Sometimes, the more I think and write about these masculinity issues, the more I think they’re just personulinity issues.
To wit: So the other night I’m sitting watching Demetri Martin’s Comedy Central special, “Demetri Martin: Person,” with Anja (If you’re not part of the M.A.I.D. in crowd, Anja’s my special-est friend. Here at M.A.I.D., we try to make newbies right at home!). Now Dimitri Martin is kinda funny but he kinda bugs me. And I just figured out precisely why (or, rather, I’ve stopped being in denial about precisely why) besides the fact that he steals not just much of Stephen Wright’s shtick but some actual Wright jokes. No, what bugs me the most is that he’s so dang cute and and he works it, banks on it, laughs all the way to the bank in part because of it, and women who I think are cute think he’s sooooo cute. He really does very successfully do a cute act on top of his inherent mop-headed cuteness, and why shouldn’t he. Impish and insecure, yet confident at the same time spells H-O-T hot in the post-Beck millennium. He’s the wiseacre version of the sensitive singer songwriter Mraz Manotype Dan discussed lo these many months ago. (And, gosh, if we had a proper index I could find that Mraz post for y’all and link to it. If you wanted to call the Valley Advocate and ask for the email address of their webmaster – because it doesn’t seem to appear anywhere on their site – so you can voice your discontent at the unease of access to the M.A.I.D. archive in any normal, tried-and-true kind of blog way, who am I to stop you from calling them at (413) 529-2840 ?)
Now where was I? Oh, yes. When I realized how much all this Demetri-cutie-cuteness annoyed me was during one of the commercials, a commercial, coincidentally, for Sarah Silverman’s new Comedy Central show that’s about to debut. The promo features Silverman at the pearly gates making racial cracks when God turns out to be black, har har. Admittedly, not so funny. Now Anja, she generally “doesn’t get” Sarah Silverman, which is not to say she doesn’t get Silverman’s jokes, but that she doesn’t get what’s so funny or radical about her, says the only reason Silverman “gets away with it” (“it” being her rather incredibly offensive and, as she sees it, unfunny-to-boot material) is because she’s . . . cute. Anja has a point, no doubt about it. But I (sometimes) think Silverman’s material, crassness coming from an attractive young, almost prissy-looking groomed and plucked woman (playing off the JAP stereotype, akin to, if way more extreme than, how Jenny McCarthy plays off the Playboy Bunny stereotype) is what makes her work occasionally groundbreaking and often funny, although, sure, I’m the first to admit she’s also equally or even more often annoying and offensive to no funny or otherwise socially redeeming end. So don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big Sarah Silverman fan, but I kinda like her, and I have to admit, that I kinda like her and her Jenny-McCarthy-to-the-nth-degree-but-Jewish sexual and racial edginess more because she’s attractive. I enjoy watching her face and body move as much as I enjoy the jokes (but then again, the same holds true for me for Ellen DeGeneres and Rodney Dangerfield and Steve Martin and a host of others, just not in a sexual way.). And I find myself defending Silverman to Anja while I simultaneously, out of body, watch myself from above, hands on hips, and think, Jamie, you hypocrite, why are you defending Sarah Silverman? You dog, you.
Likewise, the ladies tend to love Demetri, not because he’s a comic genius, I really must insist, but because he’s an impish charmer, a charming boyish imp who draws pictures and plays the guitar and piano and does silly harmonica tricks, and sometimes that makes me just want to smack him (I’m tempted to say it makes me want to bend him over a chair, but that would be disingenuous in just a whole bunch of different ways, so I won’t say it. Consider it unsaid.). In his post about Demetri, with whom he is an erstwhile old friend (and which I did manage to go back through the archives and find for you all, somehow) Dan wrote:
“As Aristotle said: Ambitious men are more envious than those who are not. So also those who profess wisdom; they are ambitious — to be thought wise. Indeed, generally, those who aim at a reputation for anything are envious on this particular point. …The deeds or possessions which arouse the love of reputation and honor and the desire for fame, and the various gifts of fortune, are almost all subject to envy; and particularly if we desire the thing ourselves, or think we are entitled to it, or if having it puts us a little above others, or not having it a little below them. It is clear also what kind of people we envy; that was included in what has been said already: we envy those who are near us in time, place, age, or reputation. . . .We also envy those whose possession of or success in a thing is a reproach to us: these are our neighbors and equals; for it is clear that it is our own fault we have missed the good thing in question; this annoys us, and excites envy in us. We also envy those who have what we ought to have, or have got what we did have once.”
I wasn’t sure where Aristotle ended and Dan took up the quill the first time I read this, and I’m still not sure, but it’s right on the money.
I’d ad, re Dimitri and me, that artists resent and envy other artists who are pretty good but have oodles of charm or good looks to back up their pretty good art, especially when such charm has helped propel them to fame and fortune. Dimitri is enviable and resent-able because he’s doing something pretty good that I imagine myself doing something akin to but haven’t done, sure, but he’s also enviable and resent-able for having an especially au courant type of charm and looks, a kind of charm I never have had (which is not to say that I have no charm or am not captivating to some ladies and gentlemen, but it would be fun to be Beck or Dimitri Martin for a day, or maybe a year, or maybe a lifetime if one was given several lifetimes like, say, a cat. He’s the current-day version of the pouty, skinny, swoon-worthy, black clad, doe-eyed new wave idols of my youth whom I could never successfully emulate.). Sarah Silverman is enviable for similar reasons and resent-able because, for similar reasons, she receives acclaim beyond her talent. But we’ll see how I and Anja feel about her once her new show airs. If it’s crap, will Silverman’s hotness make me still defend her? If it’s awesome, will Anja begrudgingly laugh? Stay tuned!
