When I met Russell Brand this week for his podcast Under the Skin I began with mixed feelings. I have a background in radio and television, where Brand’s reputation, especially amongst women, is poor. Most of the hostility is from a while ago, before his public clean up, marriage and treatment for sex addiction, but women have watched too many men burnish their reputations and rise too swiftly after a fall from grace to be immediately forgiving. His comments a few years ago about leaving the childcare to his partner didn’t add to my sense of meeting someone I’d immediately click with.
I’ve changed my mind.
In the lead up to the interview, while many women were sceptical, men sidled up to me to tell me what a fan of his they were. Intelligent, self-aware, responsible and loving men I respect, including my own husband and a leader at my church.
I now know that his books on recovery and mentors in particular deal with deep and painful issues, from mental health struggles to porn, the necessity of community and the challenges of masculinity. He tackles them head on with impish wit and a lecture-free tone, connecting with a generation of men looking for guidance as the world changes rapidly around them.
One person described Brand to me as “the left’s Jordan Peterson”. I’m not sure he is straightforwardly on the left but those categories are less and less useful anyway. He shares with Peterson an ability to speak about masculinity in ways that are neither patronising nor automatically problematising. However, Peterson’s positions on gender feel to many women to be shading into misogyny and he has failed to control or even admonish his army of swivel-eyed fans when they pour vile abuse on the women he has public disagreements with.
Brand, on the other hand, has spoken about abstaining from porn because of the ways it affects views of women, profiles voices like Brene Brown on vulnerability and Queer Eye star Karamo Brown on being a loving man, while remaining resolutely “male” coded. He “won” the game that society tells men they need to play, sleeping with thousands of women and discarding them and revelling in money and status, and now speaks honestly about how it fails to fulfil.
I still disagree with some of what he says, and some of his more earnest former statements now look comically naïve. But he’s honest about changing his mind and messing up and being a work in progress- that rare thing amongst those with a public voice. He was also off to cook his kids tea following the recording. I’m raising a son and looking with some trepidation at the environment for men, and find myself, to my surprise, glad that Russell Brand is helping shape it.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeMy generic knowledge of Russell Brand is based solely on his “celebrity” persona and I have no gauge on his everyday character. I want express that I’m sure more context could be provided to completely justify what is in this article that I disagree with. From what I read it seems the author of this article goes to a church the denomination is beside the point… To each there own I think I have no reason to worry about what other people do with there lives except anything drastically interferes or endangers mine or my loved ones. After all that finally my point of this post is to state that we as a whole the social government if you will is the problem nobody ever seems to wanna fix. I applaud anyone that wants to be a better human not what social or public opinions dictate
How can anyone really argue that there veiws or morals or whatever the case may be judges other people. Instead of social majority policing what’s acceptable. There will always be something to bother us it’s life, unchangeable we’re all in some way or another always changing how we act constantly adapting to everyday situations. Try to be a decent person do whatever the f**k you want as long as it’s not at someone else’s expense. Society is so fucked up and convoluted with how we are expected to be that people end up changing and worrying eventually hating there life’s depressed and beat down mentally causing more social issues repeating the cycle. Stop expecting others to follow the self-righteous control freaks and focus on simply being a good person.
Addicts and homeless people are instantly perceived by the majority as not good or even degenerates bad bla bla bla…the drugs someone does isn’t harming anyone outside there family and themselves who am I to tell them there somehow failing life or whatever. Anyone can go buy gallons of hard liquor and it’s lawfully ok until they drive potentially harming others drugs are suppressed by the gov causing higher cost leading to financial ruin then criminal behavior. Quit worrying about other people and how they choose to live laws control the people that get out of hand same as the drunks breaking the laws. Sorry for this ridiculous unreadable rant just sick of people that honestly think the have the right to tell people how they should be or that there way of life is the right path……..KA-White
P.s. sorry again lol