Green Nazis in Space: New Essays in Literature, Art, and Culture

by James O'Meara

  Bertie Wooster believes that wearing black shorts is an extreme social and sartorial faux pas (shorts being inappropriate for a grown man outside a sporting context) and uses it to make fun of Spode:

  The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting “Heil, Spode!” and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: “Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?”—Bertie Wooster in The Code of the Woosters (1938)

  Before Spode inherited the title of Earl of Sidcup on the death of his uncle, he made a living as the “founder and proprietor of the emporium in Bond Street known as Eulalie Soeurs,” a famed designer of ladies’ lingerie.410

  Wikipedia adds this interesting detail:

  In the television series Jeeves and Wooster, the Black Shorts are portrayed as a tiny group of around a dozen men and teenage boys. They comprise the small, but enthusiastic, audience to whom Spode makes loud, dramatic speeches in which he announces bizarre statements of policy, such as giving each citizen at birth a British–made bicycle and umbrella [“At birth, every citizen, as of right, will be issued with a British bicycle and an honest British-made umbrella. Thus assured of a mobile workforce adequately protected against the elements, this great country can go forward once more to glory!”], widening the rails of the entire British railway network, so sheep may stand sideways on trains, the banning of the import of foreign root-vegetables and the compulsory, scientific measurement of all male knees. [“Not for the true-born Englishman the bony angular knee of the so-called intellectual, not for him the puffy knee of the criminal classes. The British knee is firm, the British knee is muscular, the British knee is on the march!”]

  We should note, for future reference, the insinuations of homosexuality: Spode’s audience pointedly includes “teenage boys,” he is, we learn in “Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit,” an expert on jewelry, and above all, the lingerie business.411

  Out of embarrassment, Spode had long attempted to keep his ownership of the business a secret, though Jeeves discovered the fact in the Junior Ganymede Club’s official Book, where one of Spode’s former valets had inscribed it.

  “Former” valet? Junior Ganymede Club, eh?

  In The Code of the Woosters, this discovery allowed Bertie to threaten Spode with public embarrassment and prevent the threatened “jellying process.” As Bertie says, “You can’t be a successful Dictator and design women’s underclothing. One or the other. Not both.” Indeed, whenever Spode sees Bertie after the point where Bertie mentions the name “Eulalie,” Spode instantly becomes meek and acquiescing.

  This instinctive, visceral mockery of Spode is especially interesting, since Wodehouse himself, though “apolitical” in that typically ga-ga way of the Brits, found himself, during the War, not only in occupied France, but was gently coerced by the Germans to give a series of radio “chats” aimed at the United States, detailing how jolly much fun the occupation was. Unlike Ezra Pound and William Joyce, Wodehouse was never prosecuted (being, apparently, ga-ga, after all),412 though now and again some busybody tried to smear him as a “Nazi.”413 The real irony is that Wodehouse himself was quite Jew-wise:

  [A]s far as Wodehouse in his novels and short stories was concerned the Jews were an objectionable, shady, traitorous, money-obsessed lot who exercised an inordinate amount of influence in the city of London and had the entire British and American industry in their hands.414

  Of course, being Jew-wise does not necessarily make one a fascist (nor, given the example of Franco and Mussolini, vice versa) but I mention this to show that Wodehouse’s antipathy does not arise from some modern, “post-Holocaust” mentality (“Fascism leads to Auschwitz”).415

  Now, before delving further into this “shorts” business, let me step back again and make the general point that the Anglo-Americans seem to have a bug up their ass/arse when it comes to authority, government, and its tool, the armed forces. Both countries, for example, pat themselves on the back incessantly as abhorring “standing armies,” though this hasn’t prevented them from fighting each other twice, fighting the bloodiest civil war in history, creating and running the largest empire in history (navies are OK, I guess), and being in a constant state of war since 1941.

  So, even if you libertarian or anarchist types like the “anti-military” hype, not only is it hypocritical, it’s also just a manifestation of a generalized attitude of social slackitude.416

  Now, my Gentle Reader, being likely of the Anglosphere himself, is also likely muttering to himself, “Who need a bunch of closet cases marching around like Nutzis anyway?”417 So let’s back up even further.

  Traditional societies are above all integral societies; every aspect of the society is derived from, or refers back to, one or more metaphysical Principles (viz, Tradition), and since these principles are an integral whole, so are the various aspects of the society. This includes such “minor” or “irrelevant” aspects as clothing, or music.418

  Traditional societies have traditional clothing, and vice versa; moreover, we can say that traditional societies produce, as a kind of natural by-product, traditional clothing, and vice versa as well: traditional clothing produces a traditional society.419

  With this in mind, when the modern Anglo Saxon proudly states, and correspondingly wears, his vaunted “independence” and “originality” and “individualism,” as opposed to the supposed “repression” and “conformity” of the uniformed, we need to point out to him the difference between “unity” and “uniformity.”420

  Traditional society, as we have said, is integral, i.e., characterized by Unity, which, being aligned with Quality, is characterized by precisely differentiations: caste, rank, guild, corporate body, etc.

  To these correspond various appropriate types of clothing, or a similar style of clothing, often with some indication of rank or order: the uniform.

  Modern society is indeed characterized by an opposite principle, but it is the pseudo-freedom of mere atoms, indiscernible and interchangeable, with clothing to match. It is unfortunate for our purposes that Guénon calls this other principle Uniformity; in this context, we would better call it by its most salient characteristic: Conformity. In the 1820 the European (and hence relatively still traditional) De Toqueville had already discerned that the American’s much vaunted “freedom” actually produced, unlike the stratified, articulated societies of Tradition, a dull conformity of opinion (and hence, of dress, or fashion).

  Furthermore, we can trace the decline of a society, or culture, or civilization, by the decline of its clothing, a process that, with Spenglerian inevitability, traces a path between the archetypes we have identified as the Homo and the Negro—a somewhat tendentious version of Guénon’s Quality/Quantity and Evola’s Solar/Telluric.421

  Thus, to reenter our discussion, the uniform, despite its “uniformity,” can be seen—and is seen, by the modern prole—as essentially of the pole of Tradition, integrity, unity (as defined just now), and thus always an implicit insult, and threat, to all the prole stands (or lies around) for.

  Fascism, as Evola noted, was the attempt to shore up a disintegrating (i.e., a de-traditionalizing and modernizing) society under emergency conditions—hence, its rather unfortunate tendency to rigidity and, well, uniformity.422

  Fascism, with its ranks, orders, and corporations, is the modern analogue of traditional society, and thus can, with sufficient reason, be symbolized by the uniform itself;423 conversely, the uniform is feared and loathed as the very symbol of fascism, which is itself loathed and feared—by the prole—for its attempt to restore tradition.

  With that in mind, consider that Wikipedia adds that, “The flag of the Black Shorts as devised for the Jeeves and Wooster television series [was] modelled on th
e Flash and Circle of the British Union of Fascists.”

  The “flash-in-the-pan,” as Mosley’s mockers called it. Which reminds us of Jef Costello’s “The Flash in the Pan”: Fascism & Fascist Insignia in the Spy Spoofs of the 1960s.”424 Here, Costello looks at Hollywood’s James Bond rip-offs of the ’60s, rather than genteel comic literature from the ’30s, and, corresponding to the decline of society in the ensuing decades since the defeat of Fascism, we can see that the Wooster/Spode dialectic is updated and replayed as the laid-back secret agent of Yankee-style “liberty” vs. the Worldwide Fascist Conspiracy.425

  But much more interesting is what these American spy spoofs reveal about the modern American soul. Let’s focus just on Matt Helm for the moment, as paradigmatic of the genre. It’s discipline, order, duty, and iron will (the villains) . . . against hedonism, debauchery, and selfish abandon (the hero). (I didn’t mention this earlier, but Matt Helm always has to be talked into taking a break from chasing tail so that he can save the world.) The conflict between America and fascism in World War II was presented as the conflict between freedom and slavery. In Matt Helm, however, the truth is laid bare and the conflict revealed for what it really was. The freedom of Matt Helm is mere license. He’s out to make the world safe not for democracy and individual rights, but for boozing and boinking and sleeping till noon. That’s the American Dream, and he is living it. And so when those handsome, uniformed, lock-step, lightning-bolted troops in their spotless lairs are blown to kingdom come we can all cheer. Who did they think they were, anyway?

  [Flint’s] Galaxy is a bit different from [Helm’s] B.I.G.O., however. They are headed by three white-coated, idealistic scientists who aim to pacify the world and create a conflict-free utopia.426 Ideologically, this actually puts them further to the left, but there are strongly authoritarian overtones to Galaxy (nifty uniforms, a “Führer Prinzip” of absolute loyalty to the three leaders, etc.). At the climax of the film, as Flint is poised to destroy the weather machine, one of the mad scientists pleads with him to desist: “Ours would be a perfect world!” he cries. “Not my kind of world,” Flint responds, as he proceeds to demolish their handiwork. Again, everything here is on personal terms. Our hero goes on his mission because his life is adversely affected; he foils the villains’ scheme because their vision is not his. No conception of duty is at work in Flint, and no high-minded ideals. He is just looking out for number one. (It is noteworthy that on its release, Our Man Flint received a positive review in Ayn Rand’s journal The Objectivist.) . . . Us vs. them foreign interllectuals with their books and their high-minded ideals. (The villains in the Helm films are always foreign and often—interestingly—aristocratic. What a delight it is to see the noble and the dignified toppled by the hometown boy!)

  And that, of course, is the “delight” of seeing batty Bertie besting beastly Spode.427 As Costello sums it up:

  The American versions of Bond jettison all that is noble about the character and turn him into a grinning lothario, a self-involved hedonist, a perpetual adolescent, a vulgar operator always on the make. And please keep squarely in mind that this was done so that American audiences would have a character they could more easily identify with and root for. The American soul is rotten to the core.

  Though Bertie—who’s really more infantile than adolescent, less afraid of marriage than of women in general, especially his Aunt Julia—has been reconfigured as a surprisingly effective spy (just as the Anglo-American public had to be “toughened up” and frog-marched into the Second World War and the Cold War428) his heart’s still in the right place: fighting for the right to sleep late against all those tightly uniformed meanies.

  America was always more slovenly (“rotten to the core”), but standards of dress have sunk since Matt Helm to levels that would have been impossible to imagine back then; you need only look at a random photo or movie scene from no further back than the ’50s to observe adults dressed like adults, with suit, tie, and hat, even at sporting events; today, “sportswear”—simultaneously childish (though sized for ever-increasing girths) and shoddy—is de rigueur for all events, indeed all public appearances, part of the negrofication of American, and ultimately world, society, the fruit of the much hullabalooed fascist defeat, which we’ve commented on for some time now.

  Negro society, to the extent that the term “society” can even be used,429 is, as a result of its relative lack of intelligence, characterized precisely by an overwhelming conformity, of both dress and opinion—any signs of intelligence or originality being immediately stomped out as being “acting white” or “being gay,” which are equivalent terms here; while clothing must adhere to the loose, baggy “style” of the prison, where the most authentic negro males spend most of their time.430

  As society becomes more uniform, more negroid, clothing becomes duller, uglier, and baggier.

  So it is incorrect to simply say that “clothing has become more casual” since “casual” styles of the past would be considered ridiculously fussy and “uptight” today. As what little Quality has declined further into Quantity, “casual” has itself declined into “slob.”

  How appropriate, then, that “shorts” should be the chosen vehicle of mockery. As Wikipedia says, the crux of Wodehouse’s derision is that, “wearing black shorts is an extreme social and sartorial faux pas (shorts being inappropriate for a grown man outside a sporting context).”

  Ironically, today wearing “footer bags” anywhere at all would actually be a seen as faggy in itself—the recent World Cup games led to a predictable orgy of homosexual panic among the usual suspects on the Manly Right (e.g., Steve Sailer). While shorts have spread (like American asses) from sports to everyday wear, the kind of short has mutated.

  Once again, Mystery Science Theater provides us with a useful index of what educated, white middle-class people in America’s upper Midwest—the theoretical “White People” that White Nationalists would supposedly convert to supply the population of the White Homeland—think; and of the Stuff these White People don’t Like, shorts is/are high on the list.

  When the cast view old movies, which by definition are of the past (even “sci fi fantasies” take place in the “lost future”431), whiteness is always noticed—it’s rare today—and more importantly, mocked. Exclusively white casts are puzzling; the occasional menial black character, though culturally accurate, is an embarrassment. When white bodies—“white, white, bodies”—are unclothed, the guys groan at the “fish belly white” display.

  But it’s shorts, plain old jean shorts, and especially swim trunks, that elicit the greatest cries of horror: “Tiny, disturbing shorts.”

  “Mike, look, his batch, it’s horrible!”

  “At this point the swim trunks are just a formality, right?”

  “We’ll be right back to ‘Men with Little Pants.’”

  Remember, we’re talking about films made by, for, and starring ordinary American people, at a time when America was, by population, almost totally white (but, as we know, already negrofying in culture)—The Boggy Creek Monster (’70s), The Revenge of the Creature (’50s), The Undersea Kingdom (’30s)—not gay porn.

  This mutation has been usefully diagnosed and analyzed by Mark Simpson in his epoch-making essay, “Speedophobia: The American Fear and Loathing of Bedgie Smuggling.”432

  Bathing and swimming are undoubtedly pagan passions. The ancients invented the seaside resort and spent a great deal of gold on, and time in, their blessed public baths, where the men bathed and swam naked. Not because they were indifferent to nakedness, but because they esteemed virility.

  Medieval Christianity, with its ghastly suspicion of the body, rendered water—the sensual cleanser of limbs—suspect. As late as the 16th century, bathing was thought to be wicked, unhealthy, and, er, filthy.

  [I]t was in Australia, a warm country where most of the population tenderly hug the coastline and pay little attention to busybodies—perhaps because Australia began as a convict colony—that the bod
ily freedom of the modern beach lifestyle (“surfers rather than serfs!”) was invented, anticipating by decades the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

  Up until the early 1980s, Speedos were a common sight here, both on the beach and at the pool. Everything was lovely and snug and nicely outlined. But then something horrifying happened. Sometime in the late ’80s men’s swimsuits began to grow in length and bulk. Year by year they crept down the thigh toward the knee-and beyond—all the while billowing clownishly outward. Now U.S. men wear, of their own volition, not even the knee-length woolen knickers that the Australian men of Manly heroically protested in the early 20th century, but bloomers—a voluminous form of female attire last seen in the 1850s (and generally regarded as ridiculous back then). In the water, today’s Speedophobic males are half-man, half-jellyfish.

  “Something happened”; “Of their own volition.” Although he doesn’t see the larger implications (not having read this book) Simpson is on the right track:

  In the ’70s basketball shorts were skimpy (almost like Oz football shorts) [that is, Wodehouse’s “footer bags”], but Michael Jordan popularized sexless long shorts in the NBA in the late 1980s. . . . Because Jordan was Jordan, others copied, and thus baggy shorts became fashionable. It seems that this evil trend spread to male swimwear.