Reading A.O. Scott's New York Times piece "The Death of Adulthood in American Culture", I was struck by the way he universalized the white male experience as the American experience. Almost all of the characters and real people he discussed, and all that he discussed in a positive way are white men. Yet, he argues that the change that he is documenting is not just the destruction of the patriarchy but the destruction of the entire construct of what it means to be an adult. In beginning his article by discussing Mad Men, Scott gives the impression that that the world of that show is the adult world. While it is certainly a world in which on the outside at least the characters aspire to the American Dream, a house in the suburbs stocked with a wife and some children, even from the beginning of the show Don and the rest of the ad men do not seem capable of living up to those expectations. They fail again and again to stay faithful and suffer from bouts of depression and self-doubt. You might argue that the womanizing and alcoholism is part of the dream, part of the masculine power that they cling so strongly to, but if that is the case, then why don't they revel in it? Mad Men shows as a world full of adults who are forced to repress themselves for the sake of conformity and their struggle through failing to do so. The adulthood of that world seems to be a facade masking the inner turmoil of the post-World War II generation.
Scott also sees adulthood as related to growing up, coming to a new understanding about the world and changing as a result of it. In this way, he sees Huck Finn as being different from an Adam Sandler or Seth Rogen character. Yet, while the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may be intended to teach the reader a thing or two about slavery and the humanity of enslaved peoples, Huck himself ends the novel by asserting he's going to run away West. His refusal to be civilized is a refusal to grow up and embrace the responsibilities of adulthood. In that way, it is possible to mature, to reach new understandings, while still embracing the (possibly) childlike urge for freedom. The ambivalence of The Catcher in the Rye's ending illustrates this point as well. Holden does seem to come to a new understanding of his own inability to protect children from the adult world when he says, "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them." Yet, whether he will buckle down and study so that he can find his place in the conventional adult world is unclear. Salinger, of course, eventually rejected this world himself. All three of these examples show the tension that white American males have faced in trying to reconcile their traumatic experiences with the social expectations that are placed on them by outside pressures.
So, then I would argue that changing the definition of what it means to be a white American male adult is healthy and positive for our society. Men now have the opportunity to shape their identities in different ways without the same consequences for breaking social norms. While, of course, pressure remains depending on each individual's social and economic background, a plurality of ways of being a man have come into being. There are brony conventions and beer kickball leagues that allow adult men the opportunity to enjoy pastimes that were originally intended for children. The idea of "New Sincerity" (which I just learned about today) allows us to own the real pleasure in taking part in activities that we used to write off as guilty or ironic. While there are certainly people who feel more comfortable in consuming media intended for adults or see it as containing more valuable/thought provoking insight, the plurality of our culture today allows for people's interests to run counter to the notion of the superiority of the canon. While it can be overwhelming to be lost in a sea of identities trying to find one that fits or deciding to reject the idea of defining yourself at all, this reality is superior to one in which those who don't conform are pushed to the margins and express their frustration in ways that hurt others as Don Draper does.
Returning to my original desire in writing this essay, I was struck in reading Scott's piece that he ascribed a white male perspective to a homogenous idea of American culture. While many writers have dealt with threats to male dominance in other cultures (Achebe, Mahfouz, and Adichie come to mind off the top of my head), the idea of adulthood as being defined by what we consume and the image that we create for ourselves seems to be a very mainstream (and therefore white) American one. We often think of children's media as being silly and adult media as being serious, and as as a result, we view silly media intended for adults (like the Apatow/Rogen fare that Scott pans) as being childish. Ironically, we see British humor, which is decidedly silly, as somehow sophisticated and adult. Our culture is founded on consumerism, and this consumerism has caused us to put what we consume into categories. The reason that Scott's piece had to be so focused on the white male experience, besides it being his own experience, is that other cultures seem less likely to define the distinction between adults and children by the books that they read or the movies they watch. In South Africa, I would often go to school and talk to the other teachers about whatever movie had been on TV last night, and they never once were embarrassed to have watched Ice Age or Harry Potter because they were not privy to the information that those movies were not intended for sophisticated adults to watch.
Of course, the influence of the American media is huge, and there are plenty of people of various races around in the US and around the world who want to fit into the identity categories that the American media has helped shape. There are other countries as well, France being an obvious example, in which intellectualism is highly valued and considered to be adult. All around the world people have ideas about what it means to be an adult, most of which deal with taking on responsibilities within families. The problem with American ideals of adulthood is that they are based in consumerism. As a result, they are easily eroded through economic shifts (another article deals with the economic reasons behind the death of adulthood). Considering both the positives that come along with being able to adopt an identity that fits and the negatives of the possible shirking of responsibility, the question that remains is if these two sides to adulthood really go together at all. Is adulthood dead or has the image of what it means to be an adult shattered into many possibilities? Are these possibilities real or are they just more images created by the structures of power in our society? I hope that we can continue to build our knowledge and sense of our place in our families and communities while acknowledging our differences and the extent to which they are our own and the extent to which they have been shaped by our consumer culture.
Scott also sees adulthood as related to growing up, coming to a new understanding about the world and changing as a result of it. In this way, he sees Huck Finn as being different from an Adam Sandler or Seth Rogen character. Yet, while the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may be intended to teach the reader a thing or two about slavery and the humanity of enslaved peoples, Huck himself ends the novel by asserting he's going to run away West. His refusal to be civilized is a refusal to grow up and embrace the responsibilities of adulthood. In that way, it is possible to mature, to reach new understandings, while still embracing the (possibly) childlike urge for freedom. The ambivalence of The Catcher in the Rye's ending illustrates this point as well. Holden does seem to come to a new understanding of his own inability to protect children from the adult world when he says, "The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them." Yet, whether he will buckle down and study so that he can find his place in the conventional adult world is unclear. Salinger, of course, eventually rejected this world himself. All three of these examples show the tension that white American males have faced in trying to reconcile their traumatic experiences with the social expectations that are placed on them by outside pressures.
So, then I would argue that changing the definition of what it means to be a white American male adult is healthy and positive for our society. Men now have the opportunity to shape their identities in different ways without the same consequences for breaking social norms. While, of course, pressure remains depending on each individual's social and economic background, a plurality of ways of being a man have come into being. There are brony conventions and beer kickball leagues that allow adult men the opportunity to enjoy pastimes that were originally intended for children. The idea of "New Sincerity" (which I just learned about today) allows us to own the real pleasure in taking part in activities that we used to write off as guilty or ironic. While there are certainly people who feel more comfortable in consuming media intended for adults or see it as containing more valuable/thought provoking insight, the plurality of our culture today allows for people's interests to run counter to the notion of the superiority of the canon. While it can be overwhelming to be lost in a sea of identities trying to find one that fits or deciding to reject the idea of defining yourself at all, this reality is superior to one in which those who don't conform are pushed to the margins and express their frustration in ways that hurt others as Don Draper does.
Returning to my original desire in writing this essay, I was struck in reading Scott's piece that he ascribed a white male perspective to a homogenous idea of American culture. While many writers have dealt with threats to male dominance in other cultures (Achebe, Mahfouz, and Adichie come to mind off the top of my head), the idea of adulthood as being defined by what we consume and the image that we create for ourselves seems to be a very mainstream (and therefore white) American one. We often think of children's media as being silly and adult media as being serious, and as as a result, we view silly media intended for adults (like the Apatow/Rogen fare that Scott pans) as being childish. Ironically, we see British humor, which is decidedly silly, as somehow sophisticated and adult. Our culture is founded on consumerism, and this consumerism has caused us to put what we consume into categories. The reason that Scott's piece had to be so focused on the white male experience, besides it being his own experience, is that other cultures seem less likely to define the distinction between adults and children by the books that they read or the movies they watch. In South Africa, I would often go to school and talk to the other teachers about whatever movie had been on TV last night, and they never once were embarrassed to have watched Ice Age or Harry Potter because they were not privy to the information that those movies were not intended for sophisticated adults to watch.
Of course, the influence of the American media is huge, and there are plenty of people of various races around in the US and around the world who want to fit into the identity categories that the American media has helped shape. There are other countries as well, France being an obvious example, in which intellectualism is highly valued and considered to be adult. All around the world people have ideas about what it means to be an adult, most of which deal with taking on responsibilities within families. The problem with American ideals of adulthood is that they are based in consumerism. As a result, they are easily eroded through economic shifts (another article deals with the economic reasons behind the death of adulthood). Considering both the positives that come along with being able to adopt an identity that fits and the negatives of the possible shirking of responsibility, the question that remains is if these two sides to adulthood really go together at all. Is adulthood dead or has the image of what it means to be an adult shattered into many possibilities? Are these possibilities real or are they just more images created by the structures of power in our society? I hope that we can continue to build our knowledge and sense of our place in our families and communities while acknowledging our differences and the extent to which they are our own and the extent to which they have been shaped by our consumer culture.
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