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CNN Live At Daybreak

Some Articles Point to Heroic Image of Firefighters as Example of Return of Manly Man

Aired November 08, 2001 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: On September 11th, we saw heroic firefighters giving their lives to save thousands of people from the collapsing World Trade Center towers. Since then, firefighters have become the nation's new superheroes. They have been saluted for their strength, praised for their bravery and appreciated for their sacrifices.

Even those who draw comic book heroes say firefighters are the real crusaders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROMITA JR., SPIDERMAN ARTIST: They are everyday people doing super hero-like things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Some media articles point to the heroic image of firefighters as an example of the return of the manly man.

And joining us now to talk about that Camille Paglia. She is an author and professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Good to see you again. Welcome.

CAMILLE PAGLIA, PROFESSOR OF HUMANITIES: Good morning, Paula. Nice to see you.

ZAHN: Thank you.

So you know on October 28th, the "New York Times" declared the return of the manly man. Can you tell me where the manly many had gone?

PAGLIA: Well, for about 30 years, the white, heterosexual masculine man was stereotyped as the source of all of the oppression and sufferings and rapes of women of history, and it became a kind of a knee-jerk formula, so that I think in the United States, the upper- middle class had been very snobbishly oblivious to the reality of working-class men, who have no doubts about their masculinity, and who are maintaining the infrastructure in this country -- doing the police work, firework, plumbing, electrical work, janitorial work, construction work. So I think that we are in a new age now after the World Trade Center attack.

ZAHN: It's interesting, because that plays into what exactly was said in a "New Yorker" cartoon that we saw recently, and we are going to put that up on the screen now, where a mother is talking to her daughter, and she says, why do you have to marry a doctor? Why can't you marry a fireman?

So will this endure?

PAGILA: Well, you see, there is a very serious problem in this country, I think, the way we are educating young men. I've been hammering on this theme for over 10 years. Christana Hoff Summers (ph) has been talking about it for even longer. That is, there is a serious problem with masculine identity. Boys have no model of manhood. In the upper middle class, a man is expected, once he's turned out by Ivy League education, let's say , to become like a woman.

Men and women are virtually indistinguishable in the workplace. If you are working at a computer, what you are doing is not much different from the woman next to you, so there is kind of a threat to national security here, if we don't revalorize, let's say, military service, or work in the trades. I think that the nation is not going to be able to confront and to defeat other countries where the code of masculinity is more traditional.

ZAHN: When you say this could be a threat to the national security, by this you mean what, there are too many women serving in the military now, or just not enough men serving?

PAGILA: Not at all. I think we need more women in the military, but there are all kinds of gender games played with -- I think that gender integration and basic training is dumb. It's a terrible mistake. It's led to a kind of lowering of standards that the men have had to achieve, and there are just too many political games being played in the military. The upper middle class in America, as opposed to England, let's say, would never, you know, accept or try to discourage a military career for their child, whereas in England, military service is extremely honorable. You can see the royal family and the rest of the upper class considers that an excellent way to train their men, and so I think we have to recover that, and in a hurry.

ZAHN: One quick final question. Given the state of the economy, and now that the government tells us we are in a recession, I'm wondering how long do you think raw power will trump wealth and the way people elevate the status of people by their materialism?

PAGILA: Well, this culture drifted off into a kind of materialistic fantasy in the past 20 years, because of our affluence, and the media did a terrible job of informing the citizenry about international news, and so I think we have a whole lot of catch-up to be doing here, and alas, it appears that the attention of the country is only focused when there is some sort of a disaster.

ZAHN: As always, great to have you with us. PAGILA: Good to see you, Paula.

ZAHN: With a lot to contemplate. Camile Paglia, thanks so much.

PAGILA: Thank you.

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