New Girl isn’t a show to be taken seriously, which is most people’s problem when they watch it. Obviously not: no one actually puts on overalls and heels no matter how adorkable a personality they may embody, and no one agrees to have a threesome with their super and somehow get out of it okay (side note: don’t try this to prove a point). However, if you’ve bothered to stick with New Girl and its treacly, feel-goody-two-shoe-ness, you’ve noticed it actually touches on some substantial, introspective dilemmas. And most of these poignant points happen to be brought up by one of the three male protagonists, Schmidt.
Ladies…
Residential smartass and token Jew, Schmidt’s shtick is not only being the supposed alpha of the characters’ shared loft and total sex fiend, but also being overly metrosexual in ways that would probably make Pauly D uncomfortable. In fact, it could be said he’s one chest-wax job away from being gay.
Oh, heeey.
Alas, Schmidt’s main love interest in the show is named Cece, not Cecil, and his sexual prowess in the female category is the stuff of show legends. Obviously, Schmidt’s uber-metrosexuality is just another form of hyper-reality that serves as the basis of the show. That is, until you watch the Thanksgiving episode where Schmidt and his cousin have a “man-off”, and Schmidt, at the end of his tether after some beer-swilling and arm-wrestling, proclaims this:
“Your caveman ideas about manhood are so over. Manhood today is about exfoliation, and cheese courses, and emotional honesty, and Paxil.”
Amen.
Now again this may seem a bad sentence meant to compliment a poorly-written show, but just stop for a moment and look around you. Flip through a magazine and take a gander at the popular male celebrity archetypes of today. Ryan Gosling, Hugh Jackman, Matthew McConaughey: each one of them are some of today’s most famous “men”, their fame and the praise associated with surrounding it pertaining to for distinctly unmasculine qualities.
Now take Ryan Gosling and his accompanying smug mug, for example– ever hear of the book Feminist Ryan Gosling? Basically it’s a compilation of Ryan Gosling pictures (surprise) with captions politically-correct feminist captions. He’s a girl’s man, a man who would rather play songs to you on the ukulele and be known for passionately loving a mannequin then as opposed to that ultimate BAMF in Drive. Hugh Jackman? He was in Les Miserable, for Christ’s sake, and looked completely at ease as opposed Russell Crowe, who is a man’s man and properly looks like he feels like a douche as he sings in a musical wearing tights and a tri-cornered hat. Yes, Hugh is definitely womanly, kicking legs higher than Liza Minelli ever could and having magazines schmooze over his love of yoga and expressions through song. And Matthew McConaughey? Aside from the fact that he is, in reality, not hot, if a guy overtly spends more time on his hair than me, there’s a distinct problem. Take into account that each one of these “modern men” have made it big in rom coms, and the pattern is complete. And, due to subliminal copycatting and the constant desire to get laid, guys everywhere seem to have picked up the trend.
Hooray!
Subliminal messaging affects guys just as much as it affects us. “What women want” dictates how men may act just as much in the same way a Victoria’s Secret ad might. And in this era where the men of old are now painted as nothing more than misogynist control freaks, a man that women relate to in the sense they are more effeminate in qualities has sparked a rage in which strumming guitars is in and power is out.
What people forget, though, is that that power wasn’t necessarily all bad. It’s not a matter of bringing home the bacon or ordering a girl’s drink for them or even getting into fights just to get into them: it’s a power in which a guy is willing to assert his physical capabilities by holding a door open and maybe throwing a few punches when someone disrespects a girl he cares about; it’s a willingness to sacrifice emotive responses in consideration of another’s reaction; it’s caring about someone in a way that they want them to have as many things as possible, both material and not. And this is what guys today seem to be afraid of, that these actions may somehow be taken offensively and they, in turn, are now social pariahs.
So go ahead, boys– swill the beer and arm wrestle away. Better to be an honest caveman then a thoroughly exfoliated wannabe.