Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Now That We're Men!~

I personally believe both Crew and Theroux are having the same conversation. That being said they come at the issue from two completely different angles. In response to society's question of "What makes a man a man?" Theroux attacks the normal view of what manliness is. He bashes sports, blaming them among other things for rape and why manly men are influenced to be horrible people. Seeing manhood as the bane of society, Theroux is extremely pessimistic about the future of manliness. Theroux doesn't really offer a solution to the question, taking the position that people should be people and not necessarily a definitive man or a woman. Crews on the other hand embraces the concept that really being a man in this day and age is viable. He is "optimistic about the state of manhood." Although his view differs from the classic, strong man who doesn't express emotions and is supposed to win the bread, Crews thinks men can still be men in the sense that us guys strive for. He even addresses norms, stating that though men don't have to fall into roles. In his view, genders can serve their purpose while remaining fluid. Contrary to Theroux, Crews thinks a male can be a man without asserting the dominance that leads to rape culture. I understand that Theroux is attacking gender roles in general and I can respect that, but I wholeheartedly agree with Crews. Often times as men, we are in a tough position with the growing animosity towards gender roles conflicting with the pressure to be a man. Crews achieves what Theroux does not in his argument by giving us guys a bit of a solution: That we need to tackle the stump of the problem and not leaf-by-leaf.

2 comments:

  1. I would agree with this completely because it does seem as if Crews and Theroux possibly have the same views but they just go about expressing them in completely different ways. When watching the interview and reading the article I did sense two different tones in their messages. It does seem as if Theroux is more fed up with what society has deemed “manly,” as opposed to Crews who is sort of analyzing it more. This could be because Theroux is actually just that much more frustrated with the topic but I also think the audience has to take a look at the context of each message. For example, Crews is participating in an interview, which are usually one-one confrontations. Interviews are usually more like a conversation where both the interviewer and interviewee discuss the topic and their views on it. Since Crews is actually having a conversation, I think he needs to “keep his cool” a little more. He needs to sound reasonable and actually develop his ideas and solutions for the interviewer. This differs from the situation that Theroux is put in because sometimes when authors write articles, the audience sees it more as a rant than a discussion. Theroux uses the article to express his thoughts and he does so in not as much of a well-mannered way. He sort of just rampages on about his frustrations without formulating a solution. I feel this has a big impact on what both authors are saying. They might agree completely on their views but because of the context of these two pieces, they put out a different message.

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  2. I certainly agree that Terry Crew and Paul Theroux have the same ideas on how manhood should be handled. However, each of them have a different “so what?” About what really makes and real man and what not. Terry Crew talks about how the idea of being a man, and having to be strong at all times in every situation is harmful. He provides a true story about how him, and his 6 year old son went to watch a movie and his son was not prepared to see that kind of action movie, and he noticed that his son was trying to be strong and not disappoint his father because he was terrified by the movie. Terry then realized that it is okay to be scared, and not to be afraid to show its emotions. On the other hand, Paul Theroux makes his point by explaining how man are being represented in any men doesn’t go as the norm follows in the manly hood. He describes why he hates being a man and the way he was being raised, because he wasted most of his childhood years wasting his time trying to play sports, and trying to be strong instead of actually doing and practicing what he loved to do most, write. So, to answer the so what question of this aspect, I believe that each of these men are right about the concept of manhood, you don’t have to be strong and play sports to be a real man you can also be scared and face the fact that maybe you are aren’t ready yet.

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