Wild Man or Golden Bird: Cultural Readings of Masculinity

Abstract

This article is a commentary on Ian Parker's article 'Masculinity and Cultural Change: Wild Men' which is based on Robert Bly's book Iron John (1990). Bly's book, in turn, relies heavily on the Grimm fairy tale with the same name. The author agrees for the most part with Parker's interpretation of Iron John, but complements the analysis on a few points. One point is that Parker's interpretation is also to some extent heavily influenced by his cultural background and ideological stance. If anything, Parker demonstrates that it is impossible ever to write anything value-free. The author then presents another version of the same type of fairy tale as 'Iron John', 'The Golden Bird', in order to demonstrate how shaky the fundaments of Bly's book are. The conclusion is that Parker's analysis is needed in order to show the danger of such overgeneralizations as Bly's book represents.