Gaargh, it’s not the admission I was hoping for
July 7, 2009
Is there a more singularly tawdry, inane ‘writer’ than Sam de Brito?
I thought perhaps when I read that his post was called ‘Punching Above Your Weight’, that he might finally admit that his pretence of being an author was an unworthy scam he’s been delighted to get away with for as long as he has.
Today he’s banging on about hot chicks who date not-so-hot men. In a topic where you could have tried to examine something vaguely interesting about social status and male privilege he’s managed to produce a piece both vapid and disgusting.
Why is Cate Blanchett with Andrew Upton? Why he had the ‘cahones’ to ‘punch above his weight’ and is now being ‘rewarded’. The usual ‘girls don’t like boys girls like cars and money’ shit trickles unpleasantly through the entire piece, and his ‘revelation’ is that if a man ‘punches above his weight’ he thereby proves himself a worthy male. There isn’t a single moment spent on pondering the fact that Cate raves about her husband, speaks at length about how happy they are, what good friends they are…nope. She didn’t go with gold digging cos he has a big hairy pair and she thought he’d provide for her caveman style.
It comes back down (as it always seems to, some days more transparently than others) de Brito’s need to talk himself up. I Have A Chick Now…and she’s hot…and I’m a little squidgy round the edges, but bully for me I have BIG HEAVY BALLS and that’s what makes ME a king amongst men!
He spends a moment or two pondering the ‘trap’ that is laid apparently for hetero men dating “hot chix” – the crippling insecurity of ‘MY WOMAN IS HAWT AND THEY ALL WANT HER’. You know I just think that if perhaps you approached women as complex human beings capable of love and affection, thoughts and desires rather than a shiny new toy or a choice bone you’d like to bury so no other dog can find it that you’d really have some more success in defeating the green eyed monster instead of pretending it isn’t there.
‘Unless you’re a very secure man…’? Well you don’t have to be George Clooney not to be a jealous steaming pile of dog turd, you just have to take a good hard look at yourself and your approach to sex and relationships. Perhaps your fear of cheating/yo woman being ogled is to do with YOUR approach to women/relationships. Women, as well as men can choose to enter into relationships for all sorts of reasons, and while I’m not about to pretend that there’s not a vast inequality in terms of expectations of socially prescribed attractiveness, I also don’t think it’s as simple as the size of the load in your nutsack honey.
I just feel ill listening to his bland vaccuous drivel – not only is he a fucking lazy thinker and writer, but the approach to men, women, sex and relationships inherent in the article is narcissistic, shallow and *nasty* – how’s about a little time out in the corner de Brito where you might consider the fact that Blanchett might love Upton precisely because he shows a truckload more intelligence and respect than you ever seem able to muster even when you try? Perhaps he doesn’t treat her as the Object de Jour, the chick any man would love to bone, but rather a talented and multifaceted woman, his friend, his lover, the mother of his children, a woman beautiful in many ways – someone in short he loves and adores not just a nice specimen to get it up by.
What I love about the TV spots (which you can see if you click that link) is they champion a new kind of masculinity, espousing being interesting instead of just rich or famous or having sick abs and that’s something any man can cultivate by just getting out in the world and doing stuff that doesn’t involve the pub or TAB or gym.
De Brito seems to think that casting an older suave gent is some radical departure here. I give you Sean Connery and Harrison Ford and though it causes me to yack in my mouth a little to type it even Hugh Heffner – think a little harder de Brito, there’s nothing ‘new’ here. Men are allowed to be ’sexy’ because they look distinguished/have a gravelly voice/have an interesting job/wear a well cut suit/have an accent/have a hobby/are arrogant/command young women to swarm around them – men are not required to be young, thin and buff to be considered swoon worthy. That sort of shit is only put on women.
Sadly it doesn’t champion any new masculinity, it’s just the same old ‘competant man’ trope. It’s a funny ad (from the written description I’ve read) cos it takes the piss out of a long standing trope of the man who is never ruffled, the Michael Corleone cliche. And it *is* a cliche, and in fact it *is* a cliche that puts more pressure on men to be: suave, stoic, rich enough to dress impeccably, strong silent ‘manly’ types, to be all omniscient, to have a closed off attitude to women whereby their needs do not affect you and you can coldly order a prostitute brutally murdered for your political convenience and knock your wife around when her ’silly emotions’ bug you. NOTHING. NEW.
Interesting? Sure in the cliched Corleone/Bond type of Master Of Anything He Tries (Impossible For Real Men To Achieve) kind of way.
And here is where I sink the boot in a little:
espousing being interesting instead of just rich or famous or having sick abs and that’s something any man can cultivate by just getting out in the world and doing stuff that doesn’t involve the pub or TAB or gym
No. Any man cannot cultivate it. Not simply by ‘doing stuff’, not simply by eschewing the TAB or the gym. Perhaps by dropping the hackneyed cliched advice of the de Brito’s of the world, getting their head out of their arse, having a good look around and actually beginning to engage with the world and with women in a way where they seek to engage with things for the experience of learning and negotiating and growing and learning and NOT in order to claim their rightful prize for being rich/famous/having big balls/being some unacheivable Bond type. Women are not your dog biscuits for when you learn new tricks. Maybe if you got THAT through your head you might have a shot in hell of becoming anything that could remotely be described as interesting.
Til then, ciao.
Also, did anyone who read the full article note that the Good News that was proclaimed was that MEN could be interesting and thereby sexy/desired, but women cannot – women must stay behind, left to obsessively groom, diet and exercise, to hang on to youth that is always fleeting, in short the chicks must stay hot not just interesting or else WHERE will these deserving men get their new shiny chew toys?
[...] Edited to add: Read FP’s marvellous smack down here. [...]
‘girls don’t like boys girls like cars and money’
Oh noes! Being a girl, I’m doing it rong.
Obviously the answer is to leave my unemployable, car-less partner and buy some pink shoes. Thank god for Sam, he has saved me from Teh Feminist Hivemind.
Hopefully he will shine his Fresh! Manly! Wisdom! upon relationships between women, because I need his incredibly thought-provoking advice.
Also relationships =/= boxing. It isn’t a fight against an adversary or something to win (or, hell, maybe I’m just doing it wrong and De Brito can correct my ignorant self).
BAD Rebekka! Do it PROPERLY!
Yes, I know he had one the other day about how in all relationships one person is the person who loves the other more, and therefore is loved ‘less’…I HATE that shit. It’s not a mother fucking competition for a finite supply of Love! And I hate that just wholesale acceptance of pop psych bullshit, that it’s best to be the person who is loved more/what have you. It’s so demeaning of human relationships.
And I’m not sure he’s aware that female/female relationships exist outside pron.
This guy has been watching too many Lynx adverts.
The latest “Muchas Maracas” has a skinny anglo guy dancing in a south american cantina alone because none of the hot local girls fancy his tiny set of maracas (I kid you not). So he goes outside and showers with lynx bodywash and miraculously grows a massive pair which he then takes back inside where even the hot chickies middle aged mothers fancy him.
Until I’d read the deBrito piece it never made any sense to me. Now I know what they were getting at.
This is so typical of de Brito. He wants to see past a sexist stereotype (women as shallow golddiggers), but he hasn’t quite caught onto the fact that it’s as easy as “women are complex people too”.
Of course! It’s all true what my ex-husband says! I left him for another man because that man (my darling SO of 15 years) bought me stuff. It had nothing to do with the fact that he sees me as an equal, adores my ability to make him laugh, is dazzled by my intelligence, and finds me wonderful to just be with (as I find him, am similarly awestruck by his intelligence, and he makes me laugh like a loon). Of course not.
It’s the stuff. Well, that’s settled, then.
*eye roll*
Well this is it. Of my many relationships, exactly NONE have been with men who showered me with gifts/were rich/were famous. There was one once, when I was 16 or so who INSISTED on paying for everything, which made me exceedingly uncomfortable – when we saw a movie I felt like I couldn’t choose it, when we ate out I would try to choose something inexpensive – and that experience (aside from my pre-exisiting notions of not wanting to be a ‘kept woman’) was sufficient for me to move on and to seek relationships where I paid for myself and therefore felt free to offer opinions and order what I wanted.
I *have* in fact dated many men who were arseholes (though obviously I didn’t know that at the time and didn’t go *looking* for arseholes), and yes, as a teenager I was attracted to the boys who made me swoon with their looks before I knew them…but there’s something *else* there – when you read de Brito et al, there is such scathing objection to women/girls being attracted to good looking guys – if women do this they’re shallow vapid whores who any deserve bad treatment they get by the ‘bad boys’ or the lookers – whereas *OF COURSE* men are (and are allowed to be) primarily drawn to women by looks (hey, with chicks, WHAT ELSE IS THERE, AMIRITE?). There is a spectacular double standard in operation – guys who want ‘hot chicks’ are just regular dudes, and ALL dudes deserve hot pussy you know, and if *they* don’t actively seek a woman who is smart, funny, interesting and with an interesting career,but only a nice young hot piece of firm smooth arse well *they’re* not shallow slutty fuckwits who reap what they sow, no, but WOMEN should be above such things, they oughtn’t to be conditioned by society as men are, they should be good and virtuous and above such petty concerns as looks – and THAT seems to suggest that this is because women are not as sexual as men, they’re longing baby makers, mothers to be, God’s Police, sexless cherubs. There’s no consideration that there are people of both sexes who are interested only in looks or status, good looking (and not so good looking) members of both sex who turn out to be raging arseholes, but de Brito et al can’t see past their screaming misogyny of FUCKING STUPID BITCH WOMEN SAY THEY WANT NICE MEN AND THEY DON’T FUCK ME THOSE WHORES!
Yes, and it’s quite sickening to watch this guy play the ‘feminist card’ when it gives him cookies, but to dish out shit like this. He also monitors his comments on a very surface level standard – so, for instance if you advocated outright violence you might get censored, but you can still hate on women all you like so long as you present it as common sense ‘fact’.
I just can’t quite comprehend the effort that goes into being so blindly idiotic INSTEAD of ‘OMG – chix is ppl too!’
Oh LYNX ads!!! There was once one of a guy who wasn’t ‘getting any’ – then he sprayed the Lynx in a line down to his crotch and the implication was he got lots of head – I just want to throw things when I see it – if a woman isn’t going down on you, I’m fairly certain the issue at hand was NOT that you were missing a line of cheap smelly Lynx guiding her to the ‘GET IT WHILE IT’S HOT’ spot.
And this sort of shit is EVERYWHERE, it’s the ‘nerds deserve hot pussy too’ thing. Funny that, if male nerds deserve porn stars, what do female nerds deserve? Male nerds are complaining that the hot chicks are bitches cos they don’t see them, and are only interested in looks – AHEM: RAGING DOUBLE STANDARD!!!
Damn it – it used to be that when I ‘directly’ replied to someone’s comments that mine would pop up after theirs – it’s NOT WORKING! Hmph. Anyway, I guess it’s relatively clear which replies respond to which comments.
You know, I’m surprised that this asshat hasn’t written an “article” entitled “GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS: THE BEST NEW ORNAMENT FOR YOUR HOME.”
However, I could also easily see that OTHER Sam writing that as a headline and then putting the word “you.” as the entire article.
“And this sort of shit is EVERYWHERE, it’s the ‘nerds deserve hot pussy too’ thing. Funny that, if male nerds deserve porn stars, what do female nerds deserve? ”
Female nerds don’t exist. Female nerds are only being nerdy to get a dudes attention. I thought you would know this by now FP?
When I tell dudes I play counterstrike, l4d, watch stargate, pretend to be Lara Croft and shit they think I’m just doing it FOR THEIR ATTENTION, when it’s quite clearly a case of, “No. Asshole, I actually thought maybe you saw me as a human being I could share my interests with.”
god damnit. some days there just seems to be no fucking winning yeah?
God I loathe Sam de Brito. I was subjected to him the other night on Triple J in the car with my partner. I spent the whole time ranting about why Sam de Brito is not the feminist he thinks he is… He drives me insane with his drivel, but what annoys me the most is that he thinks he’s so progressive and female-positive! It is like he is begging for a cookie from the feminist world. No, Sam, you’re actually a misogynist idiot who can’t see past your own cock and desperation to get laid by a hot chick.
PLEASE tell me he’s not on jjj long term? Was he being interviewed for the dude week thing? Cos FFS you’d think jjj could’ve found a better representative of men and male issues?
Yes, I share your problems with him.
“…there is such scathing objection to women/girls being attracted to good looking guys – if women do this they’re shallow vapid whores who any deserve bad treatment they get by the ‘bad boys’ or the lookers…”
OMFG!!!! I cannot begin to tell you the amount of damage I think this does to chicks. I mean, it took me YEARS to finally draw a line in the sand and say; “Actually, physical attraction and sexual chemistry are really important to me in the context of my primary relationship. It’s by no means the ONLY consideration, but I will not commit to someone who I don’t have a true erotic connection with.” And EVERYONE conspires to tell you that you’re wrong, wrong, wrong. Cleo and Cosmo write articles on how to ‘coach’ guys who are otherwise nice but crap at sex, and your peer group will tell you that you’re being ’shallow’ and that your relationship is absent of values and that you’ll end up OLD and ALONE because of your slutty slutty shallowness. “Why don’t you go out with John, he really likes you y’know.” “I’m not attracted to him.” “But he’s a really NICE GUY!!”
Additionally, as I’m not a conventionally ‘hot chick’ maybe I’m being seen as uppity to want to go out with sexy fuckers.
Wilsonova, you’ve got it in one. He seems to honestly believe he’s a feminist, and I can’t decide whether that’s scary or sad.
Scary. I vote scary.
I’m almost embarrassed for him.
Aaaaand then I remember his privilege – he’s a moron and he’s been published and he has continually led men into an anti-woman frenzy (though now he just ‘poof’ magics that away – he won’t be held responsible mind, anyone who reminds him of the misogyny trolls he’s let dominate threads in the past gets met with ‘He’s not here now’) and continues to frame even his reformed posts in ways that see women as less than human. I’m embarrassed he’s still published.
Despite his recent ‘more feminist than thou’ epiphanies he just can’t seem to get past his perception that women are decorative fucktoys first and people after.
how can you reduce an intelligent, articulate, talented woman like cate blanchett to her husbands doggy choc for having the ‘balls’ to pursue her when she’s so obviously a prize for a more worthy/wealthy/pretty man?
aarrrggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!
BTW That troll is posting on the other blog – LITERALLY stating ‘its understandable that women who refuse sex end up dead or hurt.’ And the post is still there. Wtf is with the moderators at the SMH? doesnt this breach THEIR rules?
Whoa, what now? Yes, they do have a policy, and they will intervene but only upon receipt of complaints. I used to occasionally treat it as a sport and trawl through the comments and report each one to the SMH (I think there’s an email address in fine print at the bottom of each of the blogs, and if not, I think you could find it on the site map). Which blog is that on? On Ask Sam?
Complain to Media Watch.
on ask sam.
but think, on consideration, that those blogs do my head in and waste my time.
There nothing funnier than an uneducated twat whose “best” efforts are when he tries to impersonate an educated twat.
Have you noticed how much he sucks his own cock in the comments section? He writes in using pseudonyms that are so transparent. He writes to himself saying stuff like: “I’m constantly amazed art how amazing you are.”
That’s a direct quote. Seriously. How does he write anything with his cock stuffed in his mouth?
Ewww! He does NOT write in and comment on his own blog as someone else does he??? That would be so pathetic and desperate! How would you know it’s him? (Although the prospect that anyone else would find him amazing is very nearly proof enough!)
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