
Andy Seles
Kanye West on Trump, 10.11.18: “I love this guy. I put on the (MAGA) hat and I feel like Superman.” Clearly a lack of authentic male energy in both their families of origin, as opposed to machismo. Read Jackson Katz on toxic masculinity.
“Campaigns for the U.S. presidency in the era of mass media," he wrote, "always turn on the personality and style of candidates, their skills at televisual performance, their race and gender, and how all of these interact with questions of national identity at a given historical moment.”
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