Site Presented By
Friday, Jul 10, 2009
Metrosexuals, move over. The small towns of America are churning out macho, high-maintenance pretty men who love women and Budweiser -- and have perfectly waxed privates.
Jun 30, 2005 | "I love to dance. I love my body, and I love to take my clothes off." -- Brian, 28, of VH1's "Strip Search" explaining his life's passions
This guy's a freak, right? Wrong. Let's call him a smoothie, the modern version of a pretty boy, a waxed-chested breed that's far more prevalent and far more high-maintenance than those dabbling urban metrosexuals. The smoothie transcends the scope of "Queer Eye" and is centered not in the big cities, but in the small towns where decades of boy bands and hair products and Chess King fashions have filtered into the cultural groundwater, until most young men have a grasp of personal hygiene, style and flamboyant behavior that the older, crustier and less hygienic among us can hardly fathom.
If the heavily primped contestants of VH1's "Strip Search" seem to constitute a particularly skewed sample, take a gander at MTV or the WB or other young channels, where the men not only look uniformly cleaner than they have since the '50s, but their bodies are totally hairless, their hair boasts triple-processed highlights, and their behavior wavers between prancing, posturing, exhibitionism and Madonna-style outbursts. Next, check out VH1's "Kept," where a gaggle of smoothies competes very sincerely and fiercely for the chance to become Jerry Hall's arm candy, enjoying her wealthy and fabulous lifestyle while presumably accompanying her to events, following her orders, and servicing her engine in exchange.
If that doesn't convince you, flip over to "Blow Out," where each week we witness a stiffly gelled yet demonstrably straight hairstylist don the James Dean white-T-and-jeans look that was once a gay club boy staple, start catfights with business partners and stylists in his salons, then retreat to therapy to cry his eyes out while the cameras roll. Or, check out Wes of "The Real World: Austin," whose audition tape included footage of him dancing in a G-string, and a confession that he's always had a secret dream of becoming a male stripper. And if these examples don't convince you that a sea change in the definition of masculinity is reaching the masses and not just the cloistered urban elites, look around your average college campus. These kids keep themselves so trimmed and ironed and clean and buff, even sprawling state campuses have the preening, swaggery feel of a huge outdoor gay nightclub.
This vast movement of shiny, swashbuckling heterosexuality engulfs the "metrosexual" tag like the whale swallowing Jonah. While the metrosexual spends a lot at Barney's, shops for heirloom tomatoes at Dean & Deluca, keeps his CD collection carefully alphabetized, and nurtures a wide range of house plants without help from his gay friends, the smoothie is a horse of a different color. He isn't necessarily an effete city dweller; more often than not he lives in Iowa or Florida or Oregon or California. His interest in fashion isn't about keeping up appearances -- he's not some slick lawyer with a penchant for Armani or some young actor trying to look appropriately hip. The smoothie's interest in his "look" is more deeply felt and sincere than that, not to mention slightly misguided and disturbingly meticulous: Baseball caps are molded, painstakingly, into the perfect C-shape; stubble is trimmed into the perfect Don Johnson-style 5 o'clock shadow; "distressed" jeans, with their calculated faded patches and hemmed rips, are cleaned and pressed and tugged just below the waist; eyebrows are waxed, as is back, chest and (gasp) the family jewels to boot. The smoothie spends a lot not just on clothes and haircuts, but on highlights, spray-tans, manicures and pedicures, bodybuilding formulas, gym memberships, dry cleaning bills, man jewelry and hip-hop classes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the smoothie is like a cross between a frat boy and Britney Spears.
Whether this shiny, pretty new take on masculinity is the product of decades of primped heartthrobs, a redefining of gender roles that's finally come to fruition, or just the result of an endless onslaught of marketing campaigns by the fashion and beauty industries in pursuit of the single male's dollar is anybody's guess. Maybe the definition of masculinity has been so limited for so long that young men have decided to stretch its boundaries in ways that appear daring or even odd to the rest of us. Sure, there have been plenty of boundary-pushing fashion trends for men over the years -- the sequins and tight pants and audaciousness of David Bowie and Mick Jagger in the '70s, earrings and tapered pants and blousy rayon shirts of the '80s -- but they were adopted by urban hipsters or artists or alternative types. The smoothies aren't on the fringe, they're part of mainstream America.
