April 22, 2014
Malcolm McDowell
Similarly, James Dean surely tops any “coolest” list. Yet he plays a put-upon loser in all three of his films, and spends his screen time stuttering, sputtering, shuffling his feet, staring at the ground, and saying the wrong thing at the worst possible time. He’s about as smooth as a gravel road. Cabane’s uber confidence is nowhere in sight.
Contrary to popular belief, Dean never even dons a leather jacket.
But hey, what do I know? Cabane’s the one making hundreds of dollars an hour teaching CEOs to channel their inner Steve McQueen.
Anyhow, I don”t have to bother trying to finish that thing I meant to write about “cool,” because now Greg Gutfeld has said everything I wanted to say, only better.
In his new book, Not Cool, reviewed by our own Gavin McInness, Gutfeld affirms that cool culture is death culture. You know: “Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse”?
But McInnes sees the other side, too: “Cool” has its time and place. It’s not the poison, it’s the dose.
I want to believe that. I was never cool and I”m too old to try now, but like a mirage, the concept retains its powerful yet ultimately toxic allure. There’s a reason why, this time every year, Catholics renew their baptismal vows and promise to reject “the glamor of evil.”
