Part Two: The History of American Masculinity Grifters | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
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Part Two: The History of American Masculinity Grifters | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
Robert and Miles talk about the mid-century crisis in American masculinity and then catch up to the modern era, and Gamergate.
(2 Part Series)
Original Air Date: October 25, 2024
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There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
New episodes Wednesday and Friday with backlog episodes on Saturday until we catch up.
#BehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsPodcast #RobertEvansBehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsMerch #BehindtheBastardsJohnLandis #BehindTheBastardsHost #BehindtheBastardsIvermectin #BestBehindtheBastardsEpisodes #BehindtheBastardsBestEpisodes
Dudebros who go on about how we need to "return" to fully meat-based diets "like our ancestors" truly bewilder me as a historian. Aside from a tiny handful of cultures (like the Kazaks and the Inuit), the majority of civilizations before and definitely AFTER the agricultural revolution were reliant on plant-based diets, specifically grain products. Yes, our paleolithic ancestors were occasionally out there eating a mammoth, but most of the time they were chowing down on literally anything they could get their hands on, which were usually plants (and also insects).
For most cultures, particularly European ones (you know, like the Romans, Vikings, Spartans, etc, all the ones that these same dudes lionize as 'Apex of Masculinity') only a tiny percentage of their populations had meat on a regular basis. Which, no shit, raising livestock specifically for consumption is expensive and resource intensive, significantly more than subsistence agriculture. And while curing can extend the shelf-life of a butchered carcass, proper storage of grain lasts significantly longer and won't negatively impact the taste or texture once it's milled, you can't say the same about meant once it's been turned into jerky.
There was very likely a lot of fish and small game as well - birds, small rodents, whatever you could knock out with a sling or a take down with an arrow. But yeah, the mass consumption of meat we have today is not "the way things were". It's as unnatural as veganism that way, if "natural" is even a thing at this point. As for the Norse (viking was a temporary raider job, not a culture or people), fish. So much fish found in their ancient garbage piles.
"only a tiny percentage of their populations had meat on a regular basis" and which percentage of the population do you thing these idiots think they'd be part of? It's libertarian thinking, they all think they're going to be the king, not the guy scrubbing out the latrine.
It's just wild that it always seems beefsteak and butter sticks.
Just returning to their native Alaskan roots
It's called a "wife beater" because whenever you watched Cops and a domestic disturbance came up they're wearing a tank top...
"I feel bad for lung cancer. Nobody deserves Andrew Tate."
- Queen Coke Francis
+for my girl Francis
Coke Francis is excellent
Love our Queen! ❤
Hell ya, shout out to our Queen!👑
@@DeadCanuck from one Canuck to another.
Speaking of busses... both those examples are the same way that Wonder Bread began as a foodie diet purity movement. I would suggest a book called White Bread by Aaron Bobrow-Strain.
In the depression it was common for sawdust to get added into bread dough as a cheaper filler by mom and pop bakeries trying to cut cost and earn profit. It doesn't metabolize as a fiber, and it fills you up even if you're not getting any nutritional value from it, so generally it was a low impact inclusion. Foodie snobs began a factory food movement to "know where your food is coming from" and Wonder Bread took off because the bleached flour was a visual element to show you no sawdust was included. The "fortified with vitamins and minerals" aspect also appealed to a better-living-through-chemistry early tech bro attitude. In the bigoted US of the time it also served as a useful dog whistle for "AMERICAN MADE bread" made in industrial US factories that made the trains run on time, not something from one of those immigrant bakers. It was popular to use words like "dirty" when describing artisanal bread, because you didn't have to specify if you meant the loaf, the bakery, the bakers, or all three.
The real world effect of this purchasing habit shift was it destroyed generational wealth and upward mobility completely for broad segments of immigrants across the US, since it wasn't uncommon back in the 20's for a family (mom, dad, kids) to all work in the bakery all day, sweep up at close, and sleep on the floor and countertops at night. As the anti-local food movement took off, those businesses failed and the parents and kids were pushed to lower paying factory jobs doing the same thing, but losing their housing and income in the process.
Now similar foodie assholes quote "know where your food is coming from" about locally grown vegetables and livestock, while also voting against community gardens in NIMBY panic. Like in the 20's, there's a specific subset of people who continue to view the financial shopping choices their affluence affords them to be able to make as some sort of quasi-eugenic mark of moral character... and you might hear from them that they're shopping Trader Joe's and looking down their nose at people in food deserts because they think of themselves as "better than those people" because of their (unaffordable for many) food choices. Give them a loaf of Wonder Bread and they'll be insulted and recoil the same way their grandparents did at artisanal bread.
This explains a lot about why Wonder Bread never truly hit it big in Europe - where a lot of those "dirty bread" bakers came from originally. I know I grew up with all kinds of lovely bread, from big fluffy loaves with golden crust to pumpernickel, and the closest I ever got to Wonder Bread was white bread made specifically for toasting. Which, ironically, has become more fiber-laden in the last 3 decades.
Wonder Bread as a symbol of Americanness is extra funny to me, because the only place it has shown up in my life is as a substitute for Japanese milk bread. If you want to make fruit sandos at home in America, and you don’t have access to shokupan, Wonder Bread is a good substitute.
Despite being American, I didn’t grow up with Wonder Bread, likely because of all the negative connotations it gained later in the 20th century as “nutritionless”. So I tend to forget it exists until it comes up in a recipe.
@@scout8145 For my parents, when I was little, it was "Roman Meal" anyone remember that? It was a whole wheat bread but had other grains in there too.
Unclogged my bathroom sink while listening to this episode. Thanks for the support guys 👍
OK, wow, thanks for making the reference from Rocky Horror make sense
A weakling, weighing 98 pounds
Will get sand in his face
When kicked to the ground
That's so funny. I suddenly understood the "he's got the Charles Atlas seal of approval!" Line. I love how dated Rocky Horror is, but is still an absolute thrill
It's also referenced in Queen's 'We Are the Champions" - 'I've had my share of sand kicked in my face/ But I've come through"
LOVE this guy confidently asserting that Cary Grant is the pinnacle of heterosexuality, like he and Randolph Scott were just dudes being bros.
I knew that one of those guys was gay, but I kept thinking it was Gary Cooper lmao. Thanks for the correction.
I was always told they were called wife-beaters because it was stereotypical dress for... Well. Wife beaters.
It was the visual coding for movies and theater dealing with domestic violence, most famously Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire
That's because it was visual shorthand for working class men. There's always been a significant class divide in how we talk about subjects like DV- it tends to get treated as a problem 'the poors' have, and examples from the upper classes tend to get ignored or glossed.
To be fair, the shirt does allow good freedom of movement for swinging fists.
In my neck of the woods it was wife beaters, or sometimes just shortened/modified to beater / beater tanks. They're actually called "A-Line tank tops", fwiw.
Wow, so that cartoon trope of a beach bully specifically targeting a skinny guy was partially influenced by one jackass in the 1940s.
It's another one of those very specific pop culture references that has lost the referent. Just like how Bugs Bunny eating a carrot is a reference to a specific Clark Gable scene. Rabbits don't even eat carrots.
@AlRoderick THEY DONT??? My life has been a lie
@@Lifelover992011they can and they do but they mostly shouldn't, it's too sugary and it should be just an ocasional treat for them.
@@AlRoderick I thought he ate a carrot because he's mostly a Groucho Marx reference, and Groucho frequently had a huge cigar in his mouth.
@@portmantologist It's actually directly disinfo from the US to other world powers explaining how our Air Force bomber crews could see in the dark so well for bomb targeting. We said they ate lots of carrots. We wanted to toss some distractionary disinfo out to get other countries off the scent of this new radar targeting thing.
Miles is always a fun guest so I'm glad he's made it to the video era of Behind the Bastards!
I was born in 1962 so was 10 in 1972 when I started seeing the Charles Atlas ads in the comic books. There were also ads for stuff to make you "less skinny" haha. And I was indeed, very small and skinny and when I joined the Army I think I may have weighed 97 lbs but drank a ton of water to bring me up to the standard, I think 100lbs. Weakling, no not really though. I was used to walking miles barefoot and things like that so Basic Training was actually kind of fun and a little shrimp like me could sneak back into the obstacle course to do it again.
I believe Charles Atlas's technique of "Dynamic Tension" was basically what modern bodybuilders do called "posing" and yes it's part of their routine. It's well, posing, tensing your muscles to make 'em look their biggest and this, plus adequate nutrition, will indeed build you up. In the 70s though, the "adequate nutrition" was the hard part.
The 'Hero of the Beach' motif was used by Grant Morrison to create Flex Mentallo, Muscle Man of Mystery.
The best outcome of those ads
it was also referenced in Rocky Horror Picture Show!
Fun fact: An Italian wizard is called a Pastamancer.
"I cast Magic Meatball"
Sounds like a bunch of sfogliatella, which to the Italians means the truth.
And they can prestige into a Magheroni, a Saucerer or a Pizzard, provided they learned the basic lievitations spells
Giuseppe Stromboli has entered the chat.
🧙♂️🪄
Gandalphini, Patronos Sopranos
What's spooking, my halloweens 🎃🎃🎃
What's carving, my pumpkins?
What’s getting your ass away from there, Lonny!?
What's hallowed my weens?
Just finished part 1 and I'm so happy to have such great timing ♡
Okay that jk rowling joke "andrio siciliano" sounds so fake its insane
That bit about people in the military during the war who never saw combat feeling like they "missed out" on the thing that would make them a man makes me think of 2 things.
The missing out on becoming a man makes me think of the Pratchett novel Nation, where the protagonist, Mau, is going through a coming-of-age rite on another island, and is returning to his island nation where he is to be given his "adult soul" upon returning, but he rides a tsunami home that wipes out the rest of his civilization, leaving him (among other things) feeling like he can never truly be a man, something he stuggles with over the book.
The other thing that comes up is feeling like you've missed out on something inherently negative that most others got. For me, while I was very much alive for 9/11, my middle school chose not to tell us what was happening (probably a good choice), so we had our generation's big trauma, but my classmates and I didn't fully experience it alongside everyone else, so there's this weird separation between me and others who were in that moment. It's not a good thing to have experienced, yet it always feels like there's something that nearly everyone else my age has in common that I don't. It's a weird and complicated thing that I never know how to feel or think about.
I think in a lot of ways that "I missed out on this clearly negative thing that most of my generation experienced, and I don't know to do with that" feeling is a form of survivors guilt. And I definitely can understand both you not knowing how to feel about that and WWII veterans who never saw combat seeking out reassurance and experiences that will make them feel "manly" in replacement.
I needed this one today, i dont thin Robert comprehends how important this is for me.
41:17 Thank you, I waited the whole Wednesday to see what you mean with that guy wanting to shoot himself in the armpit. Lmao.
Starting at 00:44:51, Robert makes the most insightful bit he's done in a while. Bravo!
That feeling when Behind the Bastards lets you understand the reference a specific lyric from "I Can Make You A Man" from Rocky Horror Picture Show is making.
Edit: 14 minutes in, and I love that y'all decided in editing to keep the "wait a second" realization about what specific tank tops are called, and the moment of learning and growth. WHat a way to accidentally show STARK contrast to the type of shit these "manfluencers" get up to.
Also realizing that it's more than a reference, but a bit of a critique, because the timing of all this means the writer would have grown up reading those comics.
This episode just makes me think of Rocky Horror
I just learned who Charles atlas was here…. Always wondering
He carries the Charles Atlas seal of approval!
In just 7 days
THAT'S A WEEK!
Edit: me trying to get a Rocky Horror audience participation thread going in the chat...no takers...me :(
So odd how the opening lines of "A weakling, weighing 96 pounds/Will get sand in his face/as he's kicked to the ground" were based on Atlas' backstory.
We can take in an old Steve Reeves movie...
Not this episode truly helping me understand why my dad, who's been getting into this manfluencer shit despite being the epitome of masculinity (at least to me, he's my dad after all), has always had such a hard time not only accepting me as trans but having a hard time explaining why. He's very much a "I was born into this role therefore it's what I am, and I strive to preform it well" as opposed to what I'm doing, which is tear that idea down to the floor and fully reinvent it. ...Thanks for the insight Robert.
As a female teen i used to wrestle. When a man found out my sport they told me everything I needed to about themselves when they one or both of two questions; 'jelly wrestling?' and 'do you think you could bet me?'.
Is jelly wrestling exactly what it sounds like?
@iandaley2295 stripers in a blow up kids pool with flaccid desert?
@@iandaley2295Pretty much... also mud wrestling. Two hot chicks rolling around in wet goo.
@@iandaley2295 i really, really hope not *bleugh*
I'm a guy, and I also did wrestling as a teen. Can confirm the "who would win" question is definitely the first thought I would have. I'm a competitive guy, though, so I asked that of everyone in my weight class lol. Totally different.
I think the different names for "sleeveless undershirt" are to some extent regional; I definitely grew up (in new england) with "Tank Top"
'Singlets' down here in Aotearoa, New Zealand
But the 'wife-beater' nickname for them carried over, given US film&television that established the trope is ubiquitous
@@petercolson2990 "Singlets" here are those wrestling one-alls.
@@ReneeAnnette Like the strongman leotards, or the shortlegged athletic onesies? Whereabouts is that? =)
There's a fantastic Perry Bible fellowship riffing on hero of the beach. Scrawny guy sees an ad of a muscular man with a "this could be you!", orders the miracle solution, and what arrives is a prop for photoshoots with a cutout for your face.
That's how I view these manfluencers.
whenever i hear "in just seven days, and i can make you a man" my mind immediately goes to tim curry singing as dr franken furter😆
Bryan Americana, Nigel Britannia, Hans Germany, Pierre Francia.
Don't forget Sunni Shia, the Ethiopian wizard.
Great episode - especially the part focusing on the 1950s. That era has been mythologised to the point of almost caricature now, especially with the trad wife movement that seems to be along for the ride with these grifters.
One thing that's also really noticeable about this current crop though is how humourless they all seem. Andrew Tate seems like he would rather commit seppuku than be even remotely self-deprecating
I'm amazed at how targeted and boldly manipulative those early Charles Atlas comic books are.
This ep Unlocked a rocky horror lyric for me…. Always wondered who “Charles atlas” was
Yeah I was hearing that song the whole time they talked about him.
Tank tops are not T-shirts, because T-shirts definitionally have sleeves, while tank tops not only don't have sleeves but generally don't even cover the entire torso.
Moments like this are why I'm glad Robert granted us with the advent of video. 41:17
17:25 I'm going to call the local police 🚨 to report the theft of the ad-throw music
Oh hey! This got uploaded while i was watching part one on the clock :)
Wow…Frank N. Furter really got that song straight from the Charles Atlas ads… 🎶 _In just sever days: I can make you a ma-ha-ha-ha aannn!”_ 🎵
Great piece. I actually learned a lot!
I adore robert's old timey tv voice a lot.
So olives, avocados, and coconuts are all seeds. the conspiracy runs deep bro
Say what you will about Atlas, he was selling cheap pamphlets or whatever, not trying to soak his marks for their financial livelihood.
Yeah, his biggest crime is manipulative advertising; he's quite benign.
Growing up I heard “wife beater” and I remember specifically being like “oh that HAS to be spelled ‘white beader’ like there’s no way it’s actually beater. It’s gotta be a ‘d’ in there and is talking about the color”
And then my mom explained it to me and I was shook
2:10 love the pod as always, but why are we not seeing the ad now that we've pivoted to video? I've noticed this for a few episodes now, feels like it's wasting the format a bit.
It almost sounds like you actually *want* to hear about the products & services that support this podcast. What kind of cuckoldry is this
Anderson is the best bit of the pivot to video
14:13 I'm reminded of an old smosh joke (odd I know but bear with me) where they ask their landlord if he really had to beat his wife to get the shirt (or something to that effect) and he replies "no... You can beat your husband!"
Excellent Episode 💪
On the dodgy old words for clothing items topic, as a kid in South Africa after 1994, the name we used for a common type of shoe included the worst Afrikaans slur for black people, and I only recently learned that what we called little jaw breaker type sweets is derived from the n word
Sophie's gleeful laugh at 42:35 gives me life
Yeeeees, the young male actors of the time couldn't match the masculinity of Gary Cooper. Those notably effeminate actors like Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Clint Eastwood would be the death knell of American masculinity
24:07 “…sign that American men were losing their potency.” 😆😄🤣 Ca 1958 everyone from that generation had, like, 6 kids. Look at birth numbers, birth rates, and teenage pregnancy rates from that time. Every metric was at a thirty year high. American men may have had 99 problems, but vitality sure wasn’t one. The hard part (poor choice of words) of the 1950s was stopping people from getting down.
Moskin and Schlesinger were apparently the only men of that time with any potency anxiety. 😆
I like at 26:32 how Sophie looks up and pretends to appreciate the joke
To be fair, seed oils genuinely are pretty bad for you. It has nothing to do with masculinity or whatever, but a lot of the less insane dudebro menfluence types have actually good takes on diet health.
Probably don't go to them even _for_ those good takes, because there are definitely better people making those points, but they're not all wrong all the time.
I first heard about the seed oil scare when I was diving into ecofascists and accelerationists so I just always associate it with them, and I’m fine with that!
“Rap Seedy, the Basement” 😂
"A-shirt" is also a name for "wife beaters" that works better than "tank top" in a lot of ways.
Could you add a hyperlink to Part One in the description. It's often recommended to me out of order for some reason.
I was at a boys' school and the Charles Atlas adverts were a permanent topic of discussion. Boys thought it was a shortcut to becoming forceful and desirable. Maybe it was because I was in the rugby first XV each year as we progressed up the age ladder, but I always thought 'I just don't believe it'. Early days in my development of a critical thinking skepticism that protected me from making too many dumb mistakes when I was growing up.
14:00 I call them A-shirts
oh fantastic i just finished part one
33:38 I am in love with this laugh
13:13 I call them A-shirts, because that's what the packaging says
I wonder how far in advance these things are made? Anyways Happy Halloween!
Oh shit. I just quit vaping and god DAMN that ad...
@@SesshyLover777 Stay strong, bud
avocado oil is fantastic….its no safflower oil but it’ll do in a pinch….
Psychologist Bruno Bettleheim should have his own episode! Look up the Orthogenic School...
Im stealing "my partner, her majesty" that's gold
Since you guys are doing video now, it would make a lot of sense and help viewers follow if you could show us, the audience, what you are showing each other with respect to Charles Atlas ads &c.
So the ideal man in the eyes of the great Arthur is a redditor. Kind of surprising considering the reputation they have, however hypocritical those who hurl insults at them may be.
What deadpan comment was Sophie going to make (or possibly did make & it was cut) at 30:48? I must know
smoking while eating shellfish is actually unironically pretty good
Snow White served beer to miners
Facts.
I'm old enough to remember those adverts. Hmm, never thought of them that way.
That means Bullworker adverts would fall into that category too.
Speaking of smoking and shellfish, anyone else seen The Substance? Great flick!
Sophie's 'Hell yea brother' is unhinged and amazing
Is there going to be a part 3?
Okay so dude with the tac gear... handgun on the breastplate of body armor has been seen (it was a thing in the early 2010s), but for a very specific reason, being able to draw your handgun while you're in a car.
And usually centered, not all the way to the left like that.
I am not up on the latest tacticool setups so I don't know if it's still done.
Also, tactical stuff in black, what is this, 1993?
it would be much more legit if it WAS 1993-style retro gear. retro gear is all the rage right now partly because its simply much more rad. a lot of experimentation went into early gear, nothing was purpose built. really trial and error stuff. nobody knew what worked at first, people had to duct-tape and zip-tie stuff before we figured out the best solutions.
side note, thats a big reason i think that retro stuff is actually a lot more palatable to normal, non-creepy people.
less navy seal war crimes and more john mcclane. any everyman would jury-rig something that could work out of cast-offs, surplus, and tape.
but guys who buy gucci gear, and don't train? losers of the highest order. scum.
@@fieldcommanderkurt Well yes, from the time when you could get it in either black or black, and the green stuff was a collectors item.
But the modern stuff, you can have it in any color your heart desires, so getting it in black is just what morons do.
Just buy some Desert Tiger gear like the real cool kids do. Or 90s night desert. The sexy patterns.
@@daktari Agreed, people seem to gravitate towards the novelty patterns. i really enjoy the cold war lizard patterns and chocolate chip camo is tasty AF.
it may just be me but i avoid desert tiger. it's for sure cool looking, but seems to be spook issue when in the field. CAG and SAD Guys mostly. not what i would call role models.
Man do i find Rhodesian Brushstroke a super red flag though. such a tell. if you want a similar colorway but no real baggage, try Alpenflage. you'd be amazed how many deciduous forests you just vanish in, holy shit.
@@fieldcommanderkurt Desert Tiger was used by US SFGs in Afghanistan, looked pretty good.
I do enjoy the former Iraki SF gear which used Bulgarian camo patterns in the RAID-style uniforms, didn't stay in use long though.
Yeah anything Rhodesian tags you as the kind of guy who would wear a Hugo Boss black uniform with silver skulls on the collar.
48:54 I was rolling on the floor crying-laughing at this.
Why wasn't the theme to Orgazmo used for these episodes? Missed opportunity for some DVDA tunes...
Why is it called a wife beater? Because you don’t want to get blood on your good clothes.
Gross.
Easier to swing fists without sleeves too.
...we just called them undershirts.
did doctor brother invest in an avocado field
Yes.
Miles has an almost mark normand kind of tick, and I love it.
Guess what my grandma called Brazil nuts.
Mine too... At least she acknowledged back in the 90s it didn't fly anymore
Let me guess, "cracker fingers"?
I just noticed Roberts hand tat, has he always had that? I like et a lawt
i know its a throwaway line but i was fully an adult before i ever heard wife beater as a term i have always called them or heard them referred to as singlets lmao
Pausing for a bit.... I learned about height surery through the manga/show Baki the grappler. And watching a lion to see how to get strong feels straight out of baki.
I used to live off Rape (as in rapeseed) Rd in a flyspeck town in the Arkansas Ozarks
No talking about the PUA is crazy lol thanks for the podcast tho
Speaking of people with pseudonyms, but their real names are somehow more fantastic: Dr. John's real name was Mac Rebennack. Not to drag him into this discussion since that's really the only connection and I just very readily think of that fact.
Benar McFadden strikes again!
What do they call seed for Canaries in America? We call it singing seed. Rapseed is fine! I am Dutch picking something up is in Dutch. Op rapen. Op =Up and Rapen does the picking. It's called Pick it up Pick it up Pick it up Seed. (raapzaad) It's what Ska musicians use alot! I think if you literally translate the Dutch word for rape into English you will end up with Overpowering. Verkrachten. Over like over the edge. (Too Far=Te Ver) Kracht is Power. You went to far and over the edge with powering... something like that.
The seed oil stuff reminds me of the guy from "Doctor Strangelove" complaining that fluoride is a communist plot to contaminate our precious bodily fluids.
(and olive oil comes from the fruit, not the seed)
When I went to the zoo the lions were all lounging around on rocks. I tried it and it was good, but it didn't make me very muscular.
A nightmare filled with nameless horrors. So the masculinity grift is a cosmic horror? Sounds about right.
0:26 oh, Miles. From your lips to G-d’s ears.
How does a young dude get to be a “consultant of a Charter school”?
I mean my grandpa was Charles Atlas Last name
Halloween time
Honestly calling them wifebeaters might be problematic but the name itself isn't the real problem. It is that they were called that for decades by everyone, yet people still bought and wore them while calling them that.
Wife beaters are also called A Shirts.
These episodes are brilliant and uncover the deep roots of masculinity grifters so well.
However, you are dead wrong about Playboy. The Playboy womanTM is not threatening to men as the working woman is, because she is a ditzy blonde with bunny ears vying for the attention of men. The Playboy woman is part of the backlash of women starting to demanding their rights and getting more independent and emancipated.
Italian tuxedo.
I definitely remember calling them "wife beaters" just wrong on so many levels. I think A-shirt is acceptable.