Number 12 looks just like a big fattie
March 3rd, 2008 | by Paul |OK, so it’ll be a tight squeeze trying to justify putting this entry on a blog about consumerism.
As tight a squeeze as Richard Long into a futuristic jumpsuit! BURN!
Oh, wait. You guys have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.
A local Chicago station - one of the few I can pick up on my rabbit-ears antennae - shows old “Twilight Zone” reruns. I was watching one about a futuristic world (”Let’s call it the year 2000,” Serling says) where people change their dowdy old bodies for fresh, new, hot-hot-hot ones. I found out while looking it up for this blog entry that the episode was called “Number 12 looks just like you.”
Of course, there’s a twist and a weird ending, typical “Twilight Zone” stuff. But what really got my attention was the 1964 ideal of male beauty, actor Richard Long.
Here he is in a screen capture from YouTube:
Look at that tummy. Look at those sloping shoulders. That would not fly today in the world of rock-hard man-abs and David Beckham messing things up for us tubby schlubbies out there. (See my video entry below for some true gastrointestinal expansion. Damn you, Combos and beer!)
Now, I’m not calling Richard Long (or myself) fat. I’m just saying that when Richard Long sits around the house, he probably has about 10 to 15 more pounds of body fat than some current male sex symbols.
For comparison, take a gander at the People Sexiest Man Alive 2007 “Guess the Chest” contest. Zac Efron is a freak who should be killed (not just because of the massive scabies blister on society that is “High School Musical.”) Efron looks like a giraffe’s neck.
The National Eating Disorders Association reports that 10 percent of the eating disorder cases reported to mental health professionals come from males. Here’s a page full of research regarding gender and eating disorders.
A lot of time, gender issues exhibit tribal responses, I’ve found. It’s hard for a male to express displeasure with men’s role in society without it being unfavorably compared to how bad women had it for so long. And it’s hard for women to express her displeasure without someone giving her a label she doesn’t want.
But when one out of every 10 people with an eating disorder is a male, I think this issue deserves more serious coverage, more in-depth coverage and a more peering look at how our culture treats our boys.
Oh, and Zac Efron? Eat a goddamn sandwich.