- Mark Simpson (journalist)
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For the BBC journalist, see Mark Simpson (Ireland correspondent).
Mark Simpson Occupation Writer, Reporter, Commentator
marksimpson.comMark Simpson is an English journalist, writer, and broadcaster specialising in pop culture, media, and masculinity. He has been described by one critic as "the skinhead Oscar Wilde"[1] Simpson is a frequent commentator on British television shows.
Simpson has written for numerous publications around the world, including The Times, The Guardian, Salon.com, Arena Homme +, 'GQ Style, Vogues Hommes International, The Independent on Sunday, Tetu, the Seattle Stranger, and Dutch Playboy. In December 2007, GQ Russia placed him in their 'Top Ten Things That Changed Men's Lives'.[2]
Contents
The term "metrosexual"
Simpson is credited with coining the term "metrosexual" in a 1994 article.[3][4] He also introduced the word to the US in 'Meet the Metrosexual' a much-quoted essay on Salon.com in 2002, leading to the global popularity of the term.[5] This was also the first citation of the UK footballer David Beckham as the ultimate example of the type. Simpson was later credited with introducing the term 'retrosexual' (in the sense of the anti-metrosexual) in 2003.[6]
The New York Times acclaimed Simpson's analysis of how sport and advertising are both increasingly using homoerotic imagery, in a process he dubbed "sporno" ("the place where sport and porn meet and produce a gigantic money shot") as one of the Ideas of the Year. The Times newspaper also featured sporno in their 'Year in Ideas' list.[7][8][9]
In 2010 the global trend spotting website Science of the Time described Simpson as 'the world's most perceptive writer about masculinity'. The Times of India included 'metrosexual' in their review of the most important words of the last thirty years, commenting: "Much has been written about metrosexuals, but no one has done it as well as the man credited with coining the term, Mark Simpson."
Books
Male Impersonators
Simpson's first book Male Impersonators (1994) provided the background for his theory of metrosexuality and looked at the role of narcissism and homoeroticism in the representation of masculinity. Returning to Freud's theory of universal bisexual responsiveness, it also 'outed' what he saw as the homoerotic subtext of masculinity itself. In particular, he analysed the way films, ads, pop music, and bodybuilding, had replaced 'real' masculinity, if it ever existed, with something 'sexy and simulated'. In his chapter on Marky Mark and his (then) recent Calvin Klein ads he argued that the rapper's appearance on billboards in Times Square and on the side of buses 'in his prime and in his underwear', grabbing his 'package' to shift product, graphically proved how the commodification of the male body - 'and gay men's love for it' - had become 'eyepoppingly' mainstream.
Famously, it included a chapter arguing persuasively that the real romance in Top Gun was between Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Iceman (Val Kilmer), something which may have inspired Quentin Tarantino to make a cameo appearance in the film Sleep With Me later the same year as a party-guest making a very similar argument.[original research?]
Anti-Gay
Simpson's controversial collection Anti-Gay (1996), described on the jacket as 'The shameful antidote to feelgood politics', 'divided the gay community' according to The Independent. Led by Simpson, various "non-heterosexual" contributors, such as Bruce LaBruce & Glenn Belverio, John Weir, Peter Tatchell, Paul Burston, Lisa Power, and Anne-Marie Le Ble, voiced their criticism of the gay 'one-size-fits-all' identity and the gay media's intolerance of anything that wasn't 'glad' and 'clap happy'. Anti-Gay was one of the first "post-gay" books, appearing a year or so before a series of largely conservative American gay books critical of gay culture, such as 'The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture' (D Harris, 1997) and 'Life Outside' (M Signorile, 1997), 'Sexual Ecology' (G Rotello, 1998).[10]
It's a Queer World
It’s a Queer World published the same year, described on the dust jacket as 'hilariously perverse' and 'taking a warped look at fin-de-siecle pop culture where nothing is as straight - or gay - as it seems', collected Simpson's popular columns of the same name which appeared in Attitude magazine, and showed how gay and straight culture were converging, a decade before this became a common theme.[citation needed][11]
Saint Morrissey
Saint Morrissey was Simpson's 'psycho-bio' of the former Smiths front man, written at the nadir of the singer's career, and published the year before Morrissey's 2004 comeback. Widely praised, the book prompted some comparisons with the subject's style: "Simpson is funny, clever, honest, irreverent and egotistical: quite the match for Morrissey. More biographies should be written this way."[12] (Laurence Phelan, Independent on Sunday Books of the Year')[13]
The Queen is Dead
The Queen is Dead (1998) collected his colorful and confessional correspondence with cult American writer Steven Zeeland. According to the jacket blurb: 'A chance letter sparks off an hilariously doomed transatlantic literary romance involving Marines, glory holes, cats, intellectuals, transsexuals and a bizarre love-triangle rivalry with gay serial-killer and Gianni Versace's assassin Andrew Cunanan.' Despite its openly offbeat subject matter, it went down well with reviewers: 'Something of a masterpiece' (Roger Clarke, The Independent).[14]
Metrosexy
Simpson's latest book, Metrosexy (2011), is a selection of his essays spanning the last two decades. It charts his theories of metrosexuality, from his invention of the term 'metrosexual' in 1994, to his current work on media and pop culture representations of men's desire to be desired.[15][16] Metrosexy is an e-book available from Amazon and has been serialised in The Independent newspaper and on Out.com.
Bibliography
- Saint Morrissey (2004)
- Sex Terror: Erotic Misadventures in Pop Culture (2002) ISBN 978-1560233763
- The Queen is Dead : A Story of Jarheads, Eggheads, Serial Killers and Bad Sex (2001) (with Steven Zeeland) ISBN 978-1900850490
- Anti-Gay (1996) ISBN 978-0304331444
- It's a Queer World: Deviant Adventures in Pop Culture (1995) ISBN 978-0789006097
- Simpson, Mark (1996). It's a Queer World: Deviant Adventures in Pop Culture. Haworth Press. p. 256 pages. ISBN 0099597519.
- Male Impersonators (1994)
- Metrosexy (2011)
Footnotes
- ^ Philip Hensher, The Independent: "Mark Simpson is a skinhead Oscar Wilde, his bon mots are both alarming and amusing, getting up people's noses and inside their trousers with equal aplomb."; quote used to promote Simpson's books "Sex Terror" and "The Queen is Dead"
- ^ By Mark S (2007-12-11). "Simpson Tops Arnie And Freud In Gq Spread". Marksimpson.com. http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2007/12/11/mark-simpson-tops-arnie-and-freud-simultaneously/. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ Simpson, Mark (1994). "Here come the mirror men". The Independent.
- ^ Here come the mirror men, MarkSimpson.com
- ^ Simpson, Mark (2002). "Meet the metrosexual". Salon.
- ^ http://www.wordspy.com/words/retrosexual.asp
- ^ Haskell, David (December 10, 2006). "THE 6th ANNUAL YEAR IN IDEAS; Sporno". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0917F93D550C738DDDAB0994DE404482. Retrieved 2007-01-11.
- ^ Sporno[dead link]
- ^ palu (December 18, 2006). "Metrosexual man invents Sporno". In The Mix. http://www.inthemix.com.au/news/intl/30009/Metrosexual_man_invents_Sporno. Retrieved 2007-01-11.
- ^ "Anti-Gay". Marksimpson.com. http://www.marksimpson.com/pages/anti_gay.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ "It's a Queer World". Marksimpson.com. http://www.marksimpson.com/pages/queerworld.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ "Saint Morrissey". Marksimpson.com. 2004-08-24. http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/saint-morrissey/. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ Granger, Ben (2004). "This Alarming Man". Spike Magazine. http://www.spikemagazine.com/0404morrissey.php.
- ^ "The Queen is Dead". Marksimpson.com. http://www.marksimpson.com/pages/queen_is_dead.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ By Mark S (2011-06-28). "We're All Transexy Now". Marksimpson.com. http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2011/06/28/interview-with-mark-simpson-in-portuguese-national-newspaper-publico. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
- ^ "The End of Gay". Gaydarnation.com. 2011-07-01. http://gaydarnation.com/UserPortal/Article/Detail.aspx?ID=29680&sid=59. Retrieved 2011-09-11.
External links
Categories:- Living people
- Gay writers
- LGBT people from the United Kingdom
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