Note to Serious Men
by Masha Tupitsyn
Men can’t just write serious songs anymore (Kanye West’s “New Slaves,” which I find arresting, but…) or make serious films or write serious books. They also need to date/marry/love serious women who are doing serious things other than dating so-called serious men. Women who actually reflect these so-called serious men’s so-called anti-establishment politics. Hard to take Kanye West’s stark anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-media rap anthem seriously when he’s dating Kim Kardashian. It’s not just what we say or sing or write or read, it’s who we’re with. It’s how we live. It’s the women we respect enough to take seriously and the seriousness we encourage women to pursue themselves. It’s not enough to just be with serious and talented men. If serious and talented men are not interested in serious and talented women, then frankly I’m not interested in them, and I wish other women (more women) felt the same way. If men—if people—want to be taken seriously, they need to start actually taking the things they themselves say and do seriously so that other people can, too. So that people can start to really care about things again, and not just pretend to care. We’re all pretending to care these days. All we’ve got is surface care. Consumer care, where we only care enough to buy.
Piece crossposted with Love Dog
About the Author:
Masha Tupitsyn is a writer, cultural critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (ZerO Books, 2011), Beauty Talk & Monsters, a collection of film-based stories (Semiotext(e) Press, 2007), and co-editor of the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film (City Lights, 2009). Her fiction and criticism has appeared or is forthcoming in the anthologies Women in Clothes (Penguin, 2014), The Force of What’s Possible (Nightboat Books, 2014), The American Tetralogy (Blackjack Editions, 2013), Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology (2012), The Encyclopedia Project Volume 2 (F-K) (2010) and Volume 3 (L-Z) (2014), and Wreckage of Reason: XXperimental Women Writers Writing in the 21st Century (Spuyten Duyvil, 2008), with additional works published by The White Review, The New Inquiry, Fence, Bookforum, The Rumpus, Boing Boing, Indiewire’s Press Play, Animal Shelter, the Shepparton Art Museum, and Ryberg Curated Video.
