Arnold a Metrosexual?
September 26, 2003
by Bernard Chapin
Yea
though I spent considerable time on Sunday lambasting
Dowd for her Schwarzenegger
heckling , today’s column, Gams for Gladiators,
is chock full of the same vaginations and must be tackled like a tail
back running through the Detroit Lions’ secondary.
First, let me offer the disclaimer that I am no great worshipper
of Arnold’s bodybuilding career or his films. His work has been hit
or miss with me (for example, I loved “Conan” but reviled “Twins”).
My old gym was adorned with 50 photos of Arnold. They were all from
the 1970’s and depicted him posing on the street, posing with old
ladies, flexing on the stage and just about everywhere else. I paid
little sustained attention to them or even to any of the gym’s ubiquitous
bodybuilding magazines or advertisements for the muscle shows that
many of my fellow lifters attended.
Politically, until Wednesday, I viewed Arnie as being just another
Republican In Name Only. If I lived in California, odds are, I’d
be voting for Tom McClintock. However, Arnie’s editorial
yesterday in the Wall Street Journal changed my view of
him. He presented a sincere renunciation of tax and spend liberalism.
He proclaimed taxes a great evil which sabotages the success of every
Californian. I nodded my head throughout the entire article and am
now rather proud of him. Politicians do not always directly pander
to their conservative base in such a fashion and I, for one, appreciated
it.
Miss Dowd’s column today is a continuation of her subjectively reported
(no Q and A) interview with the governor to be. The setting occurs
at a Beverly Hills restaurant. I assume Maureen offered Arnold a
comped meal in exchange for a few minutes of his time. Of course
it makes perfect sense that a bum like you or I would put up with
abuse from the likes of Dowd for the free food, but why a multimillionaire
like Arnold Schwarzenegger ever would is indicative of just how close
he thinks this election recall will be.
To begin with, Dowd advises that in the debate: “The tyro Tyrolean
pol had to offer more to California voters than the same message he
gave to the distressed Linda Hamilton in ‘Terminator 2’: ‘Come with
me if you want to liff.’” Nope, that’s good enough. Wanting to live
is a pretty good reason to vote for Arnie. That’s what frivolous
tarts like Maureen don’t understand. The situation in California
is quite dire. Their bonds are nearly junk from paying for endless
illegal immigrants and their medical procedures along with a multitude
of workers’ compensation claims. It’s time for serious people to
take over. It is a life or death situation and calls for Davis being
thrown out of Sacremento.
Undoubtedly, loyal reader, you saw the title and thought, “Boy, this
Chapin has to be making something like this up. Dowd wouldn’t try
to label Arnold with that metrosexual claptrap,” but you’d be wrong.
Here she tries to peddle that ugly innuendo to the Austrian Oak:
At a cafe the other night, I asked Arnold if he's a metrosexual.
Puffing on his stogie, he looked uncertain but intrigued. ‘A metrosexual,’
I explained, ‘is a guy who likes traditionally female activities:
facials, manicures, shopping.’ Unlike most soup-stained politicians,
this Republican clearly spends time grooming. In person, he looks
a little unreal, like a top-of-the-line Madame Tussaud figure: taut
skin, buffed nails, designer shades.
How absurd it all is. Maureen, may your vibrator be afflicted with
a short circuit from the after effects of Hurricane Isabel and suddenly
be locked in “minor throttle” gear only.
What a dastardly thing to do to a great man like Arnold (I think
objectively, regardless of your political orientation, you have to
admit that his accomplishments in life have been great). His unusual
achievements and his masculine persona are undoubtedly the two things
Dowd hates most about him. That is what she wishes to destroy, and,
as any reader of this website can tell you, “metrosexual” is a fighting
word. That’s why she excitedly tries to paste it onto his forehead.
He answers that he loves shopping for his wife and not for himself.
To me, this makes Arnie a non-metrosexual. After all, a metrosexual
would buy clothes for his wife just to enable himself to wear them,
and I can’t see him fitting into any of Maria Shriver’s clothes.
Gratefully, Dowd drops this life of questioning after his answer.
Instead, Dowd tries to toss Arnold into the La Brea Tarpits of our
declining culture:
“Asked about the Britney-Madonna kiss, he takes a P.R. view of
it, calling Madonna ‘very smart’: ‘When they decide the one shot from
the whole show that's going to be in The L.A. Times or The New York
Times, is it going to be you, or is it going to be someone else? I
can relate to that.”
What can one say? Madonna is vile but an intelligent businesswoman.
Who would deny it?
Unwittingly, Dowd ends up making Arnold look pretty good to the majority
of Americans. A paragraph like the next one is offensive to the
NYT PC crowd, but to the rest of America it is rather endearing
for its spontaneity and honesty.
“He still peruses bodybuilding magazines and recalls the 70's,
when he was competing, as a much less P.C. time: ‘It was commonly
known that bodybuilders that were black, African-Americans today we
call it, had problems with their calves. But by nature they had this
incredible waistline with great abs. Where today, if we said that,
people would say, `Well, that's prejudiced.’”
Even if it was not her intention, in this column, Dowd succeeds in
making Arnold look like a legitimate human being. That is a truly
rare in political interviews (see Gary Condit). In this way she has
provided a service for Arnold that she was never able to provide for
herself.
Bernard Chapin
Bernard Chapin
is a writer in Chicago.
