The Weekly Croissant: "He's a good man, Savannah! A good man!"

by Guest Hoe Nelson Williams

Dear Croissants:

I am currently on maternity leave and will return to you shortly! In the meantime, please enjoy a series of guest authors, I know you will love ‘em!

Nelson Williams is an upright bassist from South Louisiana who lives in New Orleans. Uncommonly referred to as a “bass slut”, Nelson performs with as many acts as he can logistically (or not logistically) say yes to but his main acts are with New Dangerfield, a new Black string band, and Chris Jones and the Night Drivers. Nelson is a retired caffeine dealer (barista) and lover of bikeable cities.

The Inflation of the “Good Boy”

“He’s a good man, Savannah! A good man!” is an iconic line from the film Waiting to Exhale that has made its way all over to TikTok as the anthem of “this guy truly sucks but he’s doing the bare minimum or at least one nice thing that makes it worth keeping him around.” That’s a longish way of describing the ethos of that bit but context is key, right? I truthfully love this sound bit and throw it around in any context in which it can at least tertiary apply because it’s so funny and also hits on a question I ponder constantly, “What the heck is a good man actually!?!?!”

A little book that I find hilarious and insightful on this question is Awards for Good Boys by Shelby Norman. If you are unfamiliar with this wonderful book of illustrations and quips that took over the world and Instagram back in 2019, please do yourself a favor and order a copy for your coffee table. What I love about Shelby’s book is that it’s incredibly tongue-in-cheek but also highlights that even “Good Boys” are rattled with behaviors that might not qualify as particularly “good” depending on your spectrum of morality and cultural/societal expectations. In short, “being a good boy” is incredibly relative.

For example, in Waiting to Exhale Savannah’s mother speaks that iconic line to her while trying to convince her to “stay” with a married doctor who is cheating on his wife with Savannah. Kenneth (the doctor) eludes to someday breaking up with his wife and getting with Savannah but never seems to commit to that plan of action. A major point of tension in the scene is the difference between the standards in which Savannah and her mother have set for themselves when dealing with men and their lives. Savannah’s mother considers Kenneth’s infidelity, indecision and stalling as not malevolent enough for her to label him a “bad” man because he has money and influence and the potential to be a good match for her daughter. While we can now easily condemn Savannah’s mother as a woman trapped in the teachings and thoughts of a furlong era, are we so removed for having the same mindset as her in our current age?

Now I truly wish I could say with my full chest that a cheating man in today’s cultural world would never be considered a “good man or boy” but that would be a lie based on too much discourse I’ve read and seen on the God’s internet. 😵‍💫 “Yeah, he cheated but he’s such a good father. Yeah, he cheated but the other girl is a better match for him anyway. Yeah, he cheated but he buys me everything I want. Yeah, he cheated but my family really likes him.”

I have such disdain and frustration as a man with my fellow men because our bar for “being good” is truly on the ground; better yet it might as well be hell. And when the bar is in Hell, even a devil seems like a fine guy.

But what does this re-justification of terrible men do for the so-called “Good Boys”? Well it raises their stock and value of course! As you can see from my crudely drawn graphs (I am a musician; not a graph maker; leave me alone), when the bar drops, bad boys suddenly become good by proxy. The “dropping of the bar” is artificially done by society sadly accepting lower standards for men, because we cannot justify labeling scores of men bad. So instead we must move the goalpost to keep the status quo and prevent men from full accountability and introspection because obviously we can’t have that, right?

I’ve witnessed men be “nice” on paper but then cost my female friends their money, time, sleep and confidence for being emotionally unavailable, inconsiderate to near sociopathic levels, uncompromising or then suddenly rude. Yet these men can be a good “hang” or work at a non-profit or be charismatic with friends and family enough to slide their way into the “Good Boys” club. Why learn empathy when you can cosplay niceness every now and again?

But this deflation of the bar doesn’t just let “bad” boys into the “good” club but also makes borderline “good” boys more “good” than they ought to be which means these so-called “Good Boys” don’t see any reason why their behaviors should improve at all because they are still at times “better than other good boys”.

But what’s the end result of all of this? In my opinion, stagnation in the growth of men in general, god awful dating pool for anyone who is dating straight male and society having to operate around a section of the population that feels suspect and ok at best. In a real world context, think of the world of men as a whole right now. Incels, Joe Rogans, Andrew Tates run amok everywhere. I guess tariffs are on everything expect for grown ass men with terrible takes buying microphones and spewing the worst opinions the world has to offer. Even if we take them all as an outlier which I sadly don’t think they are anymore, to be only above the moral fiber and emotional intelligence of Joe Rogan isn’t much of nothing and God help us if men only needed to get above that threshold.

I also think of myself in college and my twenties; being far removed from being an incel but nowhere near as emotionally and interpersonally matured as I am now. I was avoidant and uncommunicative at times that wouldn’t be labeled criminal but were far from what I would call kind or good. Was I ever a player or a womanizer? No but have I interacted with women in the guise of kindness or friendship just to be another sly suitor in disguise? Sadly yes. Yet I really felt like I was still a “Good Boy” by some wide margin because I still wasn’t as bad as the other boys/men in my scene who were lying, cheating or committing chargeable offenses to the women in my scene. But is being a “good” guy once again just being on the better side of the comparison of the men around you? I don’t think that’s enough. There must be more intentional deconstruction of one’s actions than just being “better” than the guy next to you.

I always joking say that the solution to all of this for more women to dump their boyfriends and situationships and date each other and equally for more men who can’t treat women well to realize they actually just love men more and also start dating each other then the whole world is just more gay and less sexually frustrated thus things would hypothetically be better . . . but that’s both a long shot and not really a solution but a humorous what if-ism.

A true step in the right direction would be a change in masculine culture, we must start expecting each other to actually develop into empathetic human beings without the assistance of women . . . and also we have to start calling each other out for the bad behaviors.

The patriarchy thrives on men not taking accountability and being introspective. It also lives off “good boys” distancing themselves from “bad boys” but not actually challenging their behavior head on. I say this as I also condemn myself for my moments of not calling shithead dudes “shithead dudes”. Honestly more dudes need to keep a copy of Bell Hook’s The Will to Change on their nightstand and we’d all be better off for it.