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Local View: Unlike in football, macho mania is not the way |
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From the column: "We’re not immune here in Minnesota, as our state once elected a governor who was the epitome of a macho man, the wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura."
By John Freivalds
Published 9/8/2022
Duluth News Tribune
Football season is upon us and with it the glorification of violence and the language and culture behind it. Yet football is only a small part of the brutal macho mania that has seized Minnesota and the rest of the country with an apparent belief that brute force and violent language is what is needed to make things happen.
Just look at U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham’s recent warnings of violence if former President Donald Trump does not get his way.
The dictionary defines macho as “aggressively virile.” Remember, Trump considers Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader to be emulated, unlike a wimpy peacenik like Mahatma Gandhi.
I wonder where President Teddy Roosevelt would fit in with his motto, “Speak softly but carry a big stick!” We’re not immune here in Minnesota, as our state once elected a governor who was the epitome of a macho man, the wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura.
One of former President Trump’s advisors used the football term “Green Bay sweep” to describe how Trump could have bypassed the election that brought President Joe Biden to power by getting states to decertify election results. The “Green Bay sweep” was a famous play by storied 1960s NFL coach Vince Lombardi in which a Packers running back would pound around the end of the line behind a phalanx of blockers.
In that era, players were told to tough out their injuries even if they were to the head. Football was the perfect sport for macho mania. Tennis, baseball, basketball, volleyball, golf, marathons, the Tour de France, and water polo don’t have macho stars like football does, with its popular tough guys. Pickleball? Oh, yeah, then there are the brutal theatrics of Worldwide Wrestling.
Combine all that with the aftermath of America’s penchant for wars like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, which replaced the rather sedate GI Joe and John Wayne heroes with movie roughs like Rambo. You used to be able to get military clothes only at Army-Navy surplus stores. Now, sports outfitters carry them along with the popular high-powered weapons.
Look at the trucks macho men drive. No Priuses here. They usually have huge snow and mud tires with high road clearance and four-wheel-drive, even though Minnesota plows its roads constantly in winter.
To wit, one mud bog in Finlayson, not far from Hinckley, is the biggest in the state, and they charge $99 for a weekend pass which allows you your choice of bogs to get stuck in. Yep, you pay to get your vehicle stuck. When I explained all this to the Panamanian farmers I worked with in the Peace Corps, who face 40 miles of muddy roads day after day, they just looked at me and uttered “En serio? “Translation: “You gotta be kidding.”
And now this macho mania has morphed into something more sinister than toxic masculinity. Psychologist Ellen Hendriksen, writing in the Scientific American, noted, “But this scramble for dominance and denial of emotion comes at great cost. It blunts men’s awareness of other people’s needs and emotions, drives domestic violence, makes aggression look like a reasonable way to solve conflict, forbids even thinking about seeking mental health care, and pours fuel on the fire of drug and alcohol abuse. Toxic masculinity even invades life’s small pleasures. To paraphrase the comedian Bill Burr, the toxic man means you can’t admit a baby is cute, hug a puppy, say you want a cookie, (or) order banana pancakes.”
Other commentators say that to fit in the man box of toxic masculinity, a man must live by a particular set of beliefs and behaviors: Never lose, show no emotions other than bravado or rage, don’t depend on anyone, don’t do anything that could be construed as weakness, never admit defeat.
Sound like anyone we know?
John Freivalds of Wayzata, Minnesota, is the author of six books and is the honorary consul of Latvia in Minnesota. His website is jfapress.com. He wrote this for the News Tribune.