Monday, April 20, 2015

Pornosophy: The Postmodern Playboy of the Western World



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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