The Fall of Man(liness)

       My last post dealt with the decline of knowing when and what a man is/could/should be.  This post deals into more of the why the idea of what a man is has declined.  Meaning, that when you see men in popular media often times they aren't really "manly," but more just a polished looking guy.  I am not claiming that those two things are mutually exclusive, but in our society they seem to try.

Note: Looks 14 and in a child's suite.

       So as the picture may have tipped off, I'm going to start in with images  popular media blast us with.  I'm not going on a crusade that says men have it worse than women in concerns to impossible body images, not by a long shot.  Though I am saying that men still suffer negative imaging from what popular advertisements portray.  To start, this picture was in the top 3 in my google image search of "male fashion model."  The others were fairly similar, though only focused on the neck and head.  But look at this image- what comes to mind?  Youth, a-symmetrical, straight, clean, smooth, those would be the terms at the forefront for me in the positive (towards the company's end).  Toward the negative side though- clean, shaven, polished, young, bored, soft, in a child's suite.  Yes, I suppose the clothes fit properly, but in a style that traditionally makes the wearer appear more slender and younger.
       When you think of what is man, what ideas generally come to mind?  After a very unscientific survey I presented my friends, these are the terms they came up with: Rugged, beefy, gassy, strong, polite, rough, not dramatic, stoic, independent, primal, hairy, smelly, and that kind of wrapped it up.  Now look at that picture again- does that picture imply any of those ideas? No-the kid has no facial hair, thins his body out intentionally, comes across as too clean, his face looks angst-ridden. Now, compare to this photo:

Picture: A fucking Man

       Now this is a picture of what most of the 20th century agreed was about the most manliest man that ever manned, with the exception of maybe this guy:

Picture: The fucking man

       What do these guys have in common? They are the pinnacle idea of masculinity to many Americans.  They are clean, but they show age.  They show age with facial hair, hair color, care lines on the face, the rustic backgrounds (implicit ideas), Teddy's hands aren't super soft looking, their clothes are nice- but show off the shoulders, hardened eyes, dominant positions in the picture.  These guys look like how men ought to. So somewhere in the last 120 years, we went from these fine specimens, to this:

Where did we go wrong?

       Honestly, this is a tricky question.  Undoubtedly the feminist movement had some weight in this switchover.  Consider that we finally give women their deserved rights (which is still working up in our society), and therefore their opinions gain more value overall (I'm a feminist, so don't think I'm downspeaking women's rights).  So when women want their men to be clean, companies figured out that that was more profitable than trying to sell "odor of the sea" to men's perfume stores.  This is purely speculation of course, the actual reasons probably are more profound, but I strongly believe that this is a large part of the change.

       However, now women are about 4th generation into the women's rights, and it seems the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.  Given that the current fad is to have facial hair in men, it's the beginning of this swing back.  Granted- the fad seems to be coming from those men whole dove into skinny jeans and women's tees.  But as far as I see, that is popular culture resigning to this swing backwards.
       Now, I don't think men will be in the rugged/rustic fads for a few decades yet, but for now it's just the pendulum swinging back.

Of course I've let this post sit for weeks, so I'm posting it a little unfinished.