The Hunky He-Men of the Great Recession
Attention, men: "The twink thing seems over," declares GQ editor Jim Nelson in a New York Times article this weekend. That's right, it's time to ditch that slender, waif-like frame and pick up some biceps at the muscle store.
It seems like every year we read the same goddamn article in the Times about how muscles and "classic" manliness are back in style. But Times writer Guy Trebay really, really thinks the emaciated androgyne thing is out in men's fashion. (Don't tell Ryan McGinley.) Like everything, this is because of the recession. Before the recession "consumers were content to indulge designer subversion of age and gender expectations." But now that everyone is scared they just want daddy. Or Jon Hamm.
So here's a list to take to your plastic surgeon and trainer to make sure your body and image is in line with the post-recession "real man" aesthetic, according to the Times article:
IN
- John Hamm
- Josh Brolin
- Strong bodies capable of physical labor
- Stubble
- "a 34-year-old man who has washboard abs and who fathered Halle Berry's kid."
- Guys who "look like throwbacks to the days of [fashion photographer] Herb Ritts"
- Suits
- Jobs
OUT
- Cole Mohr, "a model with jug ears and the body of a teenager"
- "that scrawny rocker dude with a chicken chest"
- Waifs
- Twinks
- "the jailbait type"
- Skateboards
- T-shirts
- Unemployment
Cool. But Guy Trebay was also the Times writer who declared the beer gut to be last year's hipster must-have accessory. So, men should be either really in shape, or really out of shape? It's so confusing being a man. Someone needs to just give us one set of impossible-to-reach body expectations and be done with it.