Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

two missing buttons. Today, however, a T-shirt hid the chestfrom view. Faded blue jeans and desert boots completedthe costume, and--as I have already noted--it is costumesthat the young men now wear as they act out theirsimpleminded roles, hopefully constructing a fantasy worldin order to avoid confronting the fact that to be a man in asociety of machines is to be an expendable, soft auxiliary towhat is useful and hard. Today there is nothing left for theold-fashioned male to do, no ritual testing of his manhoodthrough initiation or personal contest, no physical struggleto survive or mate. Nothing is left him but to put on clothesreminiscent of a different time; only in travesty can he actout the classic hero who was a law unto himself, moving atease through a landscape filled with admiring women.Mercifully, that age is finished. MarIon Brando was the lastof the traditional heroes and, significantly, even he wasinvariably beaten up in the last reel, victim of a society thathas no place for the ancient ideal of manhood. SinceBrando, there has been nothing except the epiceneO'Toole, the distracted Mastroianni, and the cheerfullyincompetent Belmondo. The roof has fallen in on the maleand we now live at the dawn of the age of WomanTriumphant, of Myra Breckinridge! I began pleasantly,disarmingly. "Not long ago MaryAnn told me that I have atendency to pick on you, Rusty..." "You sure do... "Don'tinterrupt, please." I was stern but pleasant, like Eve Arden."If I have, it's because I'm trying to help you. I think you havegreat potential talent. How great I can't decide just yet, butunless you learn to walk properly there's not a chance in this