Stong man. Powerful man. Pulsing depths man.
I don't usually like ballet, but this guy is pretty amazing and I like the song. In looking up this link I decided to watch the original video and it left me confused. It was not what I expected from this video.
Angry men. Secret men. Lost men.
So I followed a link to this interview with the artist where he talks about the video as meditation on the church and free speech for GLBT people in Russia.
Thinking men. Enslaved men. Found but lost men.
And the video really reminded me of "No Church in the Wild" by Jay-Z and Kanye West
Angry men. Lost men. Destructive men.
And the continuing themes of these songs/videos of gay rights/manhood and the church reminded me of another song by one of my favourite chav boys Cosmo Jarvis with "Love This" with a lot of free wiggling penis.
Playful men. Thoughtful men. Questioning men.
This all brought me back to Ken Monkman. This painting is the size of a wall. Click on the link - what looks like a kind of typical 19th century battle scene between "savages" and "civilizers" is frenzied frolic of indians and soldiers waggeling their privates.
Lusty men. Playing men. Men transgressing boundaries.
So that was my meditation on modern manhood last night. They whole lot of us seem to be a bit lost and we can choose how we respond to those feelings. We can get poetic and powerful or angry, hurtful and lost. Traditionally constructed versions of manhood had little space for emotions that are not anger. It excites me to see men who are offering alternative visions of manlyness where strength does not mean dominance over others but can be a nuanced interplay of space and time and relationships.
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