Man Up!

Photo credit: explosivemusclegrowth.com

As a one who grew up in a household of stunningly talented, self-confident women, I was always impressed with the blunt idiocy of the boy-to-boy exhortations “Be a man!” and “Don’t be a girl!” These never corresponded with the way I selected my role models.

Don’t get me wrong: I like glib, razzing smack like “Grow a pair!” and “Show some sack!” as much as the next guy. The misplaced misogyny implied in the slight only adds to the silliness. The problem is that these insults are usually slung with only half the requisite irony. And it’s rarely edifying to inform people who have just cracked an almost funny joke that they have failed to understand the root of the humor, essentially revealing their own metaphorical impotence, not that of their quarry.

The crude, anatomical, synecdochic insults “Don’t be a pussy!” and “Don’t be a dick!” are, of course, the highest forms of the art. They are also the most telling. The former says to men: don’t behave in ways we find virtuous in women. The latter says: don’t behave like the man you are. Small wonder that the former never sounds smart and the latter always stings.

Do you have something to add on this topic? Don’t be a pussy; leave a comment. Just don’t be a dick about it.

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Haagen-Dazs, Mistaken Cause

Photo credit: Times of India

Indians have a strange love of parsing insults from the innocuous — or, as in this case, the poorly thought-through. Particularly when the phantom effrontery seems to come from foreigners.

The latest uproar involves a newly opened Haagen-Dazs ice cream store, which had the bad judgment to fly the banner depicted above to announce its store opening. It reads:

PARTIED AT THE FRENCH RIVIERA? WELCOME.

Haagen-Dazs

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS

Access restricted only to holders of international passports.

The reaction began with a sketchily described post by Times of India writer and Chief Editor of Times Internet, Rajesh Kalra, on his TOI blog, Random Access. According to Mr. Kalra, a pseudonymous “friend” of his was refused entry to this Haagen-Dazs store for failure to proffer an “international passport.”

I Love My Slumdog

As Oscar night draws near, Indian furor over Danny Boyle’s acclaimed film, Slumdog Millionaire, reaches a fevered pitch. India is being shown in a bad light! cry Indians who have never set foot in Dharavi or any other slum.

Indeed, they need not be familiar with the slum environment to mount their charge. Their complaint is fundamentally divorced from the question of the accuracy or fairness of Mr. Boyles’s depictions of the lives of slum-dwellers; it is about whether a foreign filmmaker is entitled to tell any story other than “India Shining”. This is a fable last told by the BJP in the 2004 elections. The Indian public didn’t buy it for a minute and, as a result, the BJP was able to snatch a stunning defeat from the jaws of victory. Congress has been running the government ever since.