How New York Governor Andrew Cuomo became the pin-up boy of COVID-19
His swaggering Italian-American machismo and gruff Queens demeanour was once out of fashion, but as New York’s lockdown continues, Governor Cuomo’s stocks are soaring, writes Miranda Devine.
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When the going gets tough, it turns out women want the patriarchy after all.
In the middle of New York’s devastating pandemic crisis, the famously macho governor Andrew Cuomo has become the new pin-up boy of quarantined females.
He has won plaudits from anxious New Yorkers across the board as a decisive leader telling the unvarnished truth in televised near-daily press briefings, peppered with death tolls and grim charts.
But his presence on TV has been a reassuring consolation for lonely women quarantined on their couches, for whom the “Luv Guv” may be the only male they encounter all day.
Denise Albert, a 45-year-old Manhattan divorcee told the New York Post last week she finds Cuomo irresistible.
“For me, it was when I heard him say, ‘My mother is light and joy’. What also got me was his speaking about family dynamics — disagreeing with his brother about where his mom should be … It’s relatable, vulnerable, inspirational. There’s nothing hotter than vulnerability in a man.”
In the age of the virus, Cuomo has become a surprise sex symbol, so much so that social media went wild last week with soon debunked rumours that two bumps under his slightly tight white polo shirt were nipple rings.
“Of course not, sorry, internet,” his spokesman said.
Before the pandemic, Cuomo, the ex-husband of JFK’s niece Kerry Kennedy, was regarded as a testosterone dinosaur.
His swaggering Italian-American machismo and gruff Queens demeanour was out of fashion in a Democratic party dominated by identity politics, in which straight white males had become public enemy number one.
But imminent peril has a way of reawakening primal imperatives and highlighting the attractions of uncompromising masculine strength and derring do.
So much for soy boys.
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It’s natural for a freedom lover’s hackles to rise when you hear Health Minister Brad Hazzard rail against “sneaky little holidays”, and the Queensland police commissioner decrying “blatantly going for a drive”.
The coronavirus lockdown is an authoritarian picnic, as sunbathers are busted for reading alone in a park, the innocent act of buying a kebab while out for a run places you on the wrong side of the police, and dobbers flood hotlines to inform on neighbours.
But, occasional oversteps aside, Australia has done an impressive job of “flattening the curve” of new infections, although every death is one too many.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed new modelling yesterday which showed that the daily growth rate of cases has fallen faster than expected. That is a tribute to all Australians.
We must not become complacent over Easter but self discipline in the short term should allow a slow reopening of the economy, though life will not be normal for some time.