March 8, 2024 - 11:30am
It’s not clear if Freud ever actually said, “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”. But in most cases it definitely isn’t.
If the first episode of Fox & Father is anything to go by, cigars are now de rigueur for any dissident male opinion-haver banished from the respectable mainstream by the hegemonic dominance of wokeness, or liberalism, or feminism — or whatever is doing the banishing.
The show itself, produced by the Reclaim Party YouTube channel, Reclaim the Media, and starring former GB News hosts Laurence Fox and Calvin Robinson, is more or less the culture-war fare you’d expect. Perhaps its most intriguing dynamic is the substantive tension between Fox’s blend of Divorced Dad ressentiment and mushy Right-liberalism, and Robinson’s conservative Christian moral clarity. There is often genuine difference between the two, carried through by the evident friendship between these outcasts from Respectable Public Opinion, that gives the show the feel of a pub debate between friends that will likely appeal to its core audience: the mushrooming cohort of politically disaffected and increasingly Right-leaning men.
In accordance with this, the cigars reveal the show’s real mimetic genealogy. This is neither peevish Gen X anti-wokeism nor Christian sexual mores, but the Tateosphere. The modern media figure most associated with cigar-smoking is the masculinity influencer Andrew Tate, who connects the habit to a “fireblood” state of mind maximally associated with productivity. Tate was also the first to interview Fox at length after his departure from GB News for making a joke about the sexual desirability of a female journalist.
At the time, I suggested this conversation was a taste of things to come; Fox & Father supports such a reading. Importantly, as well as heralding a new vehicle for clickbait context-collapse, the arrival of Fox in the Tateosphere also signalled the burgeoning and increasingly visible mediaplex now catering to men.
The clearest signal that Robinson and Fox have situated themselves within this memeplex is the opening clip for their show, a jittery montage of the pair glowering at the camera in dramatically-lit close-up while smoking cigars. The aesthetic is pure Tate Speech, even if the relatively spindly and bookish Fox and Robinson do nowhere near as convincing a rendition in Fox & Father of the pimp machismo archetype of manhood.
Quite the opposite, in fact. So much so that one might query this choice of aesthetic, especially in contrast with the content, which is at least somewhat more thoughtful than Tate’s output. But perhaps the Tate-style signalling is the point. Freud himself loved smoking so intensely that he continued after two operations for mouth cancer and, according to his 1947 biographer, found non-smokers irritating, meaning “nearly all his apostles took up smoking”.
Meanwhile, as far back as 1922, the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis was arguing that one of the reasons people smoke is “the phallic significance of the cigarette, cigar and pipe”. Perhaps, then, we can read the modern mimetic YouTube media-cigar that’s now spread from Tate Speech to Fox & Father as further evidence of a proliferation of micro-Tates. After the copycat fashion of Freudian apostles, these now also embrace the cigar, as a symbolically potent (not to mention literally poisonous) sceptre of “toxic masculinity”.
Indeed, Fox himself makes the symbolic connection between cigars and anti-feminism, saying in response to Robinson’s critique of the entire mediasphere as hegemonically feminist: “They’re not smoking cigars like us.” The fact that neither seems particularly to enjoy their literal cigar (Robinson accidentally inhales and coughs at one point) is neither here nor there.
In his old age, Freud reportedly said that cigars had “served me for precisely 50 years as protection and a weapon in the combat of life”. Now, the cigar’s phallic connotations, mimetic power, and weaponisation are all once again in evidence.
The literal microphone and phallic cigar are, together, the “protection and weapon” Fox and Robinson have adopted in their crusade to reclaim not just the media, but also the now universally condemned and allegedly “toxic” space of masculinity. The set may be flimsy and cheap-looking, and the cigars awkward, but at present Fox & Father has few UK competitors in this space. I expect many imitators to follow.
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SubscribeI smoked a cigar at Christmas (I gave up smoking cigarettes many years ago and hadn’t had a cigar for years).
My 11 year old daughter was scandalised! She said she was worried that I would get cancer from one cigar. Her friend who was in another room said she felt sick from the smell. I suppose it is good that they aren’t smoking behind the bike sheds like we were, but the hysteria, no doubt induced by constant anti-smoking propaganda, was a bit much.
I often say if a cigar is like a whisky after dinner, smoking cigarettes is like chugging white lightning cider at 9am on the pavement.
If you want to feel some cigar solidarity, watch the new series about Arnold Schwarzenegger on Netflix. Not only is it a tonic for anyone who can’t be doing with the whole “poor-me-I’m-a-victim-boo-hoo” narrative and just likes to get on with things…Arnie has been a committed cigar smoker for years and even had a smoking tent put up in the courtyard of his offices when he was governor of California.
That said, I think that cigars smell absolutely dreadful.
I think Arnold is an awful man and I find his voice abrasive.. Never could figure out why Maria married him. She’s probably saying that herself, now.
Instead we have hysteria over kids vaping. We should give them cigars instead.
You make a good point. Recently, the Dutch government passed a law to ban fruit-flavored vapes, but this only served to get people back on to cigarettes again.
Tried a cigar once. Made my mouth taste like ash for three days. Never again.
I only managed one puff of the one I tried just for the hell of it. I thought I was going to have to spray some fire extinguisher down my throat afterwards, it felt red raw. Never again.
Used to like a cheeky fag every now and again, especially after I’d had a couple of drinks. But they make me feel sick now, so that got knocked on the head too.
Look, he’s just a little bit foolish and says, and does, some things that some people disagree with and some they agree with. I can’t see what he has done to necessitate so many articles and dissections of his every utterance and anything else. SO WHAT?
because you clicked and commented.
My exact reaction. I listened to Fox on the Triggernometry podcast several months ago and couldn’t believe how Kisin and Foster badgered the guy for making a joke about some media harpie.
Incidentally, I love the smell of cigars. Hi, fellas . . .
Triggernometry appeals to a broad spectrum so fawning over every anti-woke guests doesn’t make sense. Konstantin in particular is good at representing the bed-wetters point of view. Playing devils advocate is a great way to get the best argument out of your guest/fried at the pub. It’s also just fun, assuming you are a thinking person
I didn’t expect it to be fawning, and I really like both hosts. I just couldn’t understand why the comment so outraged so many.
Which “he” are you referring to?
Would someone please translate this into KathleenStock?
Of course it all comes from male insecurity. Cigars are the male equivalent of heavily marketed mostly useless “feminine hygiene products”. Lanky Laurence and Bald-Topped Tate look to accessories to restore their masculinity.
As well as being a phallic symbol, cigars are the perfect accessory for the impotent male who believes himself worthy of attention but is incapable of producing any reason to deserve it. So like men driving loud cars/motorbikes or wearing flashy watches they invest their personality in some attention grabbing ornament and pay little regard to the nature of the attention they receive. So long as people look (and the marketing is strong enough) they can kid themselves they are looks of admiration and not disdain or, more likely, pity.
It compensates for their lack of gravitas. Like the loud car, a stinky cigar dominates the space. Just as they cannot attract attention, Fox does not have the figure or demeanour to own a room but can fill it with his stench.
Like the attention deprived child they act out just to get their busy/neglectful parents to engage with them. They never learnt to love (and that’s gay lefty nonsense anyway) and must instead fulfil their social needs by drawing negative attention.
Men like Harrow-schooled Fox have been led to believe they will lead the world but feminism and meritocracy have meant they fall into mediocrity with the commoners and plebs they now claim to represent. Instead of blending into the background like 99.9999% of people in humanity’s history (e.g. you dear reader) they seek psychological comfort in causing a stink and telling themselves the complaints mean they matter.
Says a guy on the Internet who writes screed after screed in online forums but doesn’t even have the basic ‘masculinity’ to tell us his name and make a public stand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
I am happy with blending into the background as set out in my comment. I don’t need to identify myself. I’m pretty sure I’ve explained the reasoning to you before but I don’t put much truck with usernames so can’t be sure.
My name would be pointless anyway as I basically have no online presence under my real name. I’ve been careful to avoid it throughout a lifetime of writing screed after screed in online fora.
It’s also such a common combination that rather than making a public stand I’d be more likely to discredit someone else.
Have you left out anyone in your psychoanalysis list of offenders and weaklings?
It may rankle but
“… a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.”
Go easy with neologisms Mary. And admire you as I do – I mean, who cares, me, you, who?
“pimp machismo archetype of manhood”
Nice turn of a phrase, Mary! Well done! I might change it a bit to “manicured pimp machismo archetype of manhood”. I’ve only seen Tate in bits and pieces but, from what I’ve seen, he’s quite mindful of his grooming.
I think Mary Harrington is barking up the wrong tree with all this Freudian stuff. It seems to me that what they (and Tate) are really aping is the ‘US cigar smoking renegade’ a la Arnie, Clint Eastwood etc. Joe Rogan is often seen smoking cigars with his guests.
Those toting a cigar in the US are themselves doing so from a Freudian perspective, if Mary’s reading is correct.
Perhaps but the cigar has different cultural connotationsin the UK than in the US.
Which is?
I wonder why they never caught on women.
You could easily re-write this article but change it to women and the ‘femisphere’ and use as a point of reference say, ‘The View’.
In this vacuous TV slot, women purport to take back control from the men in a women-only (‘safe’?) space, talk loudly with little factual nous or analytical ability, are badly but flashily groomed using make-up (warpaint) and clothes as a defence and diversion from the emptiness of the whole endeavour.
It’s a shame the reductionist effect of identity politics has convinced men to follow them down a parallel rabbit hole to a dead end.
Who hurt you, Mikey?
After decades of abuse and neglect young men are becoming rightfully more conservative and militant. We can expect that at some point they will organize and force change to a society which isn’t trying to eviscerate their souls. These kinds of male positive shows will give way in the coming decades to far more politically directed organizing. I wonder if I’m the only “peevish” GenX man who’s waiting for retirement so I can openly organize to help build a better world for young men. Once retired I won’t give a rats arse what polite society thinks of me.
Don’t wait for retirement – we already think you are a clown.
I will venture a guess that neither Fox nor, almost certainly, Father Calvin have watched a Tate show, therefore I believe it’s likely they were uninfluenced by his cigaritations.
I will venture that you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. Fox’s drivel is directly inspired by Tate’s garbage.
The ultimate male use of a cigar was Bill Clinton and his girlfriend MS Lewski. He inserted his cigar into her vagina.
And Bill Cosby was a cigar smoker.
Knowing those two Grifters they’ve got a side deal with some Cigar producer and all the rest of the analysis tosh whilst the ker-ching softly chimes in the background.