Charity, Soul and Multigrain Bread

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Gerard Butler is certainly looking well these days and whatever he's been up to lately,  it suits him.   Doing the rounds of the charities he is involved with, he looks rested,  stylish and happy being his usual flirtatious, little bad boy, self.

It is always with dismay that I read comments that he is "anorexic" or that he looks ill or unhappy in response to some of his images.  I also have to laugh at the blogs that report that several men (Paul Haggis and a certain Frenchman in particular) felt a little threatened by his presence around their dates or wives. Personally, I think they are very secure fellows and just playing along with Gerry's playful image because they like him.

True Mr. B. is a natural and very forward flirt and some women tend to feel giggly or tongue tied around him, but that is because they are not used to a fellow that is not afraid to give voice to his admiration, in whatever (awkward or smooth) form it comes.   He has an image to live up to....the handsome, bawdy ladies man about town.  This is Hollywood, after all and, from all appearances, Gerard Butler is all about conquering the opposite sex.

Actually, I'll go out on a limb and say that I think Gerry likes to conquer most people he meets.  The gregarious and irreverent Butler has never met a person he couldn't charm, if that is his goal...and no man or women is immune if he is in ernest.  But so often his motivation is questioned and misinterpreted when he just simply cannot help wanting people, particularly people in the industry,  to like him.

I think some of that misinterpretation comes from the fact that most of the glances the fans or general public get of him is through the paparazzi lens or the gossip bloggers speculation.   Stories are made up about him as a result of these frozen shots and his response and then the speculation begins and he becomes the target of people who find this speculative slice of his actions objectionable.  It doesn't help that Butler is a very ironic fellow.  Too many people don't get irony and in some quarters....irony equals arrogance.

Of course the speculation is also helped along by certain contingents of Butler fans.   Like so many men who are unmarried and content to be so, he becomes the target of females who believe that marriage is the natural order of things for everyone and no man should be left unscathed when there are so many single women out there looking for a mate.  They cannot separate the flirtation from the reality because every female that is mentioned in connection with him becomes either his victim or,  to another set of fans,  a slut.   Either moniker does not say much about the women involved.  Where does that leave free will and equal responsibility for choosing what one wants?  Women are very tough on their own when it comes to men.  It's crazy and insulting.

The truth is that we know very little about Butler's real personal life and the little people see pegs him  as either "a man whore" or "in the closet."    Talk about extremes!   Is there not room for "none of the above" in all the speculation?   Of course, two such disparate views make him all the more interesting to the paparazzi and the gossip blogs because they all want to be the first to get the skinny on him and when it comes to Gerard Butler, the more salacious, the better for some.

While he sometimes displays the restraint of a fourteen year old,  I generally like Butler and I don't give a damn who he is.   I also have enough common sense to understand what I am seeing and laugh at the spin put on it.  Generally  I find him irreverent, ironic and sometimes silly,  I also find him impatient, curious, ambitious, sometimes caustic but generally kind.  I think he is finally coming to terms with who he is and what he likes and at this point in his career he's learned not to care as much about who approves  and who doesn't.   That is a good thing.

Another thing I like about Butler is that he is not "white bread."   I see him as chewy, sometimes coarse,  multigrain embellished with tasty sesame and/or poppyseed.   If he were a cheese, he would be  a pungent blue, covered with veins of rich, dark mold (as good blue cheese is).    He may look like the fair, green eyed hero of your fairy tale,  but a part of him is pure soul and I think one has to understand soul and where it comes from to understand a little of who he is.  Some people get it and some people don't.

If I could give him some advice I'd tell him to put a little of that soul he puts into his singing and his life, back into his acting so that his fans will be talking more about his performances and less about the gossip and speculation surrounding his love life.

The latter is too much to be hoped for.   The former is not!  How about it Mr. B?



Songs out of tune, the words always a little wrong...Canzoni Stonate