{"id":262,"date":"2008-03-20T05:33:09","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T10:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=262"},"modified":"2008-03-20T05:33:09","modified_gmt":"2008-03-20T10:33:09","slug":"men-often-get-bad-rap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"Men often get bad rap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Men don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a fair break in popular culture. Notice the comic books of old, the Turner Classic Movies comedies, even today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sitcoms: Most of them show men \u00e2\u20ac\u201d incorrectly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as inept, overweight, bumbling, pathetic creatures ever in need of a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s guidance.<\/p>\n

An old comic strip, by today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standards politically incorrect, was named Denny Dimwit. It began as part of the Winnie Winkle strip and featured a youth with a long ears, a pointed head and a hat to match.<\/p>\n

And even Maggie & Jiggs, also called Bringing up Father, featured a wife who referred to her mate as “Insect,” and often pelted him with crockery.<\/p>\n

The hardest my wife Bonnie ever laughs is when watching a movie such as “The Big Lebowski,” with Jeff Bridges, in which there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of he-man posturing but little action. If women had been in that situation, Bonnie \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and virtually all women \u00e2\u20ac\u201d would believe, the situation would have been handled differently.<\/p>\n

The film “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?” features George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson as escapees from a prison chain gang. They bumble. In an early scene, Clooney, the only one of the three capable of abstract thought, hops a freight while the others, chained to one another, run alongside the moving train. The last one in line stumbles, yanking the others down with him. And jerking Clooney entirely out of the boxcar.<\/p>\n

Would the scene have been so gut-wrenchingly funny if played by women?<\/p>\n

Certainly not. They would not have needed to escape, as they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been imprisoned in the first place.<\/p>\n

And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enjoyable when women watch Richard Bucket (pronounced “bouquet”) get steamrolled by Hyacinth, his strong-willed spouse on PBS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 “Keeping Up Appearances.”<\/p>\n

Yeah, men get shortchanged in pop culture and literature, as lacking intelligence, courage and stick-to-it-ive-ness. The circulated e-mail that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doubtless arrived in everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in-box asks what would have happened if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been three wise women who came from the east at the Nativity.<\/p>\n

Well, instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the women would have taken practical gifts, helped with the delivery and remained to clean up the manger. And, to hear the distaff version told, one would think the wise women would have arrived earlier and used a cell phone or GPS instead of following a star, or at least they would have asked directions.<\/p>\n

By the way, the nativity scene, especially in the Deep South, often is painted with the three magi dressed in firefighter garb, with hoses and axes. Why this attire? Well, the Bible says the wise men came from afar.<\/p>\n

But away from fires and back to public perception of males in pop culture:<\/p>\n

Early TV series such as The Life of Riley, Gomer Pyle, USMC and even Green Acres customarily limned the males as objects in need of correction. Was there ever a female counterpart to Dagwood, for example?<\/p>\n

A modern variation of the eternal question, “If a tree falls in the forest …” asks, “If a man says something in the forest, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?”<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope for us males. What has been needed is a clear declaration of what we may call “Guys\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Rules,” which try to give our side of the story and possibly elevate our status in pop culture. Because I received this set on the Internet, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve no doubt it will become as ubiquitous as the Nigerian Bank e-mails, all of which are destined to deposit at least $5 million in my personal bank account. Several such installments are due as early as this week.<\/p>\n

So, for the good of huMANity, here are a few rules to level the playing field:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Learn to work the toilet seat. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a big girl. If it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up, put it down.<\/p>\n

We need it up, you need it down. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear us complaining about your leaving it down.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Sunday sports. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Shopping is not a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Anything we said six months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after seven days.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 All men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine.<\/p>\n

Really.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask us what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or a zone defense.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 I am in shape. Round is a shape!<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight. But did you know men really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mind that? It’s like camping.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Men don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get a fair break in popular culture. Notice the comic books of old, the Turner Classic Movies comedies, even today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sitcoms: Most of them show men \u00e2\u20ac\u201d incorrectly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as inept, overweight, bumbling, pathetic creatures ever in need of a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s guidance. An old comic strip, by today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standards politically incorrect, was named […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}