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In my neighborhood in Southern California, the men mostly dress like children and it drives me cuckoo bird crazy. Wherever I go out in my southland suburb, I see men in their 30's, 40's, 50's and beyond dressing like their kids and grandkids: Ed Hardy shirts (gasp), spiked hair and striped tee shirts. Shorts, the ultimate uniform of casualness, are worn in all their varieties: basketball shorts, board shorts, surf shorts. And if not shorts, then jeans. Suits, ties, or even trousers read as antiquated and old-timey in this Shangri-La of agelessness and immortality.
I interpret this trend as a sartorial denial of death. Yes, my thesis is that these 60-somethings in board shorts and backwards baseball caps might be attempting to hide their silver hair from the grim reaper. Ernest Becker writes in his classic The Denial of Death: "The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man." The unconscious thinking in this age-inappropriate apparel is something right out of Becker's book. I believe it is a defense against death and an attempt to overcome it. The clothing suggests: "If I look like a boy, I am a boy."
When I see these Peter Pans of apparel, I find myself annoyed and highly unattracted. I am a woman in my 40's who dresses like a woman in her 40's, who likes to see men dress and act like men. I imagine part of my irritation is the underlying issue that if childhood is idealized, then we as individuals and as a culture lose out because men, real and virile and adult men, have a lot to bring to the cultural table. Boys, on the other hand, don't---boys will be boys and they should be. It isn't a boy's job to do the heavy lifting of culture building. Go on, try and imagine any of the great men in history such as Lincoln, Washington, or John Kennedy caught dead in Ed Hardy tee shirts, flip-flops or Citizen of Humanity jeans. Can't do it, can you?
My intellectual crush, the archetypal psychologist, 80-something James Hillman writes a lot about the problems of the Puer eternus (forever boy) and the Senex (the archetype of Saturn, the god of old age). Hillman likely views this old goat dressed as young bull phenomenon as a devaluing of the Senex and an idealizing of the Peter Pan. This, I think, is not just a problem of personal psychology but a societal issue--in the U.S. The old don't get a lot of respect here (I believe this stems from our country being so young. We tend to value the new over the old, the novel over the proven).
This Peter-Pan trend is perhaps what's responsible for the entire genre of "Why aren't men men anymore?" books---books like Absent Fathers, Lost Sons: The Search for Masculine Identity by Guy Corneau; Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man by Susan Faludi; and Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Leonard Sax. And it's my hunch that the success of shows like Deadliest Catch that portray men doing dangerous jobs is a cultural attempt to compensate for all the sensitive new age guys and/or the 60-somethings who haven't outgrown their ponytails or perpetual adolescence.
On Mad Men, a show known for finely-crafted style, Joan says to Peggy, "You want to be taken seriously? Stop dressing like a little girl." I would say the same thing to men who dress like little boys, only I am not so sure that the men who dress like boys want to be taken seriously. In wearing a uniform of informality, I think the message is "I am a nonconformist. I am not in the game. Don't expect me to be a man---I am a boy." And maybe there are women for whom this message is catnip. It must work, as there are so many men choosing this aesthetic
Recently I was shopping at an upscale department store, and was waiting for an elevator. A gentleman (not a word I would ever use to describe someone who wears boy shorts, baseball caps and skateboard shoes while carrying a Medicare card) asked me if he could share the elevator with me. I was flabbergasted by this man's adult charm and his easy confidence that came with maturity. My lift-mate was easily 25 years older than me. He had grey hair that was well-groomed, no earrings, no visible tattoos. He was wearing wool trousers, a cashmere sweater, driving loafers and a subtle splash of Aqua di Parma. I tell you all this to explain that this man was dressed like an adult and his adultness was extremely attractive.
I will admit that I have a predisposition to find maturity attractive. My father was 50-something when I was born and by the time I was toddling, he was already a silver fox with not a single stripe of brown left in his manly mane. My father was a dapper dresser who took great pride in his appearance. So I am admitting that my appreciation for men of a certain age may in fact be motivated by my formidable father complex.
At 15, I had a crush on Phil Donahue. And as soon as Bill Clinton‘s hair went white I found myself irresistibly attracted to him (by the way, one of Bill Clinton's favorite books is Denial of Death, which says to me that he is not afraid of death, and won't ever be caught dead dressing like a teenager. Can you imagine Bill in board shorts?!). So yes, I will admit my bias. That said, I don't believe that makes my assertion about men who dress like children as a denial of death any less true.
A couple of weeks ago, Phil Donahue and Geraldo Rivera were on the Oprah show. Geraldo had a probing, inquiring-mind-wants-to-know question for Phil. Geraldo asked, "Why, Phil, didn't you ever color your hair?" Phil brushed off the question with his usual good humor and charm. However, at home, sitting on my sofa, I had a few questions for Geraldo. You see, Geraldo has been married a lot, was a self-proclaimed womanizer and has had many wives, affairs and a history of commitment issues (I would guess he is a bit of a Peter Pan). I wanted to ask Geraldo why he refused to grow up for so long? Why does he want to cover up Phil's beautiful hair with a box of Grecian Formula? What about age frightens him so?
This is a good place for me to quote Becker again, who clarifies, "the irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we shrink from being fully alive." A man(and a human) who is comfortable with who he is and where he is along the developmental lifespan is a man who is more fully alive---he knows he will die and so he lives more fully; that is much more attractive than a man who is wearing a uniform of immaturity in order to achieve an illusion of immortality. That, and a good suit. Truly, men, don't underestimate the power of a good suit.
Copyright 2010 Tracey Cleantis, LMFT
