Okay. Now we have Heebie's illumination of the shittiness of the female "Sexy Script" and a veneration of the Mandom of Charles Bronson. What a blog!
My post would have been funnier. I'd explain how, but I'm kinda busy dousing myself with cologne and firing off a sex-shooter in my apartment.
Like it isn't totally Freudian-revelatory.
Why let my posting about it stop you, Labs?
I absolutely love the reckless abandon with which Bronson liberally splashes the product over his entire upper body. It's like he's taking a Mandom shower.
But the best moment is when the horse neighs.
It's certainly a weird trajectory for a thrown shirt to follow.
I like it in old timey footage when guys wore their pants right at their waists.
Heebie, you're really funny and all, but you're kind of intruding into our MANDOM.
I can never get past how unattractive Bronson is, which I think of as part and parcel of the great sins of the seventies.
Could I get you boys some iced tea?
14: Also how completely unselfconscious he is about that.
One of the film critics at Salon said regarding Bronson and Lee Marvin and a few other cowboys, that the sixties were really a great time to be an ugly man in Hollywood.
I also like how MANDOM looks like CONDOM more than KINGDOM EXCEPT FOR EVERY MAN.
18: This might be one of those things that you see or you don't. The best I can do is to point out that if you take a ball of cookie dough and poke two fingers into it for eyes, you have a pretty fair facsimile of Bronson.
And the idea that it's a lover's body scent, and he's in a tux and enjoying the piano bar scene, except that there are no women--in fact, no other people AT ALL--where he's headed.
Yeah, what struck me about the ad was the utter absence of women in it. Interesting.
d00d he has the women come over later. Little known fact: Bronson invented the booty call.
Well, no, it's one of the things I love about teaching Western films--pointing out to the students the paradox that the truly manly, non-gay man . . . doesn't need women. In fact, he often despises them a little. It's totally bizarre, but there it is.
Just think about the labors of the stage crew having to retrieve that shirt from the superstructure of the sound stage for every take.
25: Too true. In this trope, the women drain your precious bodily fluids.
Like, d00d--the Magnificent Seven? Any Eastwood film? The guy who ends up marrying the chick is *so* not the hard man hero.
27: I spose it's true. If there's a woman present, all that hardness is gonna go . . . soft and mushy. Ew!
28: Yeah. The pose "don't feel sorry for me" by the guy whose part in the denouement is loneliness. We little boys hiding our tears never really grow out of that, but then without that what would cardiac surgeons and pharmas making antihypertensives do for a living?
Are you getting at something, JM?
Jackmormon seems to be the only one who really understands the ad.
But that stoicism is the point. Women weaken men, soften them. It's okay to fuck one every now and again so long as you don't let your emotions get involved in the process.
This is classic stoic thought, no? I don't think it's a unique feature of the "western" genre.
Followup to 31: Where would our most inspired warmongers come from anymore?
Personally I love relaxing, shirtless and all alone, candles lit, smelling like a fermenting cosmetics counter.
As to the shirt throwing, how else are you supposed to get your clothes drapped over light fixtures for that cartoonishly squalid look?
38: I know a woman who caught her house on fire by carelessly tossing a shirt as she was headed to the shower. It landed on a halogen lamp.
37: Bush had never been to France before becoming Prez. Also, lacking Heebie's x-ray vision till then, he might not have truly seen into the soul of Putin. Whatever any of that means.
38: Yeah, but the squalid...id...ity is supposed to be entirely unintentional. Or have I been doing it wrong all along.
Never mind.
Very clever, Ogged. LB posts about Heebie's femme sexy script, and you answer with the Ur-man Bronson.
38 is totally awesome.
Did you guys check out the second link in the post? Scroll up from it--in addition to explaining the Bronson ad, the bit about the Rastafarians/chimp is totally amazing, and the ad exec's letter saying "what do you mean that's racist?!?" is just classic.
I hadn't watched all the way through. Clearly, the best thing about the commercial is the suede jacket with the...fringes, I think they're called. There's something kind of sad about the fact that this is a commercial made for Japan.
I think we've agreed he's "the Ug-man Bronson."
The shirt-throwing seems to me to be really Japanese (note: I am completely ignorant of Japanese culture). No American could possibly think that that's cool or manly, but when I was watching the swimming world championships, one of the Japanese swimmers pulled some highly theatrical gesture during the introductions and I thought "what the hell was that?" but the Japanese fans seemed to like it just fine. It seems like saying "this is my signature move," which is uncool and self-regarding here, but which might be acceptable other places.
42: Kurt Vonnegut (may he rest in peace) once gave a speech about how easy it is to wake up one day after ten years at the ad agency to "discover you'd become a scumbag." That's the usual formula.
His remedy? "In America, we have a solution: you quit that job!" So Pollyannaish.
Instead, nowadays in America, you follow the Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz formula and double down on the scumbaggery.
45: What? It only looks theatrical because it isn't the *kind* of theatrical manly gesture we're used to. I mean, you watch football: think endzone dance.
I didn't mean that it was the theatricality as such that made it Japanese, although there's something to that: endzone dances are pretty much exclusively for black people, anyway. That's another culture which has different definitions of "cheesiness."
45: Mmm. What seems strikingly and painfully Japanese to me--another person with no knowledge of Japanese culture--is the painful and seemingly unaware aping of American iconography for masculinity. You've got Bronson, Casablanca, westerns, car chase, etc. It seems of a piece with--or so I have heard--the drawing of women/girls in anime as having American or Western features. I can see the "it's my move" move being the same kind of unironic, unfortunate, and dispiriting aping.
Getting nuked must knock the shit out of the national self-confidence.
w-lfs-n, you fucker, you stole my Johnny Guitar joke. I hereby sentence you to seeing Johnny Guitar: The Musical, the play that took the "sub" out of "subtext".
49: If getting nuked produces this kind of wonderful, bring on mutually assured destruction. Let a thousand Mandoms bloom!
Completely agree with 13, 30 and 50.
49: Perhaps not so much "aping" as "over the top exploitation." Bronson is sexy not just because he's surrounded by all these cartoonish spy movie/ Western trappings, but because he's a stinky, taboo, ugly barbarian. (Maybe not unlike the way that someone like 50 Cent thrills/horrifies many a suburban whitebread heart in today's America.)
Someone commented on YouTube that Japan of the era must have been really hard up for entertainment. I have no idea whether that's true but I can believe it looking at this ad.
I love the way he arches his back and shakes his naked chest while a-dousing. MANDOM!
And the fact that he has lots and lots and lots of bottles of it. He's not running out of MANDOM anytime soon, nosiree.
This is probably what James Comey did after he got home from the White House that night.
48: I still think you're being deliberately obtuse. *Catching* someone striking a pose means you can mock them as toolish (and you do)--but it's the poses we don't catch as such that we think, damn, now *that's* cool.
As 42 mentioned, the text in the link is worth checking out. Excerpt:
In the commercial for men's blotting paper, several black people wipe sweat off their faces with the paper, while a chimpanzee beside them in an Afro wig and a multicolored outfit wipes his face in imitation.
Our blotting paper(?!) is so strong, it even works on the stench of being black!
Getting nuked must knock the shit out of the national self-confidence.
Or having your god revealed as actually non-divine and then replaced by Douglas MacArthur.
B, I'm just saying that different cultures have different standards for what counts as "striking a pose," and so different standards for cheesiness.
endzone dances are pretty much exclusively for black people, anyway
I think they're just exclusively for people who score touchdowns (and in particular when they do so in a flashy way -- ie not gutting the ball a half yard on a QB sneak). That means a wide receiver, running back or tight end, and most of those positions in the league are played by black dudes. But I'm pretty sure the avowedly-white Jeremy Shockey does dumb endzone celebrations.
You know, those "Peer Pressure" guys should hire themselves out as choreographers for endzone dances.
Oh man I give even odds we see that this season.
Can you imagine? The NFL would nuke a city to prevent that from happening on the air.
61, agreed, and this is what I'm saying too. I thought that your It seems like saying "this is my signature move," which is uncool and self-regarding here, but which might be acceptable other places meant that having a signature move was uncool in America, rather than that *specific* signature move would be uncool, b/c recognizable as such.
If Steve Smith humps a goalpost this season, I'll be thrilled.
What is it with the NFL and the racial division of player positions? RBs and WRs are black, white guys are QBs and linemen, and if you're hispanic, um, you can play tight end.
The NFL would nuke a city to prevent that from happening on the air.
It would sure make "NippleGate" look tame.
Yo, Sifu, did you spill your bottle of MANDOM on the server at the Poor Man Institute?
Orson Welles got all drunk and messed up the server.
Seriously, beats me. I'm just the permament-guest-blogger.
I have a New Orleans post all ready to go, I bet that's the problem.
Perhaps not so much "aping" as "over the top exploitation." Bronson is sexy not just because he's surrounded by all these cartoonish spy movie/ Western trappings, but because he's a stinky, taboo, ugly barbarian. (Maybe not unlike the way that someone like 50 Cent thrills/horrifies many a suburban whitebread heart in today's America.)
Not buying it. You cannot so completely remove the context within which these symbols are used. It matters that Japan lost the war, and, in reverse fashion, that 50 cent is understood to be an "authentic" member of the underclass. The relevant American analog is probably something like some jumped up ponce who rigorously believes in Taste.
I was surprised by what great shape Bronson appeared to be in. Judging by his face I always thought of him as perpetually 70 or so.
I was thinking that his body is probably what made him a movie star, given his face. Back then, that sort of muscle definition was a lot rarer among the Hollywood crowd.
69. (!) You guys need to update your stats. While not exactly at parity, there are a hell of alot more black QBs than there were even ten years ago. And the interior linemen are about even.
His ugly mug was a part of his appeal as an actor, especially in Westerns. It made him look rugged & authentic.
Has anyone linked the other ad yet? Rustic!
76: It matters that Japan lost the war
Sure. For instance, xenophobic habits and turns of mind can flourish in countries that have been decisively humbled by foreigners, often right alongside and in tension with apparent xenophilia.
(Of course I can't do much more than speculate as to whether that's true of Japan, but it sure wouldn't surprise me. That kind of paradox is a pretty common feature of the relationship between the West and the Rest.)
Still. I see what you're saying.
The relevant American analog is probably something like some jumped up ponce who rigorously believes in Taste.
The European Loverboy?
Am I the only one who thought he looked vaguely Japanese in that commercial? Maybe they were trying to play it up.
78 and 80 are getting at why I questioned his ugliness. I don't associate him with westerns, but with WWII films, which were more often on TV in the late sixties & early seventies. Great Escape, Dirty Dozen.
83: The moustache looked Japanese to me.
80: I'm pretty sure that part of his image in Westerns is also the rumor (?) that he's part Indian. Whether or not that ties into his barbarian/ugly-face-and-muscular-body shtick, I shall leave up to the rest of you.
I recently saw him in an ad for a weight machine on late night TV and his hair had been so obviously and almost carelessly dyed using something really cheap that it was impossible to look away. I couldn't figure out if it was a really bad application or a heart-wrenching rug.
I can't wait to watch this when I get home.
88: Well, he died in 2003 at the age of 81, so adjust your hair expectations accordingly.
87. He was Lithuanian. Probably some leftover Mongol genes gave him that slightly Oriental look.
In the movies I referred to in 84 he played Eastern Europeans, which is what I always thought of him as being, apparently by 90, correctly.
Apparently, his father was descended from these fine people.
90: Huh. I might be thinking of someone else, but I swear I remember learning that Bronson was part Indian at some point.
But hey, all those western movie stars look alike to me.
Just because the rumor's wrong doesn't mean it didn't exist.
By the way, the song from the commercial, sung by Jerry Wallace, is titled "Lovers of the World", and you can download it for free here.
Or, if you prefer the old school approach, you can get the 7" single on eBay.
The European Loverboy?
I'm not familiar with the type. Is that American Eurotrash? If so, I would think they might fit, I guess. Pretty much anyone even marginally interested in "hip" who moved to NYC and who is originally from bumfuck? For at least a year, pretty much. It seems to me it's a pretty familiar part of life, this aping, and the embarrassment in recalling it later on. The differences are, I guess, seeing it play out on what feels like a national level and seeing it fixed for all time.
69(!) Again. Is there nothing so trivial that you nerds won't do a paper on it?
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5002205797
93: Nonono, you're thinking of Freddy Mercury.
99: Now you've unleashed the fookin' fury.
Bronson is dead? Wait, I'm thinking of Chuck Norris. This is what I get for not watching videos at work. Anyway, seriously, awful dye/rug job on Norris in that weight machine ad, which I'm sure everyone finds just fascinating.
102: oh man, what an unfortunate mix-up.
Bronson is the vividly scented grim-faced visage in every punk's nightmare; Norris the boringly pedantic evangelical who doesn't get the joke.
And yet Bronson is the one who's gone.
102: I think you're referring to the t/o/t/a/l/g/y/m ads, some of which team Chuck w/ Christy Brinkley. But all ads for home exercise equipment are revolting in that the pitch is all about the crudest kind of sex appeal, which will be yours if you... That one is interesting in that it intentionally uses the fitness of aging stars as reference. The one for B/o/w/f/l/e/x, w/ the "50-year-old grandmother" in a bikini has a similar pitch.
103. Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer.
My favorite bit, now having seen it, has to be the way he throws the cap away when he takes it off. He's not going to need that cap again because he is about to use that whole goddamn bottle.
The little balletic hop as he throws the shirt is pretty good too. He's just so damn manly that he can bounce like that.
> Like, d00d--the Magnificent Seven? Any Eastwood film? The guy who ends up marrying the chick is *so* not the hard man hero.
The Eastwood hero in "high plains drifter" rapes a women as part of his violent retribution on the town. WTF. How about some warning on the video box.
The Eastwood hero in "high plains drifter" rapes a women as part of his violent retribution on the town.
That was weird shit, especially as she basically shacks up with him afterwards.
107: McManly, what kills me is that it's not just throwing away the cap-- he kung fus it off. Take that, bottle of MANDOM!
I'm always struck by how unbelievably long those old commercials are (and the magazine ads used to contain like 500 words each). Were people just more patient back then?
Imagine the Head On! commercials lasting two and a half minutes. Of course, now those Geico Caveman commercials are going to last a half hour, at least for part of a television season.
#49: Getting nuked must knock the shit out of the national self-confidence.
I don't think the affinity for Bronson and uber-masculinity has anything to do with being nuked and losing the war. My guess is it has more to do with centuries of being a feudal society, the legacy of which is a rigid social structure and a marginalization of individuality that remains evident in Japanese society even today (although much less so that a generation ago). To the 1970's Japanese salaryman grinding away as an anonymous cog in the vast machinery of his nation's economic miracle, the dream of being a devil-may-care man about town who shoots off guns and throws his shirt wherever he damn well pleases must have been especially alluring.
111: Dude, that cap offends Bronson with the way it stands as a physical barrier between him and six liquid ounces of heaven.
And yet! He is so above it that it earns only a knowing chuckle; tomorrow another cap is going to try to get between him and another MANDOM shower and he is totally going to kung fu the shit out of that cap, too, and the next day, and the next.
I am mildly Becks-style as I watch it again.
That Old Spice commercial from yesterday was also impressively long, I thought. By the way, what's the deal with ogged and cologne spokesmen?
I don't think the affinity for Bronson and uber-masculinity has anything to do with being nuked and losing the war.
It wasn't Bronson or uber-masculinity to which I was referring, but the use of Western faces and Western iconography in a Japanese commercial.
114: the knowing chuckle is great. "Ah, plastic cap, my old friend, my fierce chop got you yet again, did it?" I also like the way he buys MANDOM in bulk.
Wait-- continuity error! When he chops the top, he's got his pipe in his mouth, then it's magically gone.
He chewed it up and swallowed it.
I had originally formulated a comment along the lines of, "Ah, yes, the Tuesday bottle - one bottle closer to the Friday jug!" but didn't make it. In truth, given the way he's dousing the whole goddamn house in that stuff, I think maybe that's the Tuesday shelf and that we enjoy at most a pinhole view of the MANDOM room and not just the MANDOM cupboard.
#116: Borrowing from other nations seen as more technologically advanced has a long, long history in Japan, going all the way back to when it borrowed the characters for its writing system from China. Similarly, prewar Japanese architecture and urban planning followed the German model, and the modern Japanese legal system was based on French and German law. In the postwar era, America became the new borrowee, since we were so obviously the most kickass nation around.
The Japanese xenophobia mentioned upthread predates the war by several centuries, though the defeat definitely put a new complexion on it. This ad, with its deliberate dirtiness (referenced by GB in the other thread) really gets at the peculiar combination of attraction and revulsion that so many Japanese have for Westerners.
To follow up on #121, in the case of using Western faces, iconography, etc., what Japan was borrowing in this case was not Western technology, but Western cultural symbols and attitudes. However, the general principle of looking outward for new trends and ideas remains the same.
One really cool thing I remember learning in college was that when a Japanese scholar back in the 19th century started translating European legal works, he had to make up a new Japanese word for "right" (as in a legal right), since no such word existed.
The editing is so good, especially the way Cowboy Bronson keeps spinning around and shooting MANDOM Bronson. Cowboy Bronson, no matter how much you despise your inner city-slicker, you can't kill him. He'll just keep coming back. Like a sorcerer's apprentice of MANDOM.
Watching it again, the suggestion of smell, reinforced by the "man's body odor" tagline, is almost overwhelming. The body odor, the pipe smoke, the MANDOM shower -- holy shit, Charles, open a goddamn window, would you?
In the postwar era, America became the new borrowee, since we were so obviously the most kickass nation around.
I don't think we disagree much. My initial draft of my comment included a similar sentence. If there are any points of contention, they are as follow: (a) I claim that countries seem much more kick ass in the aftermath of actually kicking your ass, especially with a nuke, and (b) I would claim that the phenomenon of the defeated aping the victors isn't a particularly unusual phenomenon, anywhere, and is often found in descriptions of indigenous people living under colonial rule (I don't mean "colonial" to have any specific political bite, or anything; it's just a description). But, again, I'm not sure that we disagree about any of this.
Also, the Japanese clearly and correctly believe that American men have gigantic dicks. "American" includes, of course, Japanese-Americans, as it's our freedom that allows our dicks to grow so big.
Seeing the word "Mandom" so much has put this song in my head for the entire day.
Everybody get MANDOM! Just do something MANDOM!
the Japanese clearly and correctly believe that American men have gigantic dicks
Late one drunken night, an older salaryman kept leaning in for a closer look as we were peeing against a fence, then tried to kiss me. If I'd had more presence of mind, I'd have told him that I wasn't interested in anyone with such a little package.
"American" includes, of course, Japanese-Americans
This is not an inaccurate statement, even in the context provided. Just sayin'.
Y'all's discussion of this commercial has me giggling like an aging school girl.
Is there nothing so trivial that you nerds won't do a paper on it?
Dude, we have to get published somehow.
131: No kidding. 'Cultural Studies' owns at that shit. Sociologists must be getting all uppity.