As many of you know, I am
an actor.
I even got paid to be an actor. Once. $20.00 an hour. I was hired by the University of Pennsylvania Medical School's Cultural Sensitivity Department to portray a mega-prick doctor treating (and mistreating) a patient with AIDS in a training web video for med students and physicians. You can watch me critically raise one eyebrow as I spout off insensitive gems like,"You're not gay, are you?" And, if you're a doc, you can get one whole CME credit, just for watching that shit!
All the other times I've appeared on stage and on film it's been for free, and, usually, it's been degrading. In 8th grade, I appeared in my middle school's production of The Pajama Game in a pair of boxer-shorts in front of hundreds and hundreds of amused (or were they bemused?) parents of my peers. And that was just the beginning.
Recently, I've run into a bit of a streak of portraying men from the armed forces. Sort of. In 2006, I appeared as
Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. in a production of
H.M.S. Pinafore, and it was easily one of the gayest, twittiest roles I've ever done. And, as they say, I've been doin' this for a minute. Next Friday, I will inhabit the body and yellow shoes of the slightly psychotic General
Genghis Khan Schmitz in a production of
Seussical. In November, it's back to the merry and silly world of G&S where I will once again don a uniform to play
Major-General Stanley.
I'm currently growing out my beard so that I can sport ridiculous facial hair for General Schmitz. For dress rehearsal, I'll shave off most of it, probably leaving a silly moustache and perhaps a pair of mutton chop sideburns to complete the effect. I've gone back and forth about what to do with the facial hair. Not that it's especially important, but I'm a fan of concerning myself with the irrelevant.
Keeps me off drugs.
All of these recent affiliations with militaria have gotten me thinking about the image of the military man over the centuries and how it's changed. Of course, the ideal of manhood has changed significantly over time, but I don't know how often it's been seriously considered. We give a lot of thought in this society about the image of the ideal woman, because women are hot. There's always talk about the ideal shape of a woman. Perfection of the female form in the
1860s was quite different from that of the
1950s, which was, of course, very, very different from the feminine ideal of, say, the
1990s.
But nobody looks much at the change in men, much less military men. Today, we don't even think twice about our image of the perfect military man. He's butch. He's tough. He could kill you with his pinkie finger. Fuck, he's so tough, he doesn't even have pinkie fingers. He's too fucking tough for pinkie fingers. He's got 10 fucking middle fingers-- to flip off OSAMA!
FUCKIN' AYE FUCK YEAH! HERE HE IS, YOU LITTLE FUCKPUSSIES!
This is what we expect our military men to look like nowadays. This is the modern ideal of a soldier. Macho. Threatening. Butch. Crewcut. Armed to the teeth. A negative grimace. Piercing eyes. Of course, it also doesn't hurt if his little dogtags rest in between two killer pecs, too.
Isn't that right, Major Hottie?
Though it might be hard to believe, this isn't always how it was. Bullet-chomping bunk-hunks weren't always the way military men rolled. Macho wasn't always the preferred aesthetic for the men of the armed forces. I mean, take a ride in the old DeLorean with me back just a couple centuries and get a load of old Lieutenant General Cornwallis.
Macho? Hardly. Fit-and-finish? Lacking. His dog-tag must have resided quite comfortably between his boobies. Look at the walking stick. Look at the effete positioning of the left arm and hand, as if to say, "A
battle? Now? Oh, no, luv-- I just had these nails done!"
Now, I know what you're going to say: He's British-- of course he's gay. They're practically synonyms. Well, that may be true, but let's look at someone from the other side of the pond, from that same time period.
Look at this string-beany little wank. Just look at him. The father of our country. He's trying to be macho, but look at how he's forcing his arms to rest straight at his sides. You know he's doing everything in his power to restrain himself from resting one hand daintily on his hip. Come on, look at how he's straining. He's dying to do it. It's okay, George. Do it. Do what feels natural. It'll feel good.
Ahhhhhhhh...... See? Doesn't that feel better? Good. Now get away from that horse, you fucking pervyderv.
Moving up a century or so, we see that much as changed in the realm of the military ideal. As in the civilian world,
powdered wigs are out, and
facial hair is in. The advent of the photograph and the daguerreotype have brought us copious images of the military ideal during the Civil War. There's my personal favorite, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Brevet Major-General:
Now that is a 'stache that says "knock off that slave and secession bullshit already," am I right? See-- we're getting butch-er, but we're not quite there yet. Can't you just picture the photographer giving out his instructions for this photograph?
"Okay, Lawrence. I see you've blown-dry your moustache. That's okay, I guess. No harm done. Just... listen-- just put your hands in your lap. Stare off vacantly into space and, please, for the love of God, try not to look gay. Just, you know-- don't do anything gay. I mean, this is 1865 already, you know? Just, remember: D.B.G. Don't be gay."
And I think, for the time, he's doing a pretty good job of keepin' it D.B.G. It's not easy. It's just hard for modern Americans to believe that people who looked like this seriously picked up guns and swords and bayonets and fucking killed other people who looked like this. We could maybe picture Joshua Chamberlain inviting a regiment from the 15th Alabama over to his house and poisoning their tea, but shoving his sword through one of their heads? I don't think so.
And then there's this guy-- he just screws up all valiant attempts at butchness.
You just had to put your hand on your hip, didn't you?
World War I was, I feel, the turning point. It was the transitional, liminal period between the genteel warrior/gentleman and the fightin' bastard that we have come to expect. I mean, I wouldn't want to fuck with these guys:
Then again, I'm pretty sure that this gentleman would rather join me for cocktails than shoot me in the face.
So three cheers for our military men, whether they fit into our stereotypical bullshit ideals of manhood or not. You're all patriots, valorous, dutiful and brave viscous killers in my book. And God Bless you for it. Better you than me.
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