If the Men’s Rights movement is looking for a celebrity endorser, I think I’ve found just the guy for them: the mixed martial arts fighter, and erstwhile porn actor, War Machine, currently sitting in jail on charges of brutally beating and attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack.
Men’s Rights activists should be able to look past these criminal charges; after all, as they remind us all the time, women are forever falsely accusing innocent men of all sorts of terrible things.
And in so many ways War Machine is perfect for them. An MMA fighter, he’s already only one letter away from being an MRA. A misogynistic asshole with rage issues, he’ll have no trouble fitting in with the Men’s Rights crowd. And, especialy important for a movement that has a lot of trouble getting any good PR, he’s a bit more comfortable on camera than the Paul Elams and Dean Esmays of the world, with experience on television (on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra), and in seven films (albeit pornographic ones).
Best of all: he’ll need no ideological education from what A Voice for Men likes to call Fuck Shit Up University. War Machine – real name Jonathan Koppenhaver – is already an outspoken proponent of many of the Men’s Rights Movement’s core beliefs.
Consider these selections from a little Men’s Rights manifesto War Machine wrote a few years ago during a previous stint behind bars, serving time for felony assault after two bloody bar fights. His rant, which a friend posted to the internet, would fit right in with the sort of stuff we’ve seen regularly posted on the Men’s Rights subreddit, or The Spearhead, or A Voice for Men. I’ve bolded some of the Men’s Rightsiest bits:
The oppression of MEN is worse than oppression of Jews in Nazi germany, worse than the slavery of Blacks in early America…
There has always been the oppressor and always the oppressed. Before, it was blatant … NOW the oppressor has learned to disguise his evil. You can see man, but you can not see MEN. How easy it is to oppress a minority that is invisible to the eye! How genius of the oppressor! And what a better target too! …
Men challenge injustice from Government, MEN fight for their Constitutional rights, that are slowly being taken away every year. …
And they don’t just oppress us by making more laws and taking away more freedom, they are far more clever than that! Ask yourself what your REAL dream was?? If you gave up on this dream, why? Because of the brainwashing of the Government, that’s why! They taught you to “play it safe.” They told us a responsible man has ONE wife, a house, good credit, good job, and kids. How are you supposed to chase your dreams while maintaining all of that!?
Men are supposed to take risks and be aggressive! What accomplishments have ever come of a man scared to risk it all!? None!? Where would the world be? Still ‘flat!’ Still ‘Earth at the center of the universe!’
If any of you have your Men’s Rights Bingo cards out, I’m guessing you might already be close to scoring a bingo. We’ve got a comparison to slavery that could have come straight from the pages of A Voice for Men, a marriage-is-death-to-male-dreams rant that could have been borrowed from any MGTOW forum, and an evo-psych-esque argument that men are the true risk-takers and the world’s real innovators.
And I don’t think War Machine would have much trouble with Paul Elam’s “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” either.
[I]t’s Christmas day and I’m laying in my bunk wondering “Why in the hell do American men get married!?” … If your wife is being a bitch you can’t slap her, if your wife is yelling at you, God forbid you yell back … Next thing you know it will be illegal to fuck your wife! LMAO! Maybe then, MEN in this country will get the fucking hint and MOVE! This country forces you to be a bitch!
In another online posting, War Machine touched on another Men’s Rights hobbyhorse, the notion that the justice system is stacked against men:
[L]ook at the prisons, they are FULL of MEN, not women. Are men “evil” and women not? Or do the laws target and attempt to restrict NATURAL MEN’S BEHAVIOR? How many of the HEROES in American history would avoid prison if they lived today? Davey Crockett? Thomas Jefferson? David Bowie? General Grant & General Lee? Shit, George Washington. … Laws target MEN and men’s behavior. Women want to bitch and cry about their rights and equality… LMAO! MEN are the ones locked away like animals, while women run free!
Someone might have to explain to War Machine that David Bowie is not actually a famous American HERO but a famously androgynous British musician who once recorded an album called “Heroes.” (Mr. Machine may be thinking of James Bowie, a well-known 19th century American frontiersman and slave trader, and the guy the Bowie Knife is named after.)
But other than that, he seems ready to go.
There is, of course, that whole attempted murder charge to deal with.
It’s true the Men’s Rights Movement has had few problems in the past rallying behind men with histories of violence. But War Machine might be a harder sell as a Men’s Rights hero. His alleged attack on Mack left her with a cracked rib, a ruptured liver, numerous broken bones, missing teeth and her eyes swollen shut. (See here for photos of her injuries; obviously this link is NSFW and could be triggering.)
While Mr. Machine denies attacking Mack, he joked to a TV host last year that if she were to leave him “I would just kill her” and get a tattoo saying “Rest In Peace” above the tattoo of her name he has on his neck.
And several hours after allegedly trying to murder her, War Machine tweeted this lovely message about his ex:
https://twitter.com/WarMachine170/statuses/497663075831787521
War Machine does seem to be at a low point in his life. Even aside from the charges he faces, and the time he seems likely to serve, his career in porn is almost certainly over. The “Alpha Male” clothing line he helped start wants nothing to do with him. Nobody but the prison system seems to want this guy.
In other words: Men’s Rights activists, this is your chance! War Machine may not be the, er, hero you want. But he’s certainly the hero you deserve.
I do plenty of laughing at them, but it’s yet to be in the way that they intended.
strivingally, yeah that’s basically what I was trying to say lol
Yeah. I know what you mean. It’s like someone calling me a leftist or liberal.
I call myself those things, but to the person calling me that, it prolly means I need to have a stake driven through my heart and my body buried at a crossroads or something.
…Otherwise I might rise again to agitate the masses by night…
*Metamorphosizes into leftist moonbat and flies off , leaving a trail of worker’s rights fliers and organizing leaflets behind…”
blahlistic, I feel the same way about being called a liberal. Because it has been demonized so much, my visceral reaction to it is a negative one. “I’m one of them…..libruhls from the coast.”
I think we all need some brain bleach
http://youtu.be/F7AyRDKMJ2c
http://youtu.be/KePTJYQZwiw
That is some adorable brain bleach right there. :: points up ::
I know it probably wouldn’t hold up in court but I’d kind of love to see Marvel sue him for trademark infringement. Unfortunately one of the bars for that is possible confusion between the trademarked property and the infringing use and that wouldn’t stand up here but maybe if they argued people might think they endorse him officially? IANAL so I don’t know but I hate to see a pretty cool Marvel character get associated with this asshole.
I don’t think any one could mistake this sad little man for the Marvel War Machine. At least, I hope not.
Part of me wants Dawkins to finally cross the event horizon with a tweet so awful that he loses credibility forever.
The other part just wants him to shut the hell up ASAP.
@ A Wolverine – Could Dawkins make a tweet so awful that even his disciples would disavow him? Very interesting philosophical question…
Since I’m a bit of a cynic with this sort of thing, my guess is no. They would probably continue to agree with Dawkins.
RE: redpoppy
Also, fuck Kevin Sorbo. His asshole behavior is of….herculean proportions!
HEY-O! *high five*
RE: blahlistic
It’s like someone calling me a leftist or liberal.
My pet buzzwords for that are “tumblr” or “lifestyle.” Somehow, whenever anyone mentions those things in relation to me, I get the sense I just popped out of the earth with tumblr and became a magical glitterbat purely to annoy people.
I know it probably wouldn’t hold up in court but I’d kind of love to see Marvel sue him for trademark infringement.
Uh, you do realise the phrase “War Machine” was used before Marvel attached it to a particular costume, right? To take just one example, it shows up in HG Wells’ _The Land Ironclads_. Marvel would only have a case if he started costuming himself like the comic.
My ex was into Dawkins. Um, I doubt it.
True, actually. Just too bad the MRAs never do that. And most, if not all, those issues would be settled if gender roles and expectations were done away with… you know, as feminism tries to do.
…yeah, right. As long as there are maggots like you upholding the all important gender differences, there will always be “men rights issues”. And much worse women rights issues, too.
—
You really think there are people who wouldn’t follow him no matter what?
Concerning his tweets, he actually went and wrote “Abort and *try again*”. As if women were just birth machines! “Just hit the reset button”. Argh.
@LBT…No, them finding annoyance in you being you is merely an extra special value-added feature.
🙂
It’s like I say…if people find me offensive they really need to get out more.
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: I know. Thus the “pretty sure it wouldn’t hold up”. Of course the “Apple computers” vs “Apple records” shows that trademark law doesn’t always make a lot of sense.
I find intellectual property law both fascinating and HILARIOUS.
My personal favorite intellectual property story involves one of my favorite superheros: Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle.
In 2006, there was the cartoon Justice League Unlimited. Ted Kord was allowed to be in crowd scenes, but he was forbidden to talk. Why?
Because his voice was the intellectual property of someone else! See, although Ted Kord didn’t come to be until the 60s, the Blue Beetle has been around since the 40s, including an ancient radio show. DC Comics/Warner Bros bought the rights to the Blue Beetle’s APPEARANCE… but his voice still belonged to whoever did the radio show back in the 40s!
Now, however, that radio show has passed into the public domain, so Ted Kord COULD speak (along with his successor, Jaime Reyes) in Batman: the Brave and the Bold, which started in 2008. Amazing, the difference a couple years can make!
Re: Men and “females”: It’s like when people throw “Hussein” into the President’s name.
“Hussein”‘s not a bad name as names go and it is certainly part of his given name, but you can pretty much guess where somewhere stands politically if they begin a statement with “Barack Hussein Obama…”
Pardon for long ass post and topic swerve…
One of the things MRA’s claim as oppression is the lower life expectancy of men.
Regarding that… :
http://www.livescience.com/5619-study-machismo-cuts-men-lives-short.html
So it seems traditional gender roles may be hurting men in that they don’t go get screened for bad stuff. My feminist ass isn’t stopping you from preventive health screenings. Go get them.
Regarding male suicide:
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/whats-driving-the-rise-in-suicide-among-middle-aged-men/275792/
Suicide is driven by unemployment and disconnection. Pretty reasonable.
Not sure what can be done besides uniting and lobbying for systemic change regarding the unemployment issue. So work on creating connection opportunities for guys who aren’t connected, right?
When I heard about this, I actually thought it sounded like a good thing, and I was rather hoping it would catch on in more places.
http://www.mensshed.org/what-is-a-men's-shed/.aspx
The thing is, rather than looking for points of agreement (there are some) the MRA’s as seen on the web generally just want to vent some spleen, which feels good but fixes nothing.
Okeydokey, I now return you to your regularly scheduled snarking.
Waitwaitwait. Isn’t one of the Misogynist Rights Movement’s favourite pet attacks that feminists ignore issues that affect men? How’s that gel with telling women to STFU and mind their own business, men are talking?
Too emotional, too abstract, too involved, too distant, too fat, too thin, too outspoken, too silent, too angry, too frivolous… it doesn’t matter what you do or say, MRAs will find a way to make it wrong as long as you don’t agree with their views on women.
….”Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
“”That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.”
“”It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.””
(http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/3167.Joseph_Heller)
I can’t say I understand the pushback Ally got. Was it just the because she lumped all men in together? Because I don’t think the underlying concepts – toxic masculinity, violent misogyny and the inability to tell good men from abusers (a la schrodinger’s rapist) – are very controversial here. I’m trying to see where you guys are coming from, but it sounds an awful lot like “not all men”.
And I bet the “less moral” reasons include the totally non-imaginary “slutty slut who couldn’t be bothered to use
a different form ofbirth control”.That is a depressingly plausible theory.
Seconded. All in favor?
@”Humanist”, fuck off. You’re unoriginal, you’re a liar, and you don’t know what Humanism is. And you picked the worst possible thread in which to demonstrate as much, you misogynist creep.
Sadly for you, the men who actually do address men’s issues are often feminists.
Yup. So-called “Men’s Issues” all seem to boil down to “ewwwww, feeeemales ICKY!”, when they’re not “how do I get one of those slutty bitches to lie still so I can fuck her (preferably up the ass, and as painfully as possible)?” Or, as is so often the case, “I’m more of a real man than YOU, you pussy!” It’s like one big woman-bashing circle jerk. Or a circular firing squad (sorry about the ugly image THAT conjures up.)
One would think that if these guys were really about men’s issues they’d wise up and start discussing things that actually matter, such as prostate, penile and testicular cancer. Or the potential health dangers of Viagra (especially in diabetics and heart patients over 50, who often go impotent because their circulatory systems fail, and boners are all about blood circulation). Or the fact that their G, B and T brothers could use some support and recognition of their rights from the cis-het dudebro contingent. Or the malignity and impossibility of stereotypical gender roles in general. Or even…brace yourself…HOW TO TREAT WOMEN WITH REAL HUMANITY AND RESPECT! That last one right there ought to be a huge men’s issue, and yet, they fall down on it. Every single time.
DINGDINGDING!!! We have a winner!
I think what they’re really all about is silencing women, when it comes right down to it. And they get all pissy when we won’t shut up and fetch them sammitches while they have their little gabfest.
As though it were so hard for a man to make his own sammies, if he’s all about excluding Teh Feeeeemales.
I watched some trailers and read some reviews of God’s Not Dead, because I’m a masochist and Evangelical fiction is so easy to mock. Not only is it literally an email forward in movie form, but I’m pretty sure it’s just an extended advertisement for the newest Newsboys album (the film shares a title with one of their songs, and apparently there’s an extended scene at a Newsboys concert in the movie).
The “Duck Dynasty” cameos are also a nice touch.
LBT, please tell me “magical glitterbat” is your fursona!