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Vanity Fair: Not In Favor Of Naked Men
New York, 1:20 AM
Mon Dec 21
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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Vanity Fair: Not In Favor Of Naked Men |
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03/02/09
03/02/09
Before you posted, there were 300+ comments about challenging notions of conventional beauty. There were a bunch of people wondering why it's "okay" to see nude females but not nude males in pop culture. There were a bunch of people deconstructing the idea that male bodies were somehow "gross." Western society and culture has largely been shaped by the desires of heterosexual men. The reason we think the female form is so sexually attractive is because we're socialized to believe that female nudity = sexy. If we can challenge that, think about that, wonder about that, or deconstruct that - even if it's just for a few minutes on the Internets - we've accomplished something.
It's just not constructive to snark on someone's body, and it doesn't further the discourse. You don't have to find them attractive, but there's no reason to say that they're "gross."
03/02/09
How fucking rude of you.
If you're not attracted to them, you're not attracted to them and that is perfectly fine.
It is not perfectly fine to say that they are "gross" or "enough to make women swear off sex forever". Keep that nasty shit to yourself, please.
Also, thank you, tscheese, for being nicer than I was :(
03/02/09
03/03/09
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03/02/09
No, no they are not.
03/02/09
Women are not inherently more beautiful than men and these men are perfectly fine to look at. They are pretty.
We need more body diversity in lots of things, so can't we have "beefcake" (which is such a gross concept. Salty meat and sweet desserts? YUCK) and these dudes? We can have women of different sizes and shapes, too, right? EVERYBODY WINSSS
03/02/09
Vanity Fair is run by upper class nimrods and these dudes just don't make sense to them is what I think the real problem is. Which is why it took them until April 2009 to realize that Paul Rudd,Jason Segel and Seth Rogen are power players in H'wood. I could have told you this in 2005.
03/02/09
As for this spread... If you crop Jason and Jonah out of it, and take of Seth Rogen's bodysuit, I can get on board with it.
03/02/09
I also think men assume that regardless of gender or sexual orientation, everyone thinks women are sexier.
03/02/09
P.s. I don't think women are sexier. No offense ladies, but my ladyboners are reserved for men exclusively.
03/02/09
Though Lord knows that a)the Ford/ScarJo cover desperately needed a takedown and b)the world needs much, much more male nudity. Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Ewan McGregor, Harvey Keitel, I'll take any and all of them. The point isn't to have every naked dude confirm to my personal standard of hotness. The point is to have as many options out there to look at as possible.
03/02/09
03/02/09
Its not like they've got George Clooney up there.
03/02/09
Holy shit, they look like real people!
03/02/09
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03/02/09
More seriously, will they talk about how hot Paul Rudd is? To the point that it will be the focus of his part of the article? Again I doubt it.
03/02/09
03/02/09
oh, wait a minute. there are no women who are on the same par in the entertainment world as these guys who are the same physical size as them. funny big girls need not apply to hollywood, save for the very, very few exceptions, but even most of those ladies won't ever be carrying a film.
furthermore, if it's supposed to spoof the cover..as much as i love paul rudd, shouldn't it be a hot lesbian in a suit?
03/02/09
03/02/09
But still. I remain cranky.
03/02/09
i mean, c'mon vanity fair guys, if you're gonna go there, then go there.
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03/02/09
I want Paul Rudd whispering in my ear.
03/02/09
1) The underlying joke is that a fat naked body (or body-suited body) is funny. Because it's fat! and
2) The other underlying joke is that a man leaning into a man's neck is funny. Because it's gay!
A truer parody would have, I don't know, Vera Wang leaning into Rogen. Or some woman who designs for men (does she? I don't know. I am fashion-dumb!). But then we'd still be stuck with the fat-naked-bodies-are-funny problem, and the fact that they even failed on that level, because they failed, as Dodai points out, to commit.
Argh.
03/02/09
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03/02/09
But a lot of what they do together pivots, in fact, on how funny it is that men who are good friends sometimes get a little, you know, GAY. (Witness the James Franco/Seth Rogen bit during the Oscars). And it makes me cranky.
03/02/09
I mean, women do the same ridiculous things. But if you said women were getting gay with each other then there would be this whole THE IDEA THAT GIRLS WHEN THEY'RE ALONE MAKE OUT WITH EACH OTHER IS MALE FANTASY SOCIETAL CONSTRUCT AND IT'S JUST NOT TRUE GAN;GASD;HALH;AOWSHTA;OSHUIGHDTHKTSHJ!
Whereas I'm more inclined to think that ALL comedians are funny because when they're doing intimate little sketches, they're getting STUPID. And I think the best evidence of this is Segel's and Rogan's and Franco's best work to date: Freaks and Geeks. There are a ton of scene that are hilarious -- I mean, pee your pants funny -- that involve one guy/one guy, one girl/one girl, and/or one girl/one guy. It's all proximity, timing, and nerdiness. And it's pure gold.