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4 october 2000

hey, let's look our best on a lark

I saw parts of a really stupid television show last night. It was a pageant. . .of dudes. Entitled The Sexiest Bachelor in America, well, let's just say that some things look a lot better in theory.

Now, for those of you who have been living underground this year, this show was actually supposed to be a follow-up to Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, only with a woman millionaire doing the choosing. However, the Rick / Darva debacle eliminated any hope for another pageant of greedy desperation, but Fox still wanted to broadcast something with the same spirit. So, they decked out the same stage (which I'm sure is still crawling with creepy karma from the last hoedown), gathered a bunch of young hunks in Vegas, and paraded them for an audience of drooling socialites.

The premise was exactly the same as most woman-as-object pageants. There was no talent competition, though, which I found disappointing. Come on. . .let's see the frat boys throw down some crappy dramatic readings and twirl batons. I wanna see some full-on schmuck action. Otherwise, however, the guys were subjected to dress-up segments, poise, answering important questions with meaningless answers, and the swimsuit competition. Ah, the swimsuit competition.

Now I know why the Mr. America pageant never caught on.

I think we've all seen women's beachwear contests. The rule of thumb has always been, "less is more." Boobs are taped, glue is affixed to buttocks to create weatherproof seal and highlight curvage, and practical high heels complete the ensemble. We're off to the beach, girls! No swimming for me, thanks. I'll just stand here in my pumps and wait for the tide to come in.

Swimsuit-pageanted boys, however, aren't held to quite the same high standards. Ten fabulous semifinalist hunks, and I thought I was going to see some beach-blanket booty, all tight and worthy of eyebrow wigglage. How wrong I was. Except for Mr. New Jersey (who began the whole night in CAPRI PANTS --- hey, go back to your Old Navy commercial, Poindexter!) all of these dudes paraded the stage in big, baggy surfer shorts. Several wore rafting sandals, which drew just way too much attention to their big, hairy feet.

The question segments were also a hoot, especially the big "final question". Now, whereas legitimate chick pageants ask hard questions ("What is your position on world hunger?" "What's the most important issue facing women today?") and getting answers straight out of a Sally Struthers infomercial; the guys had to ask a question. Namely, each of them had to ask Caroline Rea (the hostess) to marry him. An interesting twist, no doubt, but I have to admit that I was doing some pretty heavy-duty channel surfing at this point. What a boring show.

I felt like such a sell-out, such a traitor. Not for watching the thing, but for not watching it closely. For not properly objectifying and trivializing these men who freely paraded in front of America like prime cuts of meat. I was cheering this show on, hoping that this could catch on with people as much as women's pageants. I had visions of fathers dragging their sons to Junior Mister pageants every weekend and making them dance around like pint-sized cowboys for the judges. I envisioned these crazy fantasies of teenage boys skipping the regular lunch line for light salads and diet sodas, asking the coach if they looked fat in this.

I began to imagine a society in which at least half of what these guys had at stake could be made or broken by the way they looked. Where they could have the world at their disposal because of what they've accomplished, and yet they could be considered by some a tragic character because of their weight, or their face, or their thighs. "He's so successful! He has his own business! Look how he's made his way in the world! But isn't it a shame about those extra twenty pounds? Oh, and he's so. . .hippy. Poor guy."

Something tells me it's not going to happen that way.