So it’s been a while since I started hearing about this. It finally bounced around in my head long enough for it to work its way back out again as a kernel of an idea. It’s pop culture. It’s fraught with emotion, pain, ignorance, smug indignation and denial. In other words, it’s perfect fodder for a painting.
And with this being Texas, there is all kinds of different toxic masculinities running around. You have good ol boys, wannabe cowboys, actual cowboys, bikers, cholos, gansters, hustlers, and evangelicals. I’m not going to touch most of that with a 10 foot pole. At least not directly. I’ll stick to my own point of view as I explore the heart of the matter that bubbles up in all of those different people.
At first I heard toxic masculinity, and as a man, was assuming it was all about me and being a man and masculine in general. I don’t deny people who have been under the boot of the very real white privilege patriarchy. I have guilt knowing that I am an inevitable beneficiary of that system every day in every way, and I know when I need to keep my mouth shut and just not engage. Know one wanted to hear how I felt about the phrase “toxic masculinity” a.
I still privately didn’t get it. I was seeing it as a general feeling that masculinity was inherently toxic. I didn’t like that. We all have some combination of classic masculine and feminine qualities. There is no denying that the sexes have some physical, emotional and their own valid ways of processing things. Not to say of course that individual of either sex can have more or less of one way or another, but masculinity is a thing and it isn’t all bad.
Then one day, I finally got it. Like a flash. Maybe I was reading about ineffectual frustrated white males who aren’t succeeding despite their advantages and lash out violently at the world as a response. I saw toxic masculinity for what it was. Maybe I should have asked more questions instead of backing out of the room trying not to be noticed. But it was apparent to me finally that it wasn’t about me being masculine, it was about frustration at not being gifted with success that men reacted to in violent ways. At least partly. That was at least the aspect that most intrigued me and the one that seemed to be popping up in the news the most with more and more marginalized men engaging in mass shootings.
So that lead me to this piece. We have the flexing skinny white boy wearing the symbol of the toxic frustration he endures like a halo…in his mind the world is doing this to him. He’s a martyr. He is gripping the false idol of male virility, strength and pride. Is he trying to crush it, tear it apart, or is he desperately clinging to it. With his mask he isn’t immune to his poisonous frustration, but he isn’t aware of it.
I’m not sure it’s done and ready to paint/build though. I imagine I need some sort of candles and wall altar treatment as I am wont to do. Let’s see what pops up in my “doing” posts about this piece.
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