by Andy Nowicki
Back in 1962, when the Rat Pack still held Beatlemania in
check and JFK’s pristine, thus-far unpunctured pre-Dealy Plaza skull still held
stately sway over his precious presidential brains, comely girl crooner Joanie Sommers released a whimsical little track called “Johnny Get Angry.”
The song, composed by Hal David and Sherman Edwards,
presents us with that perennially vexing relationship dilemma: what’s a young
woman to do when her strapping beau refuses to get even a little possessive?
With girlish gusto, Sommers pours forth her lover’s lament,
confessing first that she has even resorted to dramatic-- if underhanded--
means of getting her message across; still, in spite of all of her efforts, her
suitor doesn’t seem to have taken the hint:
"Johnny, I said we were through, just to see what you would doYou stood there and hung your head, made me wish that I were dead!"
Johnny, she complains, won’t even react with appropriate jealousy
when his girl is getting blatantly macked on by another guy:
"Every time you dance with me, you let Freddy cut in constantly
When he does, you never speak; must you always be so meek?"
In the final verse, the pertly disaffected ingénue insists that she
only wants what every girl wants: to be put in her place. If he’d just respond
to her petty machinations with anger, it would let her know that he truly “cares.”
Yet clueless Johnny consistently refuses to rise to the occasion. She wants “a
brave man, a caveman,” but to her great exasperation, Johnny remains
temperamentally diffident and taciturn:
"Every girl wants someone who she can always look up to
You know I love you, of course; let me know that you’re the boss!"
***********************************
It is certainly amusing to consider this song, with its un-self-consciously
“regressive” pre-feminist ethos, in the context of today’s hyper-gynocentric environment, with its relentless hostility to traditional gender roles and its
abiding “hermeneutic of suspicion” towards the prospect of male authority and
concomitant feminine submission.
Still, even in our age, with its contrivedly
engineered inversion of nature and mandated enshrinement of increasingly depraved iterations of abnormality, enforced, as ever, from on high (most recently
signified in the “trans”-bathroom acceptance campaign, queasily unfolding in North Carolina even as we speak), fundamental patterns of attraction haven’t
truly changed. Put simply, women are still
attracted to strong, confident, physically imposing, psychically dominating
guys—in short, “manly” men-- even if they are now often embarrassed to publicly
admit their attraction, for fear of seeming contemptibly retrograde in taste
and unforgivably reactionary in attitude.
A song like “Johnny Get Angry” thus retains contemporary resonance;
indeed, it has an edgier, more “red-pilled” flavor today than it ever had in
the past, when it was only considered a harmless, sweet, silly little trifle of
a tune (albeit one which included a bitchin’ kazoo solo). Today, however, “Johnny”
is shocking, even enraging and offensive to many, because it reveals a truth
that is widely considered unpalatable concerning gender relations.
 |
| "GET MAD, goddamn you!!" |
But there is yet another layer of significance, less
commonly remarked, to the scenario depicted in the song, one which could be
said to transcend both the conventional wisdom of the past and that of the present. Feminists are reflexively outraged by the
underlying message of “Johnny Get Angry” because they desperately want to deny
the reality of the natural feminine desire to be dominated by a man; however,
many contemporary, ostensibly counter-cultural masculinists are equally obtuse
in their assessment of the scenario in question, missing out on a crucial
subtext of this anthem of courtly disaffection.
***********************************
A typical adherent to “red pill” masculinist PUA
alpha-striving gamer would conclude that the guy addressed by Sommers is being
a spineless “cucky” little beta bitch-boy. Yet in judging the matter thusly, he
would be ignoring the fact that the “Johnny” in question is in fact the true “alpha.”
After all, it is the speaker in the song who is demanding that Johnny change
his ways to accommodate her preferences. Moreover, for all of her gushing façade
of guileless innocence, it must be observed that this girl is something of a
conniving shrew.
To wit: 1) She pretends to breaks up with him just to mess
with his head; 2) She tries to provoke his jealousy by agreeing to dance with
another boy (and in relatively chaste 1962, dancing meant much more than it
does now), 3) She implores him to show her that he’s “the boss,” pretending all
the while to be unaware that the one who is able to manipulate someone into
assuming a “boss” role is in fact the
true boss: it is in her interests, not his, which would be served by him
adopting this supposedly superior position.
Masculine dignity has much to do with the manful resolution
to employ needful defiance, which, in the relation between the sexes, consists
largely in the ability and inclination to say, “No, ma’am” when one sees fit to
withhold consent. By this criteria, it would seem to me that the “Johnny” in
question here has his priorities in order: he is uninterested in “getting angry”
just to appease his neurotically needy sweetie, and this fact speaks well of
his testicular fortitude.
Andy Nowicki, assistant editor of Alternative Right, is the author of eight books, including Under the Nihil, The Columbine Pilgrim, Considering Suicide, and Beauty and the Least. He occasionally updates his blog when the spirit moves him to do so. Visit his Soundcloud page.
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