I feel like bigtime male athletics – college and pro – are little more than a cesspool of the very negative attributes of maleness you are talking about, and networks like ESPN are the IV that just keeps pumping more of it into everyone's veins. I don't like to call people toxic, but that environment surely is.
On a positive note, I saved this from Nick Offerman a couple years ago. When he was asked the following by Esquire Magazine: "You're synonymous with being a man's man. What was the last thing that made you cry?" he answered the following:
"I went to theater school. I took two semesters of ballet. I'm the sissy in my family. I cry with pretty great regularity. It's not entirely accurate to equate me with manliness. I stand for my principals and I work hard and I have good manners but machismo is a double-sided coin. A lot of people think it requires behavior that can quickly veer into misogyny and things I consider indecent. We've been sold this weird John Wayne mentality that fistfights and violence are vital to being a man. I'd rather hug than punch. Crying at something that moves you to joy or sadness is just as manly as chopping down a tree or punching out a bad guy. To answer your question, I recently saw Alicia Keys perform live. I'd never seen her before and the sheer golden, heavenly talent issuing from her and her singing instrument had both my wife and me in tears. What a gorgeous gift she has. Her voice is so great. And I had no shame [about crying.] If you live your life openly with your emotions, that's a more manly stance than burying them."
Such good stuff from Offerman. Thanks for sharing it here. He’d definitely be in the camp of healthy masculinity to look to, as would you for that matter.
And you’re spot on about the environment ESPN has created.
I feel like bigtime male athletics – college and pro – are little more than a cesspool of the very negative attributes of maleness you are talking about, and networks like ESPN are the IV that just keeps pumping more of it into everyone's veins. I don't like to call people toxic, but that environment surely is.
On a positive note, I saved this from Nick Offerman a couple years ago. When he was asked the following by Esquire Magazine: "You're synonymous with being a man's man. What was the last thing that made you cry?" he answered the following:
"I went to theater school. I took two semesters of ballet. I'm the sissy in my family. I cry with pretty great regularity. It's not entirely accurate to equate me with manliness. I stand for my principals and I work hard and I have good manners but machismo is a double-sided coin. A lot of people think it requires behavior that can quickly veer into misogyny and things I consider indecent. We've been sold this weird John Wayne mentality that fistfights and violence are vital to being a man. I'd rather hug than punch. Crying at something that moves you to joy or sadness is just as manly as chopping down a tree or punching out a bad guy. To answer your question, I recently saw Alicia Keys perform live. I'd never seen her before and the sheer golden, heavenly talent issuing from her and her singing instrument had both my wife and me in tears. What a gorgeous gift she has. Her voice is so great. And I had no shame [about crying.] If you live your life openly with your emotions, that's a more manly stance than burying them."
Such good stuff from Offerman. Thanks for sharing it here. He’d definitely be in the camp of healthy masculinity to look to, as would you for that matter.
And you’re spot on about the environment ESPN has created.