When Biceps Go Wrong
I asked my husband last night what he thought the theme of Manly Week, Day 3 should be, and he said “something sports-related.”
Now, beyond the basic rules of various games, I don’t really know anything about sports, so I’m a lousy candidate for sports discussion. I don’t get the appeal of spectator-ship. I’m not a sports person.
However, it does occur to me that withing the sports oriented community, there is a place were masculinity takes a wrong turn, and morphs into something horrible and disgusting.
And, that’s somewhere is the place where a man decides that he’s going to become Batman. Or, Superman. Or, the Incredible Hulk.
We’re talking about scary “body building” land monsters.
During all the “femininity” discussions that happened two weeks back, some people made distinctions between “femininity” and “womanliness,” arguing that the main difference between the two was that femininity is a manufactured costume, whereas womanliness is just what women are.
Perhaps there’s a similar difference between “masculinity” and “manliness?” Something the lines of “being a man” vs “being a man who is playing A Man for an audience?”
It seems likely to me. It’s called machismo, right?
There are the obvious players—professional wrestlers.
Booker T
Triple H
The Rock and The Big Show
John Cena in chains!!
But, this is a sports entry, and WWF is more like performance art. So, I’m gonna zone in on what seemed to be a man’s sport when I was a kid, and has turned into A Man’s sport.
Baseball.
Witness the land monstering.
First, this is what baseball players used to look like:
Di Maggio
Aaron
And, I’m from Dallas, so Nolan Ryan
They’re just not gigantic dudes. Certainly not after all that hot wrestling action.
Whereas today, we’ve got the usual suspects:
McGwire
Conseco
Bonds
Those are some big dudes. Maybe not linebacker big, but they’re working on it.
I, not being a sports person, do not get misty-eyed over things like sportsmanship and the outer reaches of human physical achievement. It’s kind of like not being a dog person. I, therefore, am not angry about the Land Monsterfication of professional baseball. Or, really, professional anything.
I think they oughta legalize the ‘roids, and let them boys go at it!! I want big, scary Greek Monsters to duke it out on the field, drooling and sweating growth hormones. The bigger the better, I say! And, then they can start adding cybernetic limbs and titanium bone replacements! It’ll be AWESOME!
I told you I don’t get it.
Anyway, sports seem to be the obvious venue… but in what other contexts to men perform as Men?
tags: manliness
I believe that all of the more contemporary baseball players that you listed have been caught or admitted to using steroids, partially explaining why they are so much bigger. And it’s not just baseball – I remember seeing an article (I think in National Geographic) some time ago illustrating how much bigger football players have become – apparently the average weight of a pro football player has increased two or threefold.
To me, the obvious venue that men perform as Men is the military. Everything about the military, militarism, and the way we talk about national security is premised on the idea of man the warrior protecting the women and children/homefront from other men: the white christian soldiers of the US vs. the bad brown Muslim men of al Qaeda/Iraq/insert oil rich country here.
— debbie Apr 4, 05:04 PM #
I know that in basketball, they’ve gotten so much bigger that it’s almost ruined the game. How hard is it to make a basket when you’re 9 feet tall?
And, yeah… war certainly qualifies.
— Veronica Apr 4, 05:14 PM #
One example of the rise of machismo/playing a Man on TV trend from my own subcultural mileau…metal. Metal was always a dude-centric thing, but it has become much more so over the last 10-15 years or so. I can remember when your average metal band was either A. a bunch of skinny, geeky looking guys who looked like they lived with their mothers, B a bunch of fat biker dudes or C. hairsprayed within an inch of their lives, and maybe a little gym-toned, but not huge. In contrast, most of the recent metal shows I’ve been to have looked like the WWF meets a Hells Angel convention. Huge men performing public displays that basically boil down to “my dick is huge, man, or at least I’d like you to think it is”. It’s kind of ludicrous. I have a pic somewhere of my favourite band standing next to Korn and there has to at least a 60-80 pound average weight difference. Those guys are fucking huge!
I hate to admit it because I used to love them but I suspect that Metallica may bear a lot of the responsibility for this. Them and Pantera, who I also love, but one has to admit that they were pretty heavy on the caveman schtick.
In terms of sports…take a look at hockey, too. If Wayne Gretsky was entering the game now he’d be crushed to a pulp by some 6ft7, 260 pound monster before he ever had a scoring chance. And like basketball it does indeed make the game less fun to watch for those who actually appreciate skill rather than just gigantic slabs of beef throwing themselves at each other.
— CassandraSays Apr 4, 05:36 PM #
Ya know, I’d blame the perennial pit more than any particular band.
The bigger you are, the more force your elbows have.
— Veronica Apr 4, 05:53 PM #
I’m not so sure about that. At last summer’s big metal festival I noticed a lot of bands adopting a gorilla-like stance. The body language kept making me think of Jane Goodall talking about the charge of the Silverbacks. There were lots of performers with the kind of biceps one only gets from serious weight-lifting. The dude from the Deftones looked like he belonged in the WWF. The whole vibe was very “watch the men celebrate their manliness”. It was a notably female-unfriendly atmosphere.
I suppose we could blame some of this on Danzig too.
Also, in reference to macho sports…the increase in weight in the NFL is starting to cause serious health issues. There was a dude who died recently and everyone seemed to agree that pro athlete level workouts in combination with weighing over 300 pounds was the cause.
— CassandraSays Apr 4, 06:39 PM #
Danzig. Rollins. And, really?! Deftones used to be normal sized!
— Veronica Apr 4, 06:55 PM #
we seem to have pretty much supersized everything in the past x decades. prolly something to do with post-war expansionism or summat
— belledame222 Apr 4, 06:59 PM #
I added GI Joe to the miX.
It’s a lot of peopel ar enot at all comfortable anymore with doing well as you are.
It’s not enough.
YOu can’t be teh man who is godo at this and notat that.
There is a whole groundswelel of resentment.
So they are performing more for each other than women.
S
— Blackamazon Apr 4, 07:43 PM #
I like the kind of manly that comes with getting muscular from working hard. Like Greek Gods lifting bulls or firemen with their big hoses, so to speak. People who are doing stuff. This whole overstuffed pincushion look of guys who are getting big just to get big—not manliness, IMO.
— Octogalore Apr 5, 10:00 AM #
Ummm, Triple H, Cena, and the Rock, oh my…
Athletes have absolutely become larger…female athletes as well, too, actually, in many sports anyway…I mean, compare Chris Everette to Venus Williams, size wise? Why? Simple…an athlete with skill will loose, in most sports, to an athlete with skill and size/strength.
And bodybuilding is a whole different mindset, for male and female body builders, I think…
bastions of “manliness”- the marines, frat houses, the foreign legion…
— RenegadeEvolution Apr 5, 01:18 PM #
V- The bass player from the Deftones now has gorrilla arms. It was rather alarming.
And as everyone is saying, this is all about men performing for each other. It’s a homosocial thing.
I do think that there’s a link between that kind of ultra-macho homosocial behavior and disparaging attitudes towards women, and often a link to actual violence against women too.
(Ducks for cover at tomatoes that will surely be thrown)
— CassandraSays Apr 5, 04:27 PM #
To all this I say ‘Amen’! I do not get the apparent appeal of sports either. With a few exceptions (my daughter and I, although we live apart, can watch some Ice Hockey matches together on TV with the phone—that I enjoy), I just do not get the male sports obsession. What is even odder is when women join in. I have a friend who is a (female) librarian who gets positively depressed when ‘their’ team loses. I find this strange.
The point here is that not all guys are sports nuts. Thanks for speaking out against those who are. Perhaps if I had joined a fraternity, I would get it. I am glad that I did not.
The CP
— The Combat Philosopher Apr 5, 09:32 PM #
Veronica, thanks for the awesome series, especially loved the MRA vs. sitcom dads thing.
I’ve been thinking a lot about masculinity these days.
Check it out:
Broken Social scene, Fire Eyed Boy (‘men’ and sports – hillarious!!!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GpXkNWZRnc
oh and this interesting clip re women, sports and media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luadmO7Cugc
— AradhanaD Apr 6, 03:13 PM #
Muscles…bleh. Therre’s the fitness of a man who tosses hay bales and cows for a living, and that is real and wonderful. Spare me the bodybuilders. That’s not even attractive.
— Rootietoot Apr 6, 04:38 PM #
Rootie—I don’t think it’s supposed to impress the ladies. I think it’s supposed to impress other dudes.
— Veronica Apr 6, 04:53 PM #
AradhanaD—That was a lot of sweatbands in one video!
— Veronica Apr 6, 04:54 PM #
he he he…. :)
— AradhanaD Apr 6, 06:23 PM #
I remember doing some reading for a course on nationalism about sports and war. Mostly pointing out that the language of sports and war are interchangeable, and that international competition during peace time replaces actual fighting.
— debbie Apr 7, 06:34 PM #
Veronica… one more far more apt video for you from broken social scene! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_FxR4UkgmA
— AradhanaD Apr 8, 10:06 AM #
That one is sort of depressing.
— Veronica Apr 9, 05:07 PM #