MoDo cracks me up today. All hat and no cattle, indeed.
Maureen Dowd: Hot Monkey Love:
As President Bush tries to shake off his dazed look and regain his swagger, he will no doubt dust off his cowboy routine: his gunslinger pose, his squinty-eyed gaze, his dead-or-alive one-liners, his Crawford brush clearing.But this time, he may want to think twice before strapping on a Texas-shaped belt buckle. W. might inadvertently conjure up images of Bushback Mountain.
The High Plains, one of the few remaining arenas where men were men, may now evoke something more ambiguous, like men with men. After “Brokeback Mountain,” pitching that pup tent on the prairie will never seem the same.
or
(graphic via uggabugga)
For decades, Republicans have had electoral success exploiting the simplistic frontier myth. Ronald Reagan galloped in from the West to rescue Washington. Dick Cheney's aides cast him as the stoic rancher who would blast a shotgun at rustlers if they messed with his cattle.In 2004, the G.O.P. convention was staged like “The Magnificent Seven,” with a gunslinging posse - including Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain - riding in with W. and Vice to save the town from the black hats. Poor John Kerry had to fall back on sailor imagery, skippering a boat into Boston and saluting the crowd with “I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty.” At least he managed not to use the Village People's “In the Navy” as his theme song.
A president who hates dissonance, who prefers a world in black and white, is now confronted by confusing gray shades everywhere he looks.
Hollywood is busy sensitizing - and emotionally layering - archetypal macho guys, including our most famous alpha male. He's still strong and decisive. His back's as hairy as ever. But it's just not the same Kong.
...
In a way, the new images of alpha archetypes are subversive precisely because the cowboys and the king of the jungle remain macho even as they become more nuanced.
She sort of loses it here, should have continued on with her metaphor about the homosexual undertones of the Republican bluster and nut-busters. I do know I'll never watch GWB swagger with his phoney 'just rode in on a horse from the ranch' bowlegged walk again without wondering about the reasons for his bow-legged strut.
