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"FacebookPinterestIzrael, Jimi_credit Charlotte Mann.jpg\n\nThis month, a book about why Denzel Washington ruined men's lives comes out ($22.95, St. Martin's Press). It's called \"The Denzel Principle; Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men.\" We have three simple questions for the author, Jimi Izrael.\n\nGQ: What's the Denzel principle? And what's so bad about it?\n\nJimi Izrael: Well, it's about the ladies always wanting you to be someone you aren't, you know? Sometimes, it seems as if they want you to be Soupy Sales or Nipsey Russell\u2014admittedly, those times are few and far between, because they know no one dare aim that high, right? So, most times they want you to be someone else, someone they imagine to be swaa-VAY and debonair. That person is rarely a handsome intellectual, but most often a leading-man type of actor. I don't know who white guys get measured against. I think white women want their men to be more like David Sedaris. The sistas? Well, they think Denzel Washington is the man every OTHER man should be. And it sucks. Because, well. There's only one Denzel Washington for a reason. The world can probably only handle one paradigmatic black man at a time. Denzel inherited Nipsey's mantle, I think, and we are all the worse for it..\n\nFacebookPinterestDenzel Principal.jpg\n\n GQ: That's funny, because I think I was a little too much like David Sedaris for some of my ex-girlfriends. \n\nJ.I: I could see that.\n\nGQ: But what do you think Denzel, specifically, represents to black women?\n\nJI: I think some black women\u2014and others, including, maybe, your wife\u2014look at Denzel as the perfect specimen of a man. He seems to be a man for all seasons, the life of every party. The dutiful man of lore, if that makes any sense. Prince Charming. Denzel Washington chooses such iconic roles\u2014he never branches out and plays a douchebag of any flavor. When the only portrait the public sees of you is perfection, people begin to believe your onscreen persona is who you are in real life, as with George Clooney or Carrot Top.\n\nGQ: I'd say that white culture is too fractured for there to be one guy white women want us all to be. Are you monolithic-izing black culture by suggesting all black women have the same fantasy?\n\nJI: I'm not suggesting that all black women have \"The Dizzle\"\u2014looking for a Denzel archetype. I make that clear in the book. But I do think when popular culture anoints just paradigmatic Negro male, many black women want a facsimile of their own. They want the black guy who everyone likes, not the one you might have to get to know and figure out. This makes it hard for many Ordinary Moe black men because the paradigm doesn't allow for nuance: Denzel is the standard and anyone with a personality too far outside the mean is dangerous or subversive and therefore, defective.\n\nI think everyone is generally scared of black men, for some reason or another. But everyone likes Denzel: we feel like we know him. We trust him to be our everything. Making one guy the It Guy makes black men easier to screen: if you are not Denzel or trying to be more like him, not only don't you rate, but there may be some cause for alarm. Simple.\n\nSo Black women don't have any fantasy that the culture at large doesn't have: Mainstream America's got the Dizzle worse than anyone. Everyone wants a great black guy who is all things to everyone, A Safe Choice\u2014sound familiar? Sure, we got Obama, but he's fallen victim to the Dizzle\u2014he's flailing under the weight of everyone's lofty expectations. And if Barack Obama can't be Denzel Washington, then the rest of us don't stand a chance."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/denzel-washington-ruined-everything-for-all-of-us>