Girls will be Boys and Boys will be Girls
April 19th, 2012 § 6 Comments
Lola by the Kinks. Good song. If you haven’t; give it a listen. It’s hilarious. The song is about the confusion caused by gender lines being blurred to non-existence. Supposedly, it’s based on a true story of the Kinks’ manager’s regretful encounter with a transvestite. As the story goes, the man was so hammered, he spent an entire evening with a … um, dude and didn’t realize the dude was a dude. Right. Fair warning: You let yourself get that inebriated, all bets are off. But, I must contend: Life is confusing enough; we don’t need one of the most basic things to be a trick question. Do we?
Well I’m not the world’s most physical guy
But when she squeezed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my Lola lo-lo-lo-lo Lola
Well I’m not dumb but I can’t understand
Why she walked like a woman and talked like a man
Oh my Lola lo-lo-lo-lo Lola lo-lo-lo-lo Lola
A lasting impression of my visit to Korea will be the alarming proliferation of effeminate dudes. When I was growing up, Koreans didn’t have much. Not much international clout. Not much money. We weren’t particularly known for anything. If nothing else, what we had were some dudes: Men were men. Yes, agree, to a fault. It did demand a swing in the other direction. Good. But that’s the trouble with pendulums, right? The momentum. Swinging the other direction, that momentum carries it flying past the “happy” medium. What I saw in Korea was a gender pendulum blown off the hinge, careening out of control – way out there to where … well, where Lola lives.
Well I’m not the worlds most masculine man
But I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man
And so is Lola
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world … lo-lo Lola
is it a fad or a changing ideology?
the girly look seemed pretty entrenched to me. didn’t it to you?
not sure how entrenched but it was certainly ubiquitous. maybe a reach, but i wonder if larger trends are influencing popular culture and what we see is an effect. continued decline in population growth since 80s, one of lowest fertility rates in the world, changing role of women in society, etc.
yeah, i’m sure you’re right. not least of these trends i think is per capita income.
Same thing is going on in japan, really girly looking boys. From a physical standpoint its no secret that girls are more “pleasing to look at than men”. Even women enjoy looking at other women. But when did physical attractiveness become a priority to men. This seems perverted but so does working out in a gym for hours a day to become super “masculine”. girly guys and buff dude seem closer than they appear.
Great call: Buff dude is really girly. Funny.