I read recently an article outlining why happy people, don't check their cell phones before getting out of bed. With a myriad of media outlets and social media networks at the swipe of a finger, it is likely that you will be sucked into a vortex of nepotism or negativity before your morning coffee. Try as I may to mimic the happy, this morning I failed. Lying cosily beneath the covers I skimmed the nation's most poignant issues under the Trending section on Facebook. Don't judge me, it's a Sunday. After a couple of taps and a swipe, I find myself a little less cosy and ensconced in a particular magazine's Facebook page. Before I know it, I am wading waist deep in a thick sea of hate speech and smacking myself in the head for not sticking to the happy people cell phone rule.
Apparently as a result of joining Louis Vuitton's most recent media campaign, Jaden Smith is not only a sick latent homosexual, crying out for the Lord Jesus to save him but he is also ostensibly single-handedly responsible for the feminization of the modern man. Now, some of you may be asking how? How is this teenage movie star swaddled in couture ruining the male moniker? Surely the answer cannot be because he is wearing a dress? Well, according to the three hundred and something comments I flicked through, it is exactly that! Now I'm fairly certain that the young Mr. Smith isn't hiding in his pool house waiting for me to defend his penchant for an A-line skirt but I am here doing just that because unfortunately the root of this issue reaches far beyond the fashion forward seventeen-year-old.
Although the definition of the word man may be directly coupled to genitalia, through generations the definition has broadened to include one's strength, stature and sensibilities. We often toss around the notion of what makes a "real man" or a "great man". Under these banners, we float words such as strong, brave and dignified. We liken these words to men like John. F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, because those men were indeed all of those things. Now I ask you, would Martin Luther King have been just as great if all he wore were purple sweatpants? Could a frock have made Nelson Mandela any less of a man? In fact, Jesus himself wore a robe. I find it hard to believe that Jesus would think it prudent to don a pair of Levi's before the second coming just in case it called his manhood into question.
It saddens me immensely that some members of society have such a literal and askew viewpoint on masculinity. In 2016 how is it possible that some are so shallowly nearsighted that they label a man, a man purely based on the kind of clothes he wears. I wish it went without saying, but it's just as ludicrous to insinuate that a man wearing a dress is a homosexual and in turn, less of a man. Sexual preference is by no means a barometer of a man's manliness. His words and actions however are! It's by this measure that I believe Jaden Smith to be all the "Man" I need! Gender fluidity, sexual preference and age appropriateness notwithstanding, of course.