A Sensitive Meathead’s Quest to Get ‘Swole’

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michael Andor Broudeur is a classical music critic for the Washington Post and he’s also a self-described “meathead” with an relentless desire to make his body bigger. In his book “Swole: The Making of Man and the Meaning of Muscle” Broudeur grapples with the contradictions and complexities of male body image and masculinity. He embraces the gay male gym culture he’s a part of but writes that it would be silly “to try and distance the symbol of the buff male bod from its long and wide lineage of unsavory cultural signifiers. As a mascot for classical beauty, the meathead must also embody white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, and a vast panoply of nationalisms.” We’ll talk with Brodeur about how weight training has shifted his perspective on what it means to be a man. Guests: Michael Andor Brodeur, author, "Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle"; classical music critic, the Washington Post Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:00.0	From KQED.
1:01.0	From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:15.3	Michael Andor Broder is the classical music critic for The Washington Post.
1:19.6	He is also a self-described meathead who has spent decades immersed in the world of weightlifting pumping himself up.
1:26.5	His new book, Swole, The Making of Man and the Meaning of Muscle,
1:30.3	does about as much as a book about masculinity can do,
1:33.3	exploring the different ways men have inhabited their bodies and the gender binary,
1:38.3	sometimes downright exploding out of both.
1:41.3	It's a healing kind of book,
1:43.3	one searching for some kind of coolant for the forces
1:46.3	driving men to isolation and violence. He's coming up next right after this news.
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