Friday, October 03, 2003

On ABC this morning, Jake Tapper said that a pro-Schwarzenegger demonstration is planned for today, organized by a group called “California Guys for the Arnold Lifestyle.”

(Yeah, I realize “demonstration” is probably a strong word for this event, which I imagine will basically be a happy hour with picket signs, involving maybe eight guys whose real goal is to get on The Howard Stern Show.)

This reminds me of an online-only Newsweek article I read earlier this week. The article suggests that over the past couple of years Vice, WYWS, and other “cool” magazines have been promoting what might be called the “Arnold lifestyle”:

… in [WYWS], two birds are killed with one stone when a leading porn Web master says, “I love the NRA, less government, less taxes, supply-side economics and freedom of speech. I believe in family values....”

Vice magazine’s conservatism is declared rather than inferred. Just before the American invasion of Iraq, its cover featured two concupiscent breasts, a sparkly crucifix and the motto, in Gothic script, THE WEST IS BEST. Last month, Vice’s cofounder Gavin McInnes wrote an article for Pat Buchanan’s magazine the American Conservative bearing the subtitle, “It’s getting cooler to be conservative,” in which he asserted it has “become fashionable to link liberalism with weakness and conservatism with honesty.”

Joy Press, writing last November in The Village Voice, noted that the Vicers, like Schwarzenegger, seem equally amused by hedonism and fascism:

"Hanging out with Ryan [hard-partying Vice photo editor Ryan McGinley] you feel like you're part of an infamous moment," brags McInnes. ". . . Even when you're puking or getting swastika's [sic] drawn on your passed out face you're thinking, 'I'm making history.' "

And Vice’s most notorious article reflects an attitude toward sexual consent that seems rather Schwarzeneggeresque:

Last year's "Vice Guide to Getting Reamed Up the Cake" outlined a five-month campaign to coax your reluctant girlfriend into getting "down with the brown." McInnes advises, "She won't like anal sex until her seventeenth time. It's an acquired taste. But you have to get her to want to go through that good pain, seventeen times. To get that response, you must employ the 'Pavlov's Dog' technique." The piece's underlying message is more Camille Paglia than Dr. Ruth: "Love hurts and sex is hostile."

If Schwarzenegger wins, maybe one of these guys can be his press secretary.

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