Andrew Dodge on the term metrosexual, as well as a brief comment on The Man Essay:
Kim makes some valid points, but he hides them in a thick vaneer of machismo, swearing and downright idiocy. I mean, he praises The Man Show, one of the lamest things on TV. He lays into Queer Eye for a Straight Guy as well, obviously totally missing that its suppose to be funny!
I watched a few episodes of The Man Show back when I had cable teevee, and it struck me as a one-joke show with a short shelf-life. A few of its episodes were amusing (there was one where the guys set up a booth at some college feminist festival of some sort with a platform of "stopping women's suffrage"; half the people that came up to them had no idea what "suffrage" meant -- obviously they thought it meant something like "suffering") but I didn't think much of it. As for the Queer Eye show, I tried to watch it, and lasted for about thirty seconds until the whiny voice of one of the principals drove me to grab the remote. Perhaps if I still had cable teevee I'd give the show another chance. Also, I guess this show's conception and popularity means that terms like "queer" and thinking of gay men as being obsessed with fashion is okay for straight people to indulge in again.
Be that as it may, people in the comments to this post have already pointed out that terms for something like "metrosexual" already exist: "fop" on the negative side, and "gentleman" on the positive side. I have another one that is somewhat negative: "dandy." All those terms seem quite adequate as well as preferabble to the silly "metrosexual." Whoever came up with that should be forced to eat an entire Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
Posted by Andrea Harris at November 8, 2003 09:07 AMI thought you had cable---I thought you were getting it with your cable modem.
If you had, you may have been watching A&E last night, and joined me in noticing that Hercule Poirot is a metrosexual. Er, with heavy emphasis on the metro, and light on the sexual.
Makes the whole concept seem real dull, which it is.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at November 8, 2003 at 12:40 PMI can understand saying that dandy is negative but I don't find fop that negative actually. Metrosexual is a rather silly term, but it seems to wind up people who think of themselves as "real men" something cronic.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge at November 8, 2003 at 05:55 PMI only have cable internet. Brighthouse charges separately for cable tv. If I had both, just basic channels would mean I would be paying $100 per month. I can't afford that; I can barely afford the $45.00 or so I am paying for cable internet but I refuse to go back to dialup. I used to have cable tv at my other place; but it was too expensive and I decided not to get it again when I moved. I just don't watch tv that much -- though the few things I did watch were things like Poirot. But I can always rent the dvds out.
I have heard that there is a way to get cable illegally through the modem setup, but I refuse to do that. I'm not a thief.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at November 8, 2003 at 08:01 PMI saw that episode of the "Man Show" too. Mind I agree: the episode was mostly crud. But I thought that particular skit was hysterical in a kind of "Name your Congressional Representative" sort of way.
Posted by: Anna Bunny at November 8, 2003 at 08:16 PM"Gentleman" corresponds to 'metrosexual'? In what universe?
Posted by: Mark at November 10, 2003 at 01:48 PM