“I’ll be your huckleberry; that’s just my game.”
-Val Kilmer/Doc Holliday, “Tombstone”
By now, you’ve all heard: RooshV, who wrote a decidely less than flattering (and, by all accounts, fairly accurate) post about famed surgeon-turned-daytime talkshow host Dr. Mehmet Oz, appeared on the latter’s show late last month. The topic was something that Roosh has admittedly been putting a sustained focus on: “fat-shaming”. Readers of Roosh’s personal website and his men’s issues daily Return of Kings, will know well his “Fat-Shaming Week”, where he and other writers for ROK make the case that bringing back some good ole fashioned shame and embarrassment to the ladies will provide the needed motivation for them to slim down. Dr. Oz, right out the gate, was unrelenting in his argument, that not only was “fat-shaming” ineffective, but that men like Roosh are stompdown bullies and meanines, completely lacking in empathy – and to that end trotted out a troika of larger ladies to tell Roosh about himself.
But wait, I thought shaming folk doesn’t work?
Anyway, there’s a lot of reaction to Roosh’s appearance on the good doctor’s show and as to be expected when such a polarizing figure is involved in anything, there can and will be lovers and haters on both sides. Some say that he did a yeoman’s job against insurmountable odds and an implaccable foe; others cackle in their self-assuredness that Roosh is an A-1 loser. For his part, Roosh himself seems to be a bit letdown by it all, though from what I can tell and by his own admission, his appearance on one of the most popular daytime chat shows in America has been good for business. Last time I checked, Roosh’s YouTube recap of the Dr. Oz Experience got upwards of 14K views and according to him both his social media and websites have seen massively increased activity in the days immediately following the show. Which only confirms the veracity of the old Marketing 101 adage, that any press is good press.
Three Powerful Points
For those on the inside of the Manosphere tent lamenting Roosh not being able to utterly dismantle and/or humiliate Dr. Oz, I think they ask for too much; after all, this is straight-up Blue Pill Theatre we’re talking about here, performance art designed to placate the lady viewers and supporters of the program, not a forum in which to shed light on critical issues of our time, especially any that might pertain to straight men. Besides, do we really expect Dr. Oz to be allowed to be pwned on his own show? That’s like Roosh allowing haters to trash his website. No, what happened last week was exactly the way it was supposed to happen, with Roosh remaining calm and poised, putting in a point here and there, and with Oz and his audience making fools of themselves.
Let me explain a few ways:
1. As noted above, Dr. Oz resorts to shaming the guest (Roosh) over his opinion; he lectures Roosh, sheaf of papers in hand (for added dramatic effect, of course – performance art, I tell you!), that “fat-shaming doesn’t work”. Roosh’s excellent counter, which to my mind was the highlight of the entire show, was to inform the good doctor of the fact that obesity rates continue to rise, not just in the States but worldwide, and is proof that his and the entire medical field’s methods of dealing with the problem has not worked either; something has to be done, and until something better comes along, a bit of good ole fashioned shame and embarrassment just might do the trick. If Dr. Oz truly believed what he was selling, he would not have attempted to shame Roosh directly and indirectly via his three Big Lady Panel. Oh, and nevermind the fact that it doesn’t take a huge fan of Oz’s show to know that he focuses, almost exclusively, on WEIGHT LOSS programs of varying stripe, ALL GEARED TOWARD WOMEN. Oz and Roosh are a lot more on the same page than he wants to openly admit, and only on a show geared toward placating the Rationalization Hamster, could such a glaring fact be so flagrantly omitted.
2. Dr. Oz was utterly unprofessional: he is NOT a trained psychoanalyst or psychotherapist (and even if he was, it would still be deeply unethical to “armchair analyze” someone without their express consent on a daytime television show), yet there he was, doing exactly this in calling Roosh a “sociopath” (which is a term that has risen to the same level as “misogynist” in our time and which means simply that, “I don’t agree with you”), saying at one point that he would like to examine Roosh’s brain because “clearly” he lacks empathy (as if being empathetic to a grossly obese woman somehow removes the health risks or the fact that a lot of men aren’t sexually attracted to that) and continually taking mental health digs at Roosh. No wonder his peerage at Columbia want him removed from their midst. At another point in the show, when Roosh confronted him with some more facts about the obesity problem and Oz’s own efforts to combat it, Oz goes into a flowery diatribe about how he sees “the whole person” and so forth. Fair enough – but if I were a betting man I would wager a princely sum that the very ladies to which he caters to, do NOT “see the whole person” when it comes to the men they are most interested SEXUALLY in – a fact that has been borne out recently by Rollo Tomassi, and backed up by such scholarly works as A Billion Wicked Thoughts.
3. The Big Ladies on the panel told on themselves: as the Roissy of old has rightly noted, the more the ladies shriek in dismay by something you’ve said, the more likely that what you’ve said is indeed accurate. These ladies’ “outrage” is in fact their shock, dismay and yes embarrassment, that a man would actually tell them to their faces that their large frames are not attractive to him, nor to the bulk and mass of men everywhere. Their response – I was particularly amused by the Black woman doing the famed “neckroll” – was steeped in butthurt, not informed discourse. What could they say, after all? Nothing Roosh said factually, was inaccurate. So all they could do was respond with how “offended” and “hurt” they were, by what he was saying. Yawn.
What’s Really Eating The Grande Dames
Of course, what’s really at issue here isn’t “shaming”. If it was, women wouldn’t shame short men – head on over to Support For The Short for a mind-numbingly long list of the ways in which women, including fat ones, ruthlessly shame, belittle and attack short men for being, well, short men; has Dr. Oz done even ONE show on this topic? To ask the question, is to answer it. The show was not even pointing out the very real and unassailable increased health risks associated with obesity, but the fact that it is not OK for straight men to openly state their physical desires/tastes/standards in women, and to openly disagree with those women who fail to measure up. Again, as Tomassi has pointed out, and he is by no means alone, men in our time are not to have or express, any desires that run counter to womens’ “dumbing down” of physical standards; indeed, women are not to have ANY physical standards they must meet when it comes to men, that only men must do so, and that all that women need do is show up with vaginas. The very fact that Roosh is representative of a growing chorus of men, online and off, who run counter to this, is deeply vexing to women in our time, and will greatly welcome (and need!) other men who quite literally White Knight for them in fending off the truth.
No Country For Nice Guys
As many of you know, I work with both Roosh and another very polarizing figure, Paul Elam, editor-in-chief for A Voice For Men; indeed, I think it’s fair to say, that together they are the two most controversial lightening rods in all of the Manosphere. Around the same time that I conducted what I consider to be both a groundbreaking and historic two-part, in-depth interview with Roosh, several major hit-pieces appeared in the Cathedral Media about the Manosphere in general and AVfM/Elam in particular. Much of the faux handwringing centered on the “tone” of Elam and the larger Manosphere; arguments were made that if a softer one were adopted, our side might get more traction. Elam’s excellent counter was to note that it is the exact opposite, that is in fact the truth.
Citing Dr. Warren Farrell as proof, Elam noted that for all of Farrell’s congenial, easygoing ways, focus on the facts and trying to be a good faith actor in the ongoing gender wars, he was all but forgotten after his departure from the National Organization for Women in the 1970s, for daring to suggest that men had issues to advocate for, too. Elam went on to say that it was because of his garrelous, knock-over-the-table-to-get-to-other-side-of-the-room nature, that not only got attention for the men’s rights movement, but it in many ways, literally resurrected Farrell’s career and profile. Whether you like or agree with Elam or his methods, you simply cannot deny that he has a powerful point. Being “nice” simply does not work.
Making a ruckus does.
And Roosh’s appearance on the Dr. Oz show last week, bears this fact out.
It is completely fair to disagree with Elam’s or Roosh’s methods; for what it’s worth, I don’t always agree with them and indeed find some of them shocking. But what cannot be denied is that their methods work – and in the end, it’s hard to argue with success. They are in fact getting the Manosphere message(s) out. It is sometimes necessary to shock the system in order to bring attention to issues that would go completely ignored otherwise. Like it or not, Roosh and Elam are doing precisely that.
Unlike many in the Manosphere, I see Roosh’s recent appearance on Dr. Oz’s show as nothing but a win with a capital “W”, both for him personally, and for the wider Manosphere more generally; the fact that so many people have headed on over to Roosh’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and websites, even – especially – to register their “comments of hate” – only proves that the Manosphere message is indeed spreading. I don’t know for certain, but if my own small experience is anything to go by, I’m pretty sure that Roosh gets quite a few messages a week from men around the globe thanking him for doing what he does. In many ways, Roosh, like Elam, Tomassi and yes myself, are literally saving lives.
The lives of men. And in this case, quite a few women, too.
A Final Point
For those out there who want to take potshots at Roosh – or Mr. Elam, for that matter – let me tell you something:
Both of these men are, by any measure, success stories – modern day Horatio Algers, who saw opportunities in life and took them. They took calculated risks, scuffed their knees, picked themselves up and kept right on getting on up. Both of them have forged formidable websites and movements from humble beginnings, to the point where they are both global in scope and where now even Cathedral Media behemoths like Dr. Oz can no longer ignore them. The Manosphere truly has its own media arms now; we do not need the MSM, they need us. For his part, Roosh is literally a world traveler, successful self-published author many times over, is not only self-employed but employs others by running three highly successful websites and starting next month will be embarking on a lecture tour (I hope to catch up with him stateside soon). Dr. Oz, by comparison, got where he is as a direct result of a woman – Oprah – and by pandering to the worst of womenfolk in general. Roosh can both be rightly said to be a self-made man.
Dr. Oz can’t.
I’m just sayin’.
Recommended Reading: Bang: The Definitive Interview With RooshV, Part 1 & Part 2
