RIP Patrick Swayze
The 1990s were a confusing time if you were a bloke trying to figure out how to be a bloke. The choices seemed to boil down to being the waspy, sensitive “New Man” (aka today’s emo) “New Man” stereotype pastiche, or the “Lager Lout” (out all night in pubs, drinking strong beer and starting brawls in nightclubs) stereotype? (I’m sure the advertising industry has, as ever, much sexier phrases for these stereotypes).
Patrick Swayze, bless him, seemed to prove that you could dance, love, and even cry, while simultaneously being able to knock seven shades of crap out of bad people and even indulge in a spot of bromance with an FBI agent. Quite a huge range for an actor who never even went to acting school. He even looked alarmingly good for a man of 50 in Keeping Mum. And he even managed to stay married to the SAME WOMAN for 30+ years or so.
So the fact he’s succumbed to cancer, which is one of the most vile diseases sapping all life energy out of its sufferers in a long slow death, is, to say the least, quite sad.
He was a terrible singer though. Even if I do somehow love this song - and any song that can survive a wonderful mashup with the Pet Shop Boys’ Minimal has got to be a great song despite anything you can throw at it…
Click to viewand it’s not just me. Particularly interesting thoughts come via the usually snarky The Onion AV Club and Overthinking It…
Mirrored from almost witty.