John Millington Synge |
How does the post-modern playboy pass his day? Back in the
50’s Hugh Hefner introduced the Playboy life style which had something in
common with Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Fearlessness and savoir faire were
combined in a gently sadomasochistic form of hedonism. The hero of Fifty Shades of Grey is perhaps the grandson or great grandson or a close relative of Bond’s
just as the literary heritage of Joyce’s Stephen Dedalus might be traced back to Hamlet. But
surely today’s metrosexual is not mixing martinis in a silk bathrobe or looking for direction on sophistication from the Playboy advisor or
anywhere else. For starters the postmodern playboy might literally be
questioning whether he is in fact a boy. Perhaps he partakes of the sensibility
of a woman who loves other woman or even of a woman who loves other men or
simply a man who loves other men. But like a Connecticut Yankee, it would be
fun to consider the possibility of scenarios where our hero is sent back to the
equivalent of King Arthur’s court. Give this creature a fast car, beautiful
women and a cold war adversary and let’s see see what SSRI would enable him
to weather the ensuing anxiety attack? Hugh Hefner is still living. Albert
Broccoli who produced many James Bond films is dead. Perhaps our hero would be a sad boy with a book, a Hamlet picking
up his well-worn copy of Shakespeare’s play. J.
M. Synge wrote The Playboy of the Western World. Someone should write The
Postmodern Playboy of the Western World, perhaps modeled, not on spies like Wild Bill Donovan, but on the career of polymorphously perverse mega artists like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.
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