This article on the fox news homepage is priceless.
(Don’t ask why I was on foxnews. I just was.)

Sylvester Stallone made a positive statement about McCain.  The statement was enough for McCain to feel vindicated and threaten Huckabee’s Chuck Norris support:

Campaigning later in West Palm Beach, McCain told reporters, jokingly: “Look out Chuck Norris, Sylvester’s comin’ after you. He’s comin’ after you and he’s going to get you. You better run! Chuck, you can run but you can’t hide!”

Wow, this is excellent press as the latest Rambo movie is about to open.  I also like the way they are quick to turn Stallone’s comment into an actual endorsement.  Usually, one has to say “I unequivocally support or endorse black” to count as a true endorsement. Stallone’s statement seems wishy washy, and it coincidentally drums up press!

I like McCain a lot,” Stallone said in an interview that aired Thursday. “Things may change along the way…

Clearly, Chuck better hide!?!?!?

With the writer’s strike going on, I find myself perusing the “other” channels aka MTV, VH1, and all the learning/how to channels. While I watched an America’s Next Top Model marathon, I kept seeing ads for Scott Baio is 46 and pregnant, My Fair Brady, and Rock of Love Two. My husband was the one who commented “Why are all of these shows demeaning toward women?” That got me thinking.

One of the commercials for these programs shows Scott Baio, Chris Knight and Bret Michael’s watching the other television shows usually commenting on the women featured in the shows. It occurred to me, all of these shows have the exact same theme, washed up 70s or 80 child star/rock star/ teen heart throb who can’t deal with commitment. These shows basically poke fun at all of the men but despite their flaws, wanabe machismo, and standard chauvinism, they all still get to go home with the “hot babe” of their choice.

Ironically enough these shows is built around the premise that each of these men needs to grow up. Bret Michaels is doing it by trying to find his soulmate by having women compete with each other through sexed up activities like pole dancing. Scott Baio has to settle down with his ex playmate pregnant fiancee. And Chris Knight gets Adrienne Curry, the first ANTM winner, as his wife. In past episodes of My Fair Brady, Knight usually cuts Curry down in a verbal way by commenting on her behavior and intelligence level.

This is an interesting approach from VH1 that has usually considered itself the more mature of the music networks (when they actually played music videos.) But now it has reduced itself to a mere freak show of hasbeens and reality TV stars. Obviously, it has been this way for awhile but its odd that three of its newest shows feature the same sexist storyline. Man wins hot girl(s) despite their own downfalls, hot girl compromises for guy once he refuses or fails to compromise for her…the end.

Its bad when I Love New York looks like feminist programming, but I won’t ever go that far!

The NYTimes had a spot on article about masculinity in today’s times. It featured Chuck Norris (how he infused Huckabee’s campaign), Sylvester Stallone, and Hulk Hogan, three solid male protectors from the 1980s.

Indeed, at a time when the country is faced with a new tangle of problems, the return of the ’80s action hero suggests that some Americans, particularly men, are looking to revel in the vestigial pleasures of older times and seemingly simpler ways. (Witness the popularity of the best-selling “Dangerous Book for Boys,” a celebration of the traditional rugged joys of boyhood.)

The premise of the article is that men who are uneasy about new, complicated issues like the economy and the war are turning to older heroic, mythic figures from their childhood and youth. This is a compelling contrast to the media perpetuated notion that women are acting out unexpectedly in this election by choosing a male candidate (Obama) in Iowa over the female favorite (Clinton). Of course, this notion changed after New Hampshire primaries but still shows how in a time when change is the hott, new key word some of our population is trying to revert to an older, “simpler” time.

But Mr. Koops, speaking on Tuesday, New Hampshire primary day, said the appetite for these action figures represents more than a joke. Rather, it speaks to a sincere desire among some men — likely not Hillary Clinton supporters — to return to what he called “a comfort zone” symbolized by heroic characters of yore.

If I’m reading this correctly, Clinton voters represent those who are not seeking “a comfort zone.” At least not yet.

This article reminds me of a book last year Vietnam and Other Fantasies by Howard Bruce Franklin, a professor at Rutgers University Newark campus. Part of Franklin’s hypothesis was that the character of Rambo came about as a reaction to the Vietnam War and the anti American sentiment that followed it. President Reagan hailed the Rambo films as quite American and many men and other admirer’s followed suit and agreed, creating a phenomenon that carried well into the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. If shaky times are any sign of a desire to seek out old well-known historic figures worshiped, it is no wonder that shows like “Hogan Knows Best” are popular and celebrity endorsements via Chuck Norris carry significant weight. Ultimately, while women are gaining certain attention lately in the political arena, it is noteworthy to pay attention to how men, who were coming of age in the 1980s, are voting and reacting to this desire for change.