A reader takes issue with my assertion that "a gentleman is not 'cut'." [NB for readers who have no idea what we're talking about: "cut" is gym-rat slang for the look your body has when, by diligent working-out, you have brought all your muscles to such clear definition that the zones where muscle meets muscle look as though they have been cut into your flesh.]
"Derb—-I disagree on a number of levels, well, two. First, I don't think Bond is a gentleman.
I think he's decidedly middle class (mentioned in the movie, but taken from Kingsley Amis and Fleming). And second, body types have changed, and a gentleman is someone who has time for leisure, and leisure has changed over the years. It used to be farm laborers and boxers who had bodies like that. Now gentlemen spend time doing things like... well, boxing and weightlifting. It's not just lepidoptery and golf anymore."
[Derb] I have problems with that, mainly with the idea that a gent would spend his leisure time doing something narcissistic. Also with the idea that gentlemanliness is a matter of class. It is certainly true, though, that styles in male body type have changed. I watched a Fred Astaire movie the other day, and reflected on how no studio nowadays would hire any male with Astaire's physique, however good a dancer he was—certainly not for a leading man role.
But wait—didn't I once do an article about all that for NR? Yes, I did.
Posted at 3:37 PM
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