Thursday open thread: Construction of masculinity edition

Because any blog, no matter how high-minded, eventually turns into a YouTube dump.

First, Verka Serduchka’s near-win for Ukraine in the recent Eurovision contest (via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog):

Next, a big, bad, breakdancing man has some bad moral luck (via Justin the Birthday Boy):

Finally, that video than which none more awesome can be conceived (via Unfogged):

It is up to you, dear reader, to connect the dots. Or to discuss whatever you damn well please.

13 responses to “Thursday open thread: Construction of masculinity edition”

  1. Lane says:

    wow, Man Dumb is more like it.

    That must be one of the inspirations for Bill Murray’s Lost in Translation character.

  2. G-Lock says:

    My most favorite ever Gawker comment on that breakdancing video was “She got served.”

  3. Dave says:

    Lane, apparently this ad is often cited as establishing the Japanese trend of using foreign actors for TV commercials — so definitely the Bill Murray thing.

    I love how he has a whole rack of pipes and a whole little altar in his apartment devoted to Mandom.

  4. Dave says:

    On second thought, I retract my statement about moral luck. It was the tot’s caretaker’s fault that she wandered onto the breakdancing floor, not the breakdancer’s fault for recklessly flipping himself around.

  5. Jeremy says:

    Yeah, but isn’t that the whole concept of moral luck? The breakdancer can still be treated as an “object of moral judgment” despite the fact that the circumstance was more or less beyond his control. (I say more or less because, well, isn’t he guilty of breakdancing 20 years after breakdancing’s passing?)

    Mandom is Man Awesome!

  6. Dave says:

    It would be (bad) moral luck if we blamed the breakdancer for kicking the child, since if the child hadn’t wandered out onto the floor she wouldn’t have been kicked and we wouldn’t then blame the breakdancer. But I don’t blame the breakdancer.

  7. G-Lock says:

    It’s just shitty timing all around. While the mother won’t be winning Mother of the Year, I don’t think she deserves blame for her child briefly escaping her watch, even if a flailing dancer was nearby.

  8. Dave says:

    What if she sent the kid onto the dance floor to pick up a dropped cigarette?

  9. LP says:

    Dave, I blame neither the breakdancer nor the child. I blame you, for posting this without a suitable warning that we’re going to see a child get kick-flipped. You are cruel. And unusual.

  10. Dave says:

    I didn’t want to spoil the surprise ending.

  11. LP says:

    Cruel and unusual, but thoughtful.

  12. admit it, parrish. you watched it twice, didn’t you?

  13. Stephanie Wells says:

    Re. Mandom, I just gotta ask: as foxy as Chuck may be, how juiced up am I really supposed to get when, against the crooning of “All the world loves a lover,” he’s whipping around in a full ammo belt and squeezing off six right in my face? Does anyone else find this, well, less than aphrodisiacal?