Blokes

[avevale_intelligencer]

Bear with me on this.

Thinking about the Jonathan Ross thing that happened yesterday (it's all over the net--basically, the co-chairs of Loncon 3 announced that Jonathan Ross would be presenting the Hugoes, various fans objected, one concom member resigned, the internet exploded, Ross withdrew and the dust is still settling).

On the one hand, since I know that Jonathan Ross is a genuine fan, my heart does go out to him; if I had been on the receiving end of that much rejection from the community I love I would quite simply be dead, no question. I couldn't not sympathise.

But he's brought it on himself. By being a bloke.

I'm not using the word here as I sometimes use it, as a mere equivalent term to "man." Technically, I'm a bloke; I've got all the bits. That's not what I mean. A bloke in the sense I intend here is a specific kind of man, an example of a specific kind of mindset. As with most things, there is a spectrum of blokiness, and not all blokes are exactly the same; but by their deeds shalt thou know them.

Blokes, to some extent, still live in the sixties and seventies, when it was good to be a bloke. You worked hard, you got paid, you went down the pub with your mates and drank pints till closing time, you staggered home and passed out and woke up the next morning ready to repeat the process. You liked cars, and football, and rock'n'roll, and everyone you knew liked the same things. Because everyone you knew was a bloke. Some of you were from different parts of the country, and you called them Taffy, or Mick, or Jock; maybe some of you were from different parts of the world, and you called them Chalkie, or Sambo, or some other funny nickname, and if they didn't object that meant they were blokes too. As long as you were all blokes together it was all right.

And then there were women.

You're getting the idea. Look at Carry On films. Dig up, if you can bear it, Des O'Connor's immortal ditty "Dicka-Dum-Dum." Blokes have never stopped thinking of women that way; as a separate species, not entirely human, put on earth to be the object of blokes' desire precisely up to the point at which they metamorphose into "the wife," at which point all desire ceases and is transferred outward once again. The sixties and seventies were heaven for blokes; women were becoming "liberated," which to the blokish mind translated as "available," since it hadn't quite penetrated yet what they were supposed to be being liberated from. Fashion was going mad, films were displaying more and more acreage of female flesh, it was all happening.

Well, the seventies passed, and so did the eighties and so on, but the bloke never died. He learned cunning, he changed his spots for pinstripes, he memorised the Nice Guy phrasebook, but he's still out there and he still doesn't think women are quite human, quite worthy of the respect he'd give another bloke. He still thinks groping a strange woman is all right, as long as he grins cheekily and sort-of apologises afterwards. He still thinks he has the right to judge a woman based on her appearance, because, well, it's all put on for him, isn't it? And he still doesn't quite get why calling people Chalkie and Sambo isn't funny any more, or making fun of foreign accents, or bragging about how he wouldn't kick her out of bed, as long as the wife doesn't find out, ho ho. Phwoaarrr.

I'm going to be honest here and say that I don't understand how anyone can still be a bloke now, in this time, in this place. I mean, there's some bloke in all of us--I still enjoy some of the Carry On films--but we don't wave it about in public, for goodness sake. Surely we know too much now. Surely we've learned, or we're starting to learn, or something. Surely by now it's obvious, at least to people as evidently savvy as Jonathan Ross, that we're all one species, all equal, all entitled to respect and courtesy, all entitled to feel safe in our own communities...

But by their deeds shalt thou know them. Blokes abound, in and out of fandom. Every week some new storm blows up about someone, usually male, behaving inappropriately towards women, or gay people, or trans people. And in among the criticism are more blokes talking about "PC gone mad," or wondering why we're being so "petty and vindictive," or prophesying that nobody will like us if we can't take a joke.

Well, so be it. Because there are two possibilities that arise out of incidents of blokish behaviour. One is that the man is a genuine bloke who doesn't know any better, in which case it's time he learned that that stuff doesn't go around here any more. And the other--and I think the more likely in this case--is that the man is playing at being a bloke because he thinks it's funny. Because he thinks other blokes will think it's funny. Because he wants to be seen as a bloke by other blokes, even though he isn't one. Maybe, if challenged, he'd say he was doing it "ironically." Not that that makes a difference.

If Jonathan Ross really doesn't know any better, then, as I say, he has my sympathy, and I hope he learns better. But if, as I suspect, his blokishness is put on...then he really did bring this rejection on himself.

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's exactly what went wrong. The internet dogpiling was unpleasant, but we've all been here long enough to know that that is what happens on the internet. It wasn't by any means unreasonable to expect it, and it's clear that to some extent at least the con chairs did.

A stupid, avoidable fiasco.