Saturday, April 17, 2010

The notion of the typical American male: as portrayed by television, music, and film; the entertainment industry as an entity; in print and throughout social media, does not exist. The idea of an American male: the cast of Entourage; the men cast as men on Survivor or The Real World; the men who are supposed to be regular joe's on and in everything from Mad Men to American Idol, WWE wrestling to Ultimate Fighter, Entertaiment Magazine to GQ, are creations of an industry that do not aptly reflect what it really means to be an American man in 2010. For most of us, we are Tom Hanks in The Burbs and Ray Romano in Everybody Love's Ray; regular guys, with regular jobs, doing regular things. We like sports and television. We enjoy barbaques and a cold beer. We hold down good jobs but not great jobs, with salaries that feed our families but don't feed our dreams. Political views but not poitical visions. We love movies but won't ever be in them. We have wives and spouses, kids and relatives that we love. We watch after them, take care of them, and nurture their growth. We laugh and cry, live and die, in reality. There are no fairy tales, only life. Thats just a little bit of what we will discuss here on a routine basis.