This past week, People magazine announced its annual “Sexiest Man Alive,” a tradition that it has been maintaining since 1985. This year’s man is John Krasinski, a pick that has been stirring up some internet controversy (TLDR: Timothée Chalamet is so hot, why did we pick this guy?). Though this must have undoubtedly been a devastating response if you found yourself to be John Krasinski — who, one Tartan editor notes, is actually pretty sexy — the announcement did spur some conversation within the Tartan’s editorial board. What does “Sexiest Man Alive” mean anyway and how do they choose a man for this elusive title, we wondered.
As we perused the “Sexiest Man” archives — wondering how one man could be the sexiest man alive if the man who won the year before is still alive — we noted a few interesting patterns. Out of 39 men to ever win, only five of them were people of color, with four of those five winning within the last eight years. In the 31 years before that, Richard Gere, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and George Clooney all won two times each (although one of Richard Gere’s wins was for “Sexiest Couple Alive” because Cindy Crawford was literally too jaw-droppingly, eye-poppingly awooga to not mention).
None of us were particularly surprised by these findings. People magazine is not known for being a particularly progressive media outlet — it propagates likely harmful gossip about celebrities and their bodies. Former People Editor-In-Chief Dan Wakeford explained to CNN that “Sexiest Man Alive” is about more than just looks, though, saying that the People team takes into consideration a man’s social influence, career success, moral character — and of course his shoulder-to- waist ratio. Jokes aside, People claims they direct a year-long rigorous review process that involves collecting data from their readership, conducting interviews with friends and family, and “focus groups.” Their intent, they claim, is to promote men who do good things with their lives and also make women everywhere go, “yum, yum, yum.”
A question, of course, is whether or not it is possible to accurately represent the feelings of a wide variety of people living in America using this “Sexiest Man” metric. There are so many different kinds of people who find men attractive — which sect of them is being represented by this award?
But the most important question, some editors believe, is how this award fits into a world where our understanding of gender and sexuality is so different than it was in 1985. One editor reflects: if this were “Sexiest Woman Alive,” there would certainly be critics claiming that the competition and objectification of women in this manner is wildly inappropriate, not to mention the beauty standards it sets for other women. If we are to take feminism at its word, are we not responsible for treating men exactly as we women and non-binary people (the editor in question being a woman) want to be treated? Should we not tell men that they are all beautiful regardless of how much protein they eat every day, the color of their skin, or their ability to star in several blockbuster movies in 1994?
And yet, there is something wonderful about the “female gaze” or the reclaiming of agency by non-men when they hold men to specific standards of beauty. When the aforementioned editor posed the question, “Shouldn’t we be objectifying men less these days?” another editor responded, “We should be objectifying men MORE.” Obviously, though we should all strive for a world free of gender-based objectification, there are worse things than having a little bit of front- page eye candy for the male- attracted folks of the world. Moreover, encouraging men to embrace their slutty side would be productive for gender expression as a whole. It is the opinion of the editorial board that buttoning one less button on that shirt wouldn’t hurt anyone. And if People sticks to its word and nominates men who treat people kindly and do good in the world, then we can get behind their contribution to the social definition of what it means to be a man.
With our most sincere condolences and congratulations to John Krasinski and our tears shed for the men we wish had won but didn’t (Pedro Pascal and Dev Patel), The Tartan encourages men and women and everyone everywhere to be the sexiest version of themselves alive and to embrace their own definition of what that is, not People’s or any other magazine’s.
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