Man up!

Will Smith’s “slap seen round the world” won’t be forgotten any time soon. As a famous ethicist once said, “We’re always remembered for our last worst mistake.” Smith’s filmography may span three decades but his legacy was cemented in less than thirty seconds.

The debate over the propriety of assaulting Chris Rock at the Oscars will never be resolved. One empathizer said the slap was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Similarly, many thought Smith did the right thing by defending his wife’s honor from an insult cloaked as a joke directed at her shaved head that was the result of her ongoing struggle with alopecia. Actor Denzel Washington chose not to take sides with his comment “there but by the grace of God go I.” On the other hand, comedian Jim Carrey was disgusted with the standing ovation Smith received later when he accepted his best actor award.

I’m not surprised at the support Smith has received since many believe Rock’s joke was terribly insensitive (if he knew Smith’s wife suffered from a medical condition) and Smith did the right thing by “manning up” and protecting his wife. If Smith had done nothing and tried to laugh off the joke, he might have been seen as weak and uncaring, or even unmanly.

To man up is an expression used to motivate lesser men to become bigger, better men. Such men need to become tougher, to grow a pair, to be ready to fight, to stop being afraid, to never admit vulnerability, and to forget about ever wanting to cry. Smith manned up when he approached Rock and slapped him hard on the face. Perhaps in his mind, any other course of action could have been seen as a betrayal of the principle that physical aggression, regardless of the cost, is at the core of masculine strength and power. If Smith wanted to show the world he was a strong man, he would need to do something more than smile and laugh.

A considerable amount of research into the male psyche supports the conclusion that a man’s greatest fear is to be seen as weak or effeminate. They don’t want to be judged as having a soft handshake, a pronounced voice inflection, exaggerated mannerisms, or an affected gait. They want to hide any fondness for cooking, musical theater, poetry, ballet, fashion, tanning, and interior design. They desire to cultivate as much enthusiasm as they can for the outdoors, for hunting and fishing, and for as many different sports as they can fathom. They want to be known as highly ambitious and strenuously competitive, as fearless and strong, and as sexually insatiable.

While all of that characterization above is nonsensical overstatement, those generalizations do hint at what most men would consider to be the softer side of masculinity, if such a side actually exists. If real men have a softer side it likely is hidden, repressed, or denied, remaining in what psychologists call our shadow – the things within us from which we are disconnected and that we push away or otherwise disown and describe with the expression that’s not me.

To man up cannot mean to reconnect with our softer side if we have one. It cannot mean to cultivate abilities and interests that culturally have been identified as being feminine. It can never mean an admission that we are weak or helpless, or God forbid, emotional. It can only mean that we are tough, stoic, autonomous, and adequate.

Such a narrow definition of manning up can be problematic for the spiritual man. The apostle Paul writes in the book of Galatians that the signs of God in a man’s life include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These attributes of the godly man may not sound very manly to the man already tuned into prevailing cultural perceptions of manliness. In fact, they sound downright incompatible with modern masculinity.

Herein lies the problem with Jesus Christ. (See an earlier post called Jesus in Drag.) Many men might ask if he ever did really man up in his life except for the time when he made a whip and chased all the moneychangers out of the Temple. Apart from that encounter, it seems Jesus just walks around telling stories and forgiving everyone.

The problem with that notion is not Jesus but the assertion itself. It equates manning up with physical aggression and suggests Jesus didn’t display masculine strength again, not even when on the cross. In my view, that proposition is obscenely false and one I might argue in a future post. Suffice it to say that if voluntarily surrendering to death by crucifixion isn’t manning up then I have no idea what that expression could ever mean realistically.

Somehow, we have to get to the place where American men can man up by becoming compassionate, tender, and forgiving. Imagine how different Will Smith’s world would be today if he hadn’t assaulted Chris Rock on stage but instead amended his best actor acceptance speech as follows:

“I know to do what we do you’ve got to be able to take abuse. You’ve got to be able to have people talk crazy about you. In this business you’ve got to be able to have people disrespecting you. And you’ve got to smile. You’ve got to pretend like that’s okay. But in this one instance I can’t pretend. Chris, I didn’t like your joke about my wife. It was offensive, but I still consider you a good friend.”

That’s just as much manning up as hitting Rock in the face. No physical aggression. No out-of-control anger. No awkward apology. No pushback from a stunned audience. Just a man showing men what it means to be a man.