Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2003)
HUMOR ....................▼.................... Aesthetic Engineering G ay men frequently complain that we’re not portrayed accurately in the media: The boys on Queer as Folk get laid too much, the hoys on Will & Grace don’t get laid enough, Sponge Bob SquarePants refuses to come out, blah blah blah. But finally there’s a TV show that reflects the true essence of gay life— a groundbreaking series that probes all the nuances of sexual ori entation. I’m talking, of course, about Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The new series on Bravo strives to “make over the world, one straight man at a time,” an impulse that runs deep in my psyche but that troubles me nonetheless. You see, on the one hand, I’m definitely a proponent of the Legally Bloruie philosophy of improving the world through beauty. Nothing makes me cry quicker than Oprah’s makeover episodes— you know, the ones where some mousy matron is given a chic Marshall Fields outfit and a stylish ’do she’ll never be able to redo when she gets home. The moment when she cries to Oprah, “I’ve never felt beautiful before” makes me melt like wax (bikini wax, that is). It’s better than thera py and definitely preferable to those annoying segments where Dr. Phil tells people to con front themselves. Confront yourself, Phil, I want to see the chick with the dark rex its get decent highlights. I can’t help it. I was bom with the makeover gene. To this day I still don’t under stand why Dorothy would give up a pair of ruby slippers and a hair extension just to go back to Kansas. I was the little boy who tried to con vince his mother to wear velvet hot pants like Shirley Partridge. And I was the teen-ager who, for his 16th birthday, asked to get his colors done. (I’m a Winter, by the way.) Gay men and makeovers THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARC b y M a r c A cito Yet, strangely enough, like many self-appoint ed arbiters of style, I’ve been known to espouse a personal kx>k bordering on the extraterrestrial. Lcxik at Joan Rivers, if you dare. The woman’s eyes are on the sides of her head, like a mackerel. And the quintet from Queer Eye dresses like the touring company of Rent. Just go to the show’s Web site and you’ll see Carson, the “fashion savant," wearing a blazer 1 could swear was made out of my Aunt Gloria s sofa set. R egardless, those of us who pore over Genre, Vogue and our own pores get a bum rap. You can idle away as many hours as you want cultivating a beautiful garden, and you’ll get compliments galore. But spend the same amount of time cultivating a beautiful txxly and everyone calls you shallow and narcissistic. (O f course, they also call you for dates.) Critics of beauty fail to understand that admiring a gorgeous person is one of life’s great pleasures. I, for one, regularly endure The Other H alf just so I can fantasize about subletting space in Mario Lopez’s dimples. But the idea of re-creating straight guys in our own image also concerns me. While gays have been telling the world what is beautiful since the Greeks, it’s only recently that straight guys have listened. More and more you’re see ing heterosexuals who are so exfoliated they shine like precious stones and who spend enough on hair pnxlucts to pay off the national debt. Madison Avenue calls them Metrosexuals. By increasing the number of fashionistas in the world, the standards for male stylish ness will become even more exact- ing, not to mention exhausting. As it is, with all the plucking, shaving, dying, gelling, bleaching, moisturizing and exfoliating, personal griximing is a part-time job. The morticians on Six Feet Under prepare a body quicker. All this Aesthetic Engineering makes me wonder whether I’m a pawn in Abercrombie & Fitch’s nefarious plot for world domination. If so, maybe it’s time I put my energy toward something nobler, like joining those hair dressers bringing beauty relief to Afghanistan. With this thought in mind, I went to lunch with a do-gtxxling friend of mine, a spiritually evolved man who values gixxl works over gixxl lcxiks. “Nelson,” 1 said to him, “you obviously don’t care how you ltxik. What’s your secret !" He regarded me in that glassy-eyed way that New Age people do and replied, "Marco, you need to kxik beyond the surface and concentrate on the things that tmly matter." 1 gazed into his soulful eyes— so full of experience and wis dom— and one thought sprang into my mind as the thing that tmly mattered most. “Nel son," I said, my voice trembling at the notion, "have you ever thought about waxing your eye brows V' What can I say? Deep down I’m very superfi cial. And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc. JH M a r c A c it o ’ s own eccentric sense of style can he seen at www.marcacito.com. A string of hits, a cast of two. one Forever Plaid meets I Do, I Do! tickets with 503-620-5262 www.broadwayrose.com D eb F ennell A uoitorium ♦ 9000 SW D urham R d «T igard Retail Nursery - Landscape Services o ) uk # 6774 i Gardening Workshops: Sunday Gardening Workshops August 3, I pm - “Gardens a Go-Go: Creating Dynamism in the Garden with Art” Join Nancy Goldman, Vice President, Hardy Plant Society of Oref?m August 10, 1pm - “ Hellstrips: Hot, Dry, and Difficult to Water?” . A Gravel Gardening Primer for the Home Gardener Join Maurice Ham, Co-owner of Joy Creek Nursery For Information Call: 503 / 543'7474 Open daily 9am«5pm 20300 NE Watson Rd Scappoose, OR 97056 N atio n al C a ta lo g u e S ales ~ w w w .jo y creek .co m V
