Why do gender-obsessed right-wing men accept Beck's sobbing?

[zazen]

I'm thinking because it's not over a woman but for our "country," which is as acceptable to the sexually insecure men in the right wing as crying during the 70s film Brian's Song.

But that's just my knee-jerk Southern progressive feminist analysis.

It just strikes me as odd that apparently hundreds of thousands of male fans, who look like the type who'd tell their sons to shut up and act like a man at the first hint of tears, seem to revel in the pasty, hairless Beck's tears. I'm not saying men ought not to cry if they're impassioned about something, but this seems to violate one of their core beliefs.

Maybe they want to cry and he somehow is a valve for them.

Did Goebbels and Hitler do this? Did Mussolini? They were certainly theatrical, but I don't remember the tears.

I do think many traditional evangelical preachers have cried. Maybe that's the tradition that makes it okay.

Theories welcomed.

And it's my 1000th post (after six years!)

[LiberalLoner]

1. I have no theories, no ideas, but congrats on 1,000! :)

[zazen]

17. thanks!! n/t

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Primitive culture is sentimental

In an adolescent (insufficiently objective) world-view the intensity of your emotions validates your thoughts and actions.

Even on DU intensity of personal feeling is often cited as if it is evidence of a position.

A man blubbering from his intense love of country, family, jesus, etc., etc. is a righteous and persuasive man.

Bob Dole cried all the time. Jimmy Swaggart... the Promise-keepers...

Let's face it. Men crying hasn't been a cultural negative for a long time. John Wayne-ism is dead.

[zazen]

14. thanks--that helps, but emotion seems to undercut women

don't you think? It seems to be evidence that our positions aren't to be taken seriously, not the reverse. But that is a more modern formulation, I guess. Women's pleas for mercy--the formal supplication--had a structure to them in the past and were an established genre of communication, and often got the desired end, at least in the public sphere.

[NightWatcher]

3. what I dont get is why Bible Belt Baptists are following a Mormon

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. Adherents of western religions....

... have been circling the wagons and joining forces against the forces of modernity ( e.g. secularism, liberalism, etc) for some time.

Take away the outside threat and they will go back to doctrinal infighting.

[zazen]

13. haha! I think he's less threatening because he "converted"

Most of the iconography that freaks people out about Mormonism starts in childhood up to and including the forced missionary work where you can't even go home if your mother's dying, renting the temple clothes and the temple wedding to a fellow BYU graduate, the "underwear. . . " Some of their rituals are similar to Southern fundamentalists, but the latter aren't as structured and overt about it (like the patriarch forcing the family to stay together on Sunday to be "taught" from his notebook, the prohibitions against French kissing even in marriage.)

I think Beck appears to have escaped the weirder aspects of Mormonism and just jumped in in his early 40s, so they're not as creeped out. But that's just an initial guess.

Oddly, though, he doesn't talk about Joseph Smith up there on the podium, though he's doing the same thing--equating America as God's new annointed land and the tea-partyiers as a form of latter-day saints.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. Interestingly posed. Fwiw, Reagan used to cry.....

... more or less on cue.

Of course, he was a trained actor.


Congratulations. ( And let's pick up the pace, shall we?)


>>>>And it's my 1000th post (after six years!)>>>

[old mark]

5. Maybe, deep inside,

they LOVE him....

:puke:

mark

[seabeyond]

6. football. i tease my guys, .... you men cry at nothing major, but football? win, lose

boohooing all over the place.

what is that?

my guys just love watching their sports with me.

especially when i start discussing the hugs, and pats on the butt.

but i have been thinking about this crying thing with beck too.

[NightWatcher]

9. sports movies. you forgot sports movies

Brian's Song
Rudy

[seabeyond]

11. oh... well, brian's song.

who wouldnt. i wouldnt want to be around the person that could control brians song.

though

toy story 3.... bah hahahahah, a whole other story. i got quite a kick out of all the guys, old and young boohooing in toys story.

now, i laugh, in a " i laugh with you not at you" kinda laugh, and a huge smile of .... understanding? kinda, sorta, since toy storing doesnt do it to me.

lol

[MineralMan]

10. Tut tut....you're bad...

:spank:

[seabeyond]

12. but... it is so. much. fun. lol. nt

[MineralMan]

16. Still....you're bad. Rilly, rilly bad to laugh at your guys that way.

Think of the psychological damage you're doing. :rofl:

[seabeyond]

19. ya ya ya.... i show the hypocrisy.

my husband cant express an emotion for anything in the world. love him dearly, but his mama knocked it out of him. i dont like it. he doesnt like it. and our boys won't get the same.

we call out all they hypocrisy and conditioning as if it is a game in our household. better balanced for it, too.

not afraid
never afraid

and

it is so much fun.

but it is not one gender sided. we do it with all in life. we like to play with the whole

[MineralMan]

20. New NFL Drinking Game:

Every time there's a butt-slap in the NFL game you're watching, you have to drink some milk. It'd be a great way to pump some Vitamin D into the crowd. Of course, with the price of milk going up all the time, it could get expensive. :rofl:

[seabeyond]

21. that is funny mm.

we will probably play with that too. i like.

[Orsino]

7. Because Beck obeys the unwritten rules...

...by pretending to cry only about intangibles like "democracy," "freedom" and flags. This is still considered mahnly, and makes it easier for him to pick their pockets.

[Javaman]

15. Only 3 reasons for real men to cry...

1)loss of a sports team in a championship (but a close game in the regular season will do as well)

2)dog dies

3)and any patriotic reason, real or imagined.

do I really need to add the sarcasm thing?

[FSogol]

18. TV Evangelists do that all the time.