Grayson Perry: All Man

What does it mean to be a man?

The theme of masculinity intrigues me. In some ways I’m a typical male: I enjoy football, like a pint and … well that’s about it. My best mates are blokes but the majority of my friends are female. If given the choice to spend time talking to a guy or a girl, I would choose the latter. Talk with women tends to be more collaborative, less competitive where there isn’t the need to compete for public attention like a bad episode of Mock the Week.

I’m not an advocate for masculinity. I think this is because I’m very lucky to have a dad that didn’t foist any gender expectations on me. My dad is stereotypically strong: he left his parents and six siblings to move to England as a young man. Also, whilst living here his parents died within a very short time of one another. In response to this I remember him hurting, but I don’t remember him crying. (I’m not saying this a good thing). On the other hand, he is a very sensitive man. A perennial worrier as a child I would go to him with my concerns and never be laughed away and told to man up. 

Ideas of masculinity.

As a student I struggled at uni, I had gone from being the boy wonder of the comprehensive to the nondescript of the redbrick. My essays had never seen red pen until they found academic scrutiny. From the top of the class to the bottom of the seminar group within months, I found the adjustment very difficult to cope with. As I wasn’t good with girls, grades were what gave me my status and esteem. Despite having very good friends, it wasn't long before I felt very alone. On phoning home I said to my parents that I was struggling and felt like a failure. Instead of telling me to ‘man up,’ my dad told me to concentrate on my own personal development and not compete with others. Knowing that my dad prided self-improvement over pecking orders was what I needed to hear.

As a child my dad would take me to football and his actions on the sideline were a metaphor for his parenting. I was never a good footballer; I was distinctly average. I had a good footballing brain but not good footballing feet. I could see a pass but I couldn’t make it. Imagine Andrea Pirlo in his dotage and you’d be close. Even though I wasn’t any good, my dad never shouted at my mistakes as though they personally embarrassed him; instead he'd share in it, putting his arms round me, consoling defeat with chocolate on the way home.  Essentially, he’s never kept me or my problems at arms length; he’s embraced them and said ‘what’s yours is mine. Let’s do something about them.’

I thought I was Pirlo.

I’m very lucky to have my dad as a model of masculinity. I believe men like women should be strong. There’s no point hiding when things get tough. You have to confront challenges and tell them to ‘fuck off.’ At the same time, I think men like women should be sensitive. Empathy shouldn’t be something synonymous with homosexual males; heterosexuals should show kindness and compassion too. There have been many times in my life where people have said that I'm too sensitive as though it were a slur. Shouldn't sensitivity be a good thing?

Grayson Perry’s All Man is a three-part study on the theme of masculinity. Each week he will look at men who are happy to ally themselves with masculinity. This week, he was in the north-east to interview cage fighters on why they feel the need to risk themselves physically for their sport. The general reaction seemed to be that life was tough in the region and therefore you had to be tough to respond to it. Perry digs deeper into this psyche, revealing that the need to be hard might be rooted in their forbears: many jobs in the north-east of England were rooted in tough manual toil (shipyards/ the pits), with these jobs now obsolete there isn't the work for sons to emulate their fathers; as a result these sports are adopted to fill the macho hole gouged by Thatcher.

Perry and cage fighters.

Perry is a Turner-prize winner, but his way with people makes him a fine journalist too. Born to working-class Essex, his down-to-earth accessibility allows him to infiltrate his subjects’ lives and gain the experience needed to produce art. Saying that, he is not without bias. The topic of masculinity is personal one for Perry as he was brought up by a vicious step-father. A brutalizer whom the young Grayson feared, he imbued in him a deep-seeded mistrust of maleness. As a result, Perry pokes the bears of the steel cage, challenging them on their life choice- instead of biting back, they point to a life of care homes and grief as to why they are competitively vicious.

More sadly, Perry visits Thelma, the mother of Daniel who took his life aged just 18. She and his friends described him as happy-go-lucky, someone loved and adored. For whatever reason, his life spiralled downwards with no one knowing. His mum on visiting the coroner’s was told it was the 15^th suicide that month or ‘an epidemic’ as she describes it. It leaves Perry to conclude that maybe the cage fighters have found a compromise: like their fathers and grandfathers, their toughness at work allows them to be sensitive at home. But for the men that don’t have this outlet, they’re literally being left for dead by a society that has told them to favour suicide to talk.

At the end of the episode, Perry produces art works based on the people he’s met. The subjects and their families find the results emotive, evocative and ennobling. I was very moved to see ordinary men eternalised in extraordinary pieces. In fact, Perry reminds me of Dickens in the way he walks amongst the people for inspiration: he isn't an artist that exists in an ivory tower; he’s down here, getting dirty with the rest of us. 

The distillation of Perry's experience.

Ultimately, this is an urgent documentary, a distress signal from the rough seas of masculinity; a cry to prevent another man overboard; a warning to avoid another ‘man up.’ Men, watch it and weep.

Grayson Perry: All Man is on Channel 4 this Thursday at 10pm.