Aman’sa man for a’ that... but masculinity is changing

Rachel Mccormack’s new documentary The Ideal Scotsman is fascinating TV, writes Laura Waddell

It makes me laugh in recognition when The Ideal Scotsman opens with presenter Rachel Mccormack saying: ‘Scottish men. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re everywhere,” as she gestures to a panoramic view of Stirling, with customarily deadpan humour.

Because I know what she means, even before she adds: “For all the changes we’ve made in the last few decades, I still think Scottish culture is still hugely dominated by men. But I also think we don’t really discuss what it’s like to be a man in Scotland today. What I want to know is how Scottish men see themselves.” In the new BBC Scotland documentary, Mccormack gets to grips with modern masculinity by talking to football fans, ballet dancers, historians, doctors, baristas, tour guides, ex-miners, fishmongers and more. She identifies archetypes rooted in Scottish history passed down as social models, from the drunken street philosopher, captured in the string-vested Rab C Nesbett, to the stoic working man returning at the end of each long day keeping his feelings close to his chest. Even the kilted dreamboat of shortbread tins persists in Outlander. “Braveheart has got a lot to answer for,” puffs Maccormack, running across a field wielding a sword and painted in woad.

James Robertson traces Scottish archetypes in books, from the characters of Robert Burns to Irvine Welsh, and how (with a few exceptions) the “great Scottish novel” through centuries has often been written by and about men. “The tradition is quite male,” he adds, including critics. Indeed, research by Christina Neuwirth at the University of Stirling’s ROAR project revealed that in 2017’s mainstream Scottish literary coverage, “65 per cent of authors reviewed were men, and 35 per cent were women” and “86 per cent of reviews were written by men, and 14 per cent by women”. These figures are in keeping with literary reviews elsewhere. But does it do anyone any good to reflect Scotland and the thoughts of its people so narrowly? Meanwhile, the idea of “Scottishness” has in latter decades struggled to shake off the allpervasive hard man trope like those in the No Mean City mould – hard, aggressive, and cynical. You can see this in WH Smith’s “Scottish Books” section in Glasgow Airport, a sad display of tired gangland pulp.

One of the most illuminating guests is Govan-born actor Iain Robertson, who says the problem with the Scottish canon is that it’s riddled with “hard men”, and that while his role as a young man in celebrated film Small Faces was about love, family and betrayal, many viewers only take away the machismo of Sixties Glasgow. He’s critical of continually celebrating characters who use machismo and violence to get what they want. “I don’t buy into this idea the poor hard-done-by Scottish workingclass man has a monopoly on pain and hardship, gie’s peace,” says Robertson. “Show it for what it is, show the repercussions of it, what the families of these people endure.”

It strikes a chord. As a publisher and contributing editor to Scottish literary magazine Gutter, I see many submissions which consider misogyny, hard drinking and aggression as fresh and edgy for their shock factor, despite it being done for decades, and pushing the stories of working-class women and the inner lives of men who don’t conform further to the margins.

Bottling up feelings is damaging