![]() ![]() I imagined her asking us to talk about our problems, and telling us that she could de-puzzle our enigmatic identities by making us talk more about our “normal willies”. I imagined Moran barging into our rooms while we made desultory chit-chat, or played video games, or watched the football. The book is addressed to them: the default straight problematic males of the Western world. Ultimately our differences are marginal, and in MoranWorld, man or woman, bro or hoe, gentleman or lady, “we’re all just one of The Guys”.Īs I read What About Men?, I imagined how the book would go down with The Guys – some of the guys I’ve known all my life. It is a world without tragedy, where average people live average lives and everybody laughs at the same transparent jokes about farts and balls and cocks. It’s a padded, soft-play world in which men have role models who “honestly talk about the joys of going for a good poo”, where normal men have “normal relationships with their normal willies”, where there is finally a “male equivalent to the dancing-girl emoji”. ![]() … What About Men? does, at least, give us a clear picture of the world Moran would like to live in. Clichés are subverted in the same way: “If you’re tired of fanny, you’re tired of life,” writes Moran, with Dr Johnson screaming in his tomb… ![]() It leans heavily on replacing words with twee-whimsy Slanglish instead so “anal sex” becomes “botty fun”, and “urolagnia” becomes “getting widdled on by Mexican twins”. It confuses candour (“I have touched 14 penises in my life”) with honesty. It reads like it comes very easily to her. As a style, Moran-ese is aggressively demotic, creatively sweary, swift and glib. It gets very wearing.įor The New Statesman, Will Lloyd was brutally effective: Moran lives for groaning. Boys banter girls “have in-depth discussions about their feelings, hair, pets, favourite pencil cases, colouring-in abilities, and ambitions to, one day, run for Parliament”. Boys have bad handwriting girls have good handwriting. Tom Nicholson in the i writes: In trying to explain men in broad brushstrokes, tends to boil them down into a testosterone-scented goo. Moran is a star and, when you’re a star, people laugh even when you’re talking balls. is someone who has gone years without experiencing the mortifying silence of no one laughing at their gags. Men are this book’s vehicle for anecdotes about Caitlin Moran, and the thoughts of Caitlin Moran. Like everything Moran writes, her subject is: Caitlin Moran. Defenders of this book – which will sell millions regardless – will argue, “It’s just for laughs, who cares?”īut it’s not about men at all. Moran’s book is relentlessly heteronormative, and its model of masculinity is as regressive and restrictive as the ones she disdains. My review for Perspective is not online yet but I can share this section with you as a flavour of how I feel about the book: What does Moran’s book say about me or most of my friends and male relations? Precisely – and I’m sure with her many jokes about balls, Moran will appreciate this phrase – cock all… The Observer magazine just about sums him up ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |