Nick Offerman?s role as Ron Swanson from the TV show Parks and Recreation hasn't just made the actor, as well as the character he portrays, an immensely popular household name. No, Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson and the magnificent moustache both entities share is helping to heal the planet and bring all of its disparate children closer together, and subsequently, closer to God.
And you better believe that God has a fucking moustache, even if IT doesn't have a gender.
The Ron Swanson moustache may be the most important moustache the world has seen since Hitler?s. In fact it can be seen as the anti Hitler?s moustache.Where Adolf?s was a thin, stiff , incomplete looking, dark swath cut across a human face, Swanson?s is the exact opposite. Thick, supple, fully spread, mellifluously stretched out like a griffin?s wings.
Ron Swanson moustache seems to say to all who behold it ?Yes, I have the power of ten billion suns forged into me, and yes, I could obliterate your tiny, insignificant world countless times over with ease; but I am not your destroyer, I have been sent here to protect you.?
Basically our world is Edward Furlong from Terminator 2 and Ron Swanson?s moustache is a shotgun wielding, motorcycle riding cyborg from the future extending its hand and saying, ?Come with me if you want to live.? But how can this be? How can one moustache make a difference, let alone save the world even if it is the champagne of facial hair? It's not just what the moustache is, which is breathtaking, it's what the moustache represents.
The character of Ron Swanson began essentially as a parody of machismo. In particular the old guard, un-ironically moustached man, who believes that emotions are only ever appropriately expressed when they are used to convey one?s appreciation of Bacon. But Swanson was also a send up of tough guys in general, and their more and more apparent displacement from the modern world.
What Offerman has achieved with Swanson is a walking parody which has transcended satire to become an actual paragon of the thing it was first used to make light of. He's the antithesis of Chuck Norris. Yes, Swanson?s disregard and dissonance with the world he finds himself in is funny because he's so out of touch. But it's even funnier because deep down many of us feel the same.
Especially us modern men types. Like us Swanson wears his emotionally laconic heart on his sleeve. He's uncomfortable with anyone talking about their feelings and is staunchly in support of self-reliance, in the realms of personal problems as well as Government interference, to the point of absurdity.
But despite all of this he also quietly cares about the people around him quite deeply. He just doesn't want anybody to know about it. Which is of course the vulnerable underside of strong tough men, they can actually be more fragile and caring than anybody. They?re like grizzly bears petting kittens, which I don't know actually happens. I know gorillas have a penchant for finger loving kittens but bears might just eviscerate the little furballs.
Just watch the show and wait for the occasional surfacing of the Ron Swanson giggle. It is completely heart melting. It's brief and effervescent and to hear it is to be gifted with a second childhood. Witness the delight of Ron Swanson when he encounters his noblest pursuit, bacon. Watching the way Offerman plays Swanson in any scene with bacon wrapped anything is to watch a grown man transmogrify into a gigantic bacon Garfield.
Trust me it's not as gruesome as it sounds, it's actually quite whimsical and endearing. What I'm saying is Ron Swanson comes from the long line of impossibly tough dudes who is actually like a man mom, and it's charming.
Swanson?s moustache is not only fixing all the world's problems in a large, sweeping sense, it's also tackling them directly and one on one. Offerman recently had his sexual velcro shaved off and perfectly recreated back into its original form so it could be sold to charity. The money went to Because Of Ezra, a pediatric cancer charity. Do you seen what this means? Offerman and Ron Swanson, who Offerman is a holy vessel for, have given the world their only begotten moustache.
I don't care that Swanson/Offerman are so filled to the brim with virile manotaur blood that they can regenerate their fallen appendage almost instantly. Like werewolves sticking their dicks into bear traps for kicks, because you know, where?s the harm? It'll come right back right? Wrong. Each moustache is like a pubic bonsai plant growing on your face.
When you cut it down it doesn't really come back, another moustache takes its place. This means that Swanson/Offerman sacrificed their moustache for the world. It paid the ultimate price for us like Robocop or anyone who dates a Kardashian. They embrace complete destruction so that we may live, or at least be entertained by their annihilation.
But the Swanson moustache dying for us and being preserved on a mold of Offerman?s face like some sexy, new jack Shroud Of Turin shouldn?t come as any real surprise. Because it's obvious to anyone who's been checking the score that Ron Swanson and the holy vessel Nick Offerman are a moustache messiah and they're not shy about it.
Check Nick Offerman?s Wikipedia page, he is credited as ?Actor, Writer, Carpenter.? ?Carpenter folks, they're spelling it out for you in the rafters. And who else was famously a carpenter or at the very least the son of one? Yep, Mel Gibson?s favorite Jewish person, Jesus. You may note that Offerman not only shares this talent with the King Of Kings but with his TV alter ego as well.
Offerman?s woodworking skills are such a potent and defining attribute for the actor that the writers of Parks And Recreations have seen it fit to give Ron Swanson the same predilections. And just like our carpenter buddy who started a bit of a stir with the Roman Empire back in the day, so is Ron Swanson, wizard of wood, getting the petticoats of the pedagogues who runs things now all in a ruffle.
Swanson and the big sex boomerang on his face are standing up to these gender role oligarchs who say that a large, hairy dude who thinks that fish meat is practically a vegetable has to be joke and only a joke. A mere example of what not to be. I once famously wrote this about the superiority of moustaches over all other facial hair:
?A moustache is recognizing the animal and beast within, appreciating and accepting it. But not giving in to it completely. Not losing the softer and more beautiful elements that also make up a man. A moustache achieves the symmetry and careful dichotomy needed to fully represent the integrated but not wholly estranged modern sexual man.?
I now know that Ron Swanson is that philosophy incarnate. He is the word made flesh, the apotheosis of Moustaches everywhere. Swanson achieves that rare dance between razor sharp lampoon and earnest homage that leaves the powers that be baffled and rightfully frightened. What they are witnessing is indeed horrifying, to them and their skewed view of what it means to be a man, what they are seeing is the first example of unabashed manliness that can coexist in perfect harmony with feminism in the modern pop culture world.
Here is a man?s man who has lost none of his moustache-imbued magic and who has no problem with viewing women as his equals. And he achieves this not by making any concessions, or compromise of who he is. He does this simply by being true to his own code, by listening to his moustache when it tells him he has nothing to fear from women. He has nothing to fear from anyone. (Except Tammy 2, he has a lot to fear from her.)
And that is why Swanson is the way of the future for us all, men and women. He treats everyone he encounters the same, regardless of sex, in that he ignores you. He does not want to interact with you in any way shape or form. He?d rather be left alone to hunt, eat various meats, or secretly record more smooth saxophone recordings as Duke Silver. What started out as a gifted actor, the holy vessel Nick Offerman, creating an iconoclast, breakout TV character has evolved into something even more complex and mysterious.
Likewise this goes beyond the GIFS and the MEMES. There are T-shirts that simply have Ron Swanson?s hair and moustache on them and nothing more. Because nothing more needs to be put there. It is said that 40 % of children born in third world countries do not recognize their own father?s face but virtually every child there knows the visage of ?Swanson when they're lucky enough to gaze upon it. Ron Swanson is a rugged individualist and his moustache is a beacon of personal virtue and the strength of volition over conformity.
He shows us that all of our perceived differences, be they gender, race, country, economic situation, etc, ?they're all pointless. we're all the same, in that we're all less than Ron Swanson. And despite our handicap Ron Swanson still cares enough about us to give us his sage like teachings. We are all Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson has a plan for each and every one of us. Amen.
Erica says
*Applause*
Tony McMillen says
Thank you Erica.
Silver says
Oh my Gosh this is hilarious ! Ron Swanson for president!
DANAITOMG says
well done i applaud you sir
Tony McMillen says
Thank you both.