Category Archives: popular culture

“You people are insane!! These movies are TERRIBLE!!!”

What’s your favourite scene in Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Bill Murray and Martin Landau’s best movie? (I’ve written an appreciation of Ed Wood for the new online arts mag Culture Kicks.) Here’s mine.

January 28, 2013 – 4:07 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in film, popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

‘Get Your Filthy Hands Off Me!’ Gorgeous George’s Glamorous Legacy

Rather than watch the Olympics, and all that noble, serious sporting uplift, I’ve been reading a book about a carny, corny, shameless 1940s-50s American wrestler: Gorgeous George: The Outrageous Bad-Boy Wrestler Who Created American Pop Culture, by John Capouya. My American chum Chris Supermarky recommended it to me, thinking it would be of interest. He wasn’t …

August 9, 2012 – 12:37 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, metrosexual, popular culture, sport | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (5)

Why ‘Warrior’ Isn’t That Kind of Girl

Middlesbrough, Teeside, one of the last steel-making towns in the UK or in fact one of the last places in the UK where they still make anything, is probably the right place to go and see, as I did last week, Warrior, the recently-released, much-hyped MMA Rocky remake set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Warrior is essentially …

October 5, 2011 – 2:57 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, film, popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Too Big For Their Breeches

I’m trying my best to distract myself from the desperate disappointment of THAT single – you know, the one that definitively proved that there really is such a thing as ‘too gay’.  Even for G*g*. So here’s a blast from the past – when pop music was still vital and vigorous instead of galvanic and twitching. …

February 13, 2011 – 5:04 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, music, popular culture | Tagged , , | Comments (7)

Shameless Slashiness

I’m not much of a Robbie Williams fan. ‘Bromance’ leaves me cold. And I hated Brokeback Mountain. But perhaps I’m a big softy really because I rather like this video for Williams’ single ‘Shame’ which brings all these themes together, adds a hairy Gary Barlow, Robbie’s once-reviled Take That collaborator, and takes its top off. …

September 15, 2010 – 4:36 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, music, popular culture | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

Army Dreamers: A Backwards Salute to Recruitment Films

by Mark Simpson, The Guardian As a boy growing up in the 1960s and 70s I was raised to fight The Second World War all over again. Airfix models. Commando comics. Air tattoos in June. Watching The Battle of Britain and The Longest Day on telly with my dad, just so I’d know what to do …

August 11, 2010 – 4:30 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, current affairs, journalism, masculinity, popular culture, review | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Danny’s top but Mikey is bottom

…acccording to a headline in today’s Sun newspaper. Glad to see they’re finally reporting the news that people really want to hear. Far be it for me to contradict Britain’s best-selling tabloid, but I wonder whether Danny Young isn’t more ‘vers’. You can watch his topless Rocky on the tragically awful and apparently endless ITV reality show …

March 8, 2010 – 12:15 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in commentary, masculinity, popular culture | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

David Beckham’s Package: Don’t Handle The Goods, Madam

After all those ads in which Becks thrusted his giant Armani wrapped package in our faces if not down our throats, an Italian satirical TV show decided to do a little consumer product testing.  You know that in Italy they like to handle the sausage and tomatoes — and haggle over the price — before …

January 21, 2010 – 5:31 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in Beckham, commentary, masculinity, popular culture | Tagged , , , | Comments (35)

Don’t Mess With the Bull Young Man, You’ll Get the Horns

Mark Simpson on John Hughes’ legacy (Arena Hommes Plus, Winter 2009) So here’s the pitch:  A Hollywood teen movie in which nothing happens.  All day. In a school library. Introduced by a pretentious quote from David Bowie’s ‘Changes’. Or how about this: A boy bunks off High School to take his friends to mooch around …

October 20, 2009 – 12:20 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in 80s, article, commentary, journalism, popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Bottoms From Outer Space: Anal Anxiety at the Movies

by Mark Simpson (Originally appeared in Attitude, September, 1996) You might think me obsessed with men’s bottoms. And you’d be right. But if you want to know what a real bottom obsession looks like, one that makes my own heavy breathing look positively flirtatious, just visit the movies. Take the Summer blockbuster ‘Independence Day’. Here’s …

August 21, 2009 – 12:05 pm | By Mark Simpson | Posted in article, commentary, journalism, popular culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (13)