Mads Mikkelsen | Sex Symbol of Man's Holy Wars

Two photos blurred together just now in my mind, making a quick cultural commentary about body politics. 

In what is one of the most overly masculine visual statements in recent memory, the photo of Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen in “Valhalla Rising” requires little commentary.  The NYTimes article Mads Mikkelsen, Sex Symbol With an Unearthly Twist is focused on Mikkelsen the actor. 

The second is PETA’s new ad, rejected by Southwest Airlines for being too sexy. Granted, our perspective on levels of sexiness is more tolerant than most, but we’re totally baffled as to how this “bra and panty” ad could be too sexy. 

Watching the trailer for “Valhalla Rising”, we need perspective, and it comes from Valhalla Rising on DVD Talk. 

In one quick minute, the photos jell around the core propositions of Anne of Carversville: female sexuality, environment, feminism, masculinity, love and peace, war, religion.

World events — including today’s debate about Israel — is about the phallus. Southwest Airlines won’t hesitate to show this blood and gore “Valhalla Rising” movie. But the PETA ad is too much to handle, because  … why?

America is about real-man beef country? 

Men in particular love these stories about the Crusades and acting for God. There can’t be enough bodily bloodshed in his name, say the phallus-lovers.

“He is driven by hate. That’s how he survives,” says the the trailer to “Valhalla Rising”.  Does this refrain sound familiar?

The conversation is more complex, however. Female-centric principles play out in “Valhalla Rising”.  The film is a dreamstate.

Expecting Middle-Eastern lands when the fog lifts, the men are surprised to find a forest environment inhabited by an aggressive indigenous tribe. As One-Eye attempts to assess this new land, the men find deadly hostility and madness, leading them to believe they’ve journeyed to Hell. DVD Talk

The movie, says writer Brian Orndorf, is about “the feral nature of man, who is uncomfortable in in the discomfort of nature and the ethereal beauty it contains”.  And so killing and destruction are man’s motivations, because he fears the sensuality of his own body and mind. 

Man is unmanageable, whereas woman is not.  

The more scientists study the genders, women’s behavior and decision-making skills are different. We are pragmatic and solution-oriented nurturers. Men, for the most part, are ideologues in a world that desperately needs solutions. 

They are betting on God.

Today in the Middle East, women must be newly covered, because man cannot contain himself. International NGOs are refusing to give aid any more to men, because they drink the money and fight, fight, fight. 

Let’s start talking about men’s morality for a change.

Smart Sensuality Women Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel was a feminist who challenged the basic fundamentals of godly-existence for modern women. This trouser-wearing woman deserves her own in-depth article. Let’s stay focused on men.

Mads Mikkelsen’s other new movie is Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, a story of artistic passion and lust, and a talented, “enormous” intellect meeting a formidable, independent woman. Coco Chanel emerges as man’s worst nightmare, even today.

Possibility

We sense a truly new dialogue emerging about men and women, and it concerns our essential natures. Science and brain scans advance our dialogue. To date I’ve read nothing about brain scans of women’s brains vs men, nothing about women’s hormones that discourages me that women should fear science.

We should fear religion but not science. 

Can men really lead us forward in life? I think not. In fact, why do women want to be as good as men, if we are perhaps biologically and morally superior?

Mother Earth is begging for the first truly collaborative, gender-based effort in “civilized” history. Masculine principles are not only outmoded, they will destroy us all.

I have so many close men friends, more than women. But the vision of religious Armageddon is what motivates the majority of the world’s men, because they seek forgiveness for their sins in real life.  

Perhaps evil is truly in man’s nature? I’m intrigued with the fact that in the most advanced species like dolphins and apes, men aren’t part of the group. 

Could this be the new truth of the 21st century? God, I hope not. But this is how it looks to me, after a lifetime of trying to give men a chance to make the world better.

We lost the argument in America that women should truly influence policy and politics. We don’t. America is man’s country — for better or worse. Just like the Middle East.  It’s time to change that fact, once and for all, because America is falling behind more progressive-thinking countries. 

Fundamentalism is not woman-friendly. Let’s all be straight on that fact, once and for all. And fundamentalism is about fighting. It’s a holy war, whether launched in America or Afghanistan. Period. Anne

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky