Where Have You Gone, Duke?

Australian Brendan O'Neill claims in 'Aussie Blokes Make Much Better American Symbols':

[...]Never mind the trade deficit, or even Barack Obama's "moral deficit"; Hollywood is suffering from a macho deficit, and it's having to turn to what many still perceive as a land of beer-swilling, sheep-shearing men in denim to find its cowboys and cads.

When Hollywood first flirted with all things Aussie in the 1980s, it was a bit of a po-mo joke. "Look at Crocodile Dundee with his big shiny knife and taste for lager, how quaint!" laughed cinema audiences. It's no joke today. At a time when American stars have been feminised, preened and plucked, it's Australia that is providing the muscle for the grittier acting jobs.

In recent years, the impressively brooding Ledger had joined Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Eric Bana as a real bloke who could play gruff cowboys, lascivious bastards or any other role that required the leading man to have hair on his chest.[...]

It seems even women from Australia are better than American men at playing American heroes.[...]

OTOH, our men are in the military or working in productive jobs. And our President doesn't mine and dine on earwax for YouTube videos!

Would you like boogers with that? Super-sized?

(H.T. Wicked Thoughts.)