Man Up or Shut Up
A couple of weeks ago I watched Zombieland and one of the more memorable lines, “Nut up or shut up” comes from the mouth of Woody Harrelson’s character, Tallahassee.
It stood out not only for its relevance to a loving father turned tough guy due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding a zombie apocalypse, but for also stamping itself as a man’s line.
It even worked when Jessie Eisenberg’s character, Columbus, in all of his “'I don’t want to be here right now' fragility” used it.
With the way my brain works, I immediately thought of another memorable movie line from Say Anything; “The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don’t be a guy.”
That line has stuck with me forever and I’ve tried hard to walk it. When I find myself straying too far from the Mandoza Line, I repeat it a few times and reel myself back in.
Fast forward to 2010 and I’m a bit distraught, because right now I’m not seeing a swath of men dominating our culture. For that, I blame women, or at least a certain subset of women and possibly a few of those ridiculously perfect looking gay men who make me feel self-conscious when riding the Salacia high speed ferry to Provincetown.
In order to rationally process what I just wrote, we all have to understand that men, at our core, are simpletons and when it comes to women we have from time to time made some of the dumbest decisions off all time — all because a woman has said one simple phrase, “I like that."
As a result men have talked themselves into things like wearing clogs, skinny jeans and drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
However, those are short-lived trends that fall under the category of “Oh please oh please oh please let this decision lead to sex. Pleeeeeaaaaassssse!!!!!”
Most men can understand that, and within our circles those decisions only result in a yellow card. What I’m most worried about right now is the current 10-year trend of male hair loss and how it’s robbing men of their manliness.
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