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| Home Front |
| Firefighters are hot |
| 2001-10-28 |
THEY are the knights in shining fire helmets. They are the welders, policemen and businessmen with can-do attitudes who are unafraid to tackle armed hijackers — even if it means bringing down an airplane. The operative word is men. Brawny, heroic, manly men. After a few iffy decades in which manliness was not the most highly prized cultural attribute, men — stoic, muscle-bound and exuding competence from every pore — are back. Since Sept. 11, the male hero has been a predominant cultural image, presenting a beefy front of strength to a nation seeking steadiness and emotional grounding. They are the new John Waynes. They are, as the former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal recently, "men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe." ... "Before Sept. 11, ruggedness was an affectation you put on like an outfit," said David Granger, the editor in chief of Esquire magazine. "Now there's a selflessness being attributed to rugged men. After a decade of prosperity that made us soft, metaphorically and physically, there's a longing for manliness. People want to regain what we had in World War II. They want to believe in big, strapping American boys." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |