Katha Pollitt's critique on American manhood is nothing new to those familiar with Micaela Deleonardo, Tessie Liu or other members of Northwestern University's Gender Studies Department. What is new is that a movie with the phrase "If we get laid tonight it's because of Eric Bana in Munich!" rouses as much debate about contemporary masculinity as Ellis' in your face satire American Psycho.
Two years ago, yours truly announced the arrival of the under-whelming, under-achieving, under-the-influence twenty-something, the Beta Male in the HTML of Sneer Magazine, which is now unfortunately defunct.
Around the same time, that slacker lothario of yore Benjamin Kunkel, who provided us the convenience of binding all our toilet paper with the publishing of Indecision, became the spokesperson for the listless lad in this Salon article.
And now it's Denby in the New Yorker and Pollitt again at the Nation decrieing the devolution of the alpha male into a castrated stoner who DVR's South Park reruns even though he already owns the DVDs.
What does this mean for dudes, Appatow or the box office of Superbad? Most likely nothing. But props to Judd for wrapping his hairy-ass Robin Williams knuckles around this cultural zeitgeist and ushering in a new panic regarding a slacker who's sperm count is so low he's confident there's NO WAY he can get someone pregnant.
Katha Pollit's not a lunatic and neither are the critics who are honestly concerned about the state of the Ameri-Man. It's a debate that's been raging for the past few years, only now Seth Rogen is the Donald Logue du-jour.
The real question remains, however: What the fuck is Michael Cerra going to do?
Two years ago, yours truly announced the arrival of the under-whelming, under-achieving, under-the-influence twenty-something, the Beta Male in the HTML of Sneer Magazine, which is now unfortunately defunct.
Around the same time, that slacker lothario of yore Benjamin Kunkel, who provided us the convenience of binding all our toilet paper with the publishing of Indecision, became the spokesperson for the listless lad in this Salon article.
And now it's Denby in the New Yorker and Pollitt again at the Nation decrieing the devolution of the alpha male into a castrated stoner who DVR's South Park reruns even though he already owns the DVDs.
What does this mean for dudes, Appatow or the box office of Superbad? Most likely nothing. But props to Judd for wrapping his hairy-ass Robin Williams knuckles around this cultural zeitgeist and ushering in a new panic regarding a slacker who's sperm count is so low he's confident there's NO WAY he can get someone pregnant.
Katha Pollit's not a lunatic and neither are the critics who are honestly concerned about the state of the Ameri-Man. It's a debate that's been raging for the past few years, only now Seth Rogen is the Donald Logue du-jour.
The real question remains, however: What the fuck is Michael Cerra going to do?
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