The 1933 film version of HG Wells’ The Invisible Man is hilarious to today’s eyes. Director James Whale employed the latest, cutting edge technology for the visual effects: the very finest nylon wires were used to drag chairs, throw bicycles and leave cigarettes smoking themselves as they hovered magically in mid air. All this to convince us that a man can become invisible. Today’s movies, comedies, dramas, sitcoms…and all the bloody adverts that punctuate our daily entertainment, are by contrast, deliberately vaporising men in a much more pernicious and underhand manner.
Scary looking German philosopher Oswald Spengler had already predicted the gradual erasure of men in his 1918 book ‘Decline of the West’. His argument in a nutshell, was that cultures behave like organisms, and the West is in its final winter phase becoming more materialistic, more cynical and much less spiritual. Most significantly, he observed that in late stage civilisation men become more pacifist, more romantic…basically more feminine. He notes how Roman sculptures illustrate this perfectly: early statues depict men as virile and muscular whilst late empire sculptures are clearly fey and effeminate as the culture loses its sense of purpose and knows, subconsciously, that it’s going to hell in a handcart.
Fast forward a hundred years and Ozzy’s politically incorrect prophecy has snapped into sharp focus. Today, we may not be big on chiselling our icons from marble, but you only need flick through the TV channels, like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth, to realise that men are largely portrayed as useless, feckless goofs: you’ll witness an endless parade of Homer Simpsons befuddled with life and whose purpose on planet Earth is to be little more than a beer-bellied obstacle in the path of a competent woman. Watch a few detergent ads, for example. The misogynistic 1950s stereotype that depicted women in the kitchen has been burned, buried, salted and swiftly replaced by an army of comedy doofusses who have no clue which end of a mop does the mopping. Real men are being eradicated.
Need more evidence? Compare the male models of the 1990s to today’s gender questioning ‘lads’. If in some weird glitch in the matrix a fight broke out between the two decades I know which side I’d rather be on.
Testosterone is not just being overlooked or pushed to one side. It is actively despised for being the seed that blossoms into toxic masculinity. In reality though, it is the hormone that builds muscle and boosts our metabolism…and not just in men. Whether it’s oestrogen in the water or glyphosates in our Shreddies, the fact is that our testosterone levels have been sliding downhill for decades. As this vital hormone drains away we don’t just lose muscle we also lose our energy levels, our libidos and our motivation. Consider a future where there are too few men to manage the oil rigs, build the bridges and sewers or lay the roads. It also means fewer entrepreneurs and risk takers, fewer start ups, less innovation. Spengler was spot on.
The big construction companies are well aware of the dwindling supply of strong men. That’s why they’re investing multi millions into the likes of Walter and his Australian counterpart, Hadrian, two bricklaying robots that they hope will come to the rescue. Yes, they can build two hundred square metres of wall in a day and work in all weathers without tea or fag breaks, but they still need a man to watch over them. In between writing poems and pressing flowers, presumably.
Men are retreating from every corner of the culture that only a handful of years ago we thought were exclusively ours. And we can’t pin the blame on women or feminism for that. We sat idly by, hands clasped and lips pursed like a disapproving aunt at a wedding as we watched our territory being reclaimed and rebranded, slice by slice.
The movies are literally awash with small, perfectly formed females beating up men twice their size. The patriarchy has clearly been the enemy for the last three decades or so. Buffy the Vampire Slayer probably kickstarted things back in the early nineties but it was Kill Bill (2003) that really smashed its way into to our zeitgeist. The floodgates were opened and the endless slew of kick-ass chicks shows no sign of abating. Now this is all good fun stuff, but what gets tiresome is the persistent insidiousness of male evaporation in every TV drama. Every judge, every super smart lawyer, the forensics expert, the chief superintendent…they’re all women, mixed race ones too, just in case you forgot they can be clever. And you can be damn sure the villain is a weedy white male, to hammer home that he is the real enemy. Meanwhile, obsequious male comics on panel shows join the fray, smugly ridiculing their own gender as if they live permanently above us in TV land, where no man was ever seen swearing in a pub or flirting with the checkout girl in Sainsbury’s. It’s so desperately, desperately predictable that it’s become unbearable, like a constant whining, whinging noise that comes with owning a TV.
In the final scene of The Invisible Man, as Dr Jack Griffin slips away on his deathbed, he paradoxically becomes visible once again. And if old Spengler was right he predicted that at the end of our cultural ‘winter phase’ we will see the revival of virility and the emergence of a Caesar-like figure bringing in a new wave of political power in the hope of saving us.
What on earth could he have meant?
Howard Saunders is a writer, speaker and the Retail Futurist
howard@22and5.com
@retailfuturist
