GQ, the premier style magazine for the modern male
metrosexual, just hit rock bottom.
The final straw in the magazine’s decade-long
decline in quality came last week when a frequent contributor named Drew
Magary wrote an absolutely shameful, hateful rant titled “Fuck Ben Carson.” Yes,
that's the headline – in a major
mainstream magazine – and the article itself is just as uncivil and devoid
of intellectual depth as its title.
Inexplicably incensed by the Republican
presidential candidate Carson’s recent comments about fighting back in life-or-death
situations such as the Oregon community college shooting, Magary complained
that “the Good Doctor made it clear this week that he is not only willing to
replicate [candidate Donald] Trump’s signature brand of hot-garbage-spewing, but
he’ll say even DUMBER shit.”
Keep in mind that Carson is a world-renowned
brain surgeon and arguably the most genuinely articulate and thoughtful of any
would-be President on either side of the fence, while the considerably less
accomplished Magary here exhibits all the profane vocabulary and intellectual horsepower
of a junior high school student.
For the record, Ben Carson is not my choice
for President; I would find the headline just as repellent if, say, Bernie
Sanders or Hillary Clinton had been the target. And the issue isn’t about
clutching one’s pearls over the use of profanity; there is a time and occasion
for swearing heartily, but this level of hateful crudity has no place in a major
mainstream publication, particularly one with the word “gentlemen” in the name.
GQ apparently disagrees; it proudly tweeted a link to the article, and Twitterers on both the left and
right properly expressed disgust and disapproval:
Far from taking this criticism to heart and
offering an apology/retraction, Magary and GQ
doubled down two days later with this snarky, insulting attack on angry “Fox News viewers,” whom they derided as old and out-of-touch –
as if the issue is age and hipness rather than civility and class. They doubled
down on the profanity too: “Trust me,” Magary taunted,
“Fuck Ben Carson” will not be the last time
this magazine shouts FUCK (Politician’s Name Here)! Because, for real, they can
ALL get fucked eternally. We pride ourselves on thoroughly objective profane
rants against terrible people. Like Ben Carson!”
For all his false claim to being fair and
balanced, this is what the politicization of the magazine has led to: openly
sneering at anyone who disagrees with GQ’s
position and with the vile manner in which they expressed it. What was once a quality
men’s style magazine has degenerated into just another celebrity-fetishizing, divisive,
leftist mouthpiece in popular culture.
Gentlemen's Quarterly was launched under a different name in
1931 essentially as a men's fashion trade magazine, but by 1957 it had grown
beyond industry insiders. It was renamed GQ in 1967 and grew
to monthly publication in 1970. After Condé Nast bought the mag in 1980, it
strove to compete with Esquire by introducing articles of general
interest beyond fashion. For many years it flourished as a sort of more reputable
alternative to Playboy as a lifestyle
guide for adult men.
Then Jim Nelson was named editor-in-chief in
February 2003, and the mag began to skew toward younger readers and to adopt a
more casual tone. That tone turned increasingly profane and juvenile (as did
the culture itself) and the writers’ voices began to sound like those of upscale
frat boys, until hitting the nadir of Magary’s article.
Over that same time frame, GQ also went sharply political. Nelson,
who is gay and progressive, made no bones in a 2004 interview about his aim of steering the magazine in
that direction:
“When I got the job, right away… I was
already thinking about how we could be a relevant magazine as a monthly and
engage in political issues that I cared about in the months and the year
leading up to the election. I wanted political stories—important political
stories—in every single issue.”
Even if the magazine insists on promoting a
strong political stance, at the very minimum the mature, gentlemanly thing to do is disagree respectfully with its
opponents, instead of giving them the finger. And at the very minimum, a
publication called Gentlemen’s Quarterly should
strive to maintain a standard of manners
and dignity in the face of our culture’s plunging trajectory into juvenility
and profanity, instead of reveling in offensiveness with all the glee of a Beavis
and/or Butthead. Sadly, Magary and Nelson would no doubt dismiss such an expectation
as old and out-of-touch.
As
for Ben Carson, what was his response to GQ’s
and Magary’s attack? Ever the gentleman, Carson calmly told Fox News, “I think we should pray for them.”
From Acculturated, 10/13/15
