Posted on 08/28/2003 11:28:54 AM PDT by presidio9
The English Premier League soccer kicked off its 2003-04 season last week. I've been sneakily staying up late watching live games on pay TV and waiting for the replays on free-to-air. Not for the soccer, mind you. For the hairstyles.
As far as male hair fashions go these games are a veritable goldmine of cutting-edge dos. From neat short back and sides, which are apparently tres chic this year, to bleached tips, mohawks and yes, even, the mullet, English soccer has it all.
Now, even though the high prince of metrosexuals, David Beckham, has departed England for the Spanish club Real Madrid, I can assuage any fears that this phenomenon would peter out by reporting that his countrymen are not letting him down. Yep, it's still a sideline-to-sideline waxed, coiffed primped and preened metrosexual mecca. And I reckon it's great.
If a metrosexual is what The New York Times described as a "straight urban man willing to embrace his feminine side", and this means paying attention to how one presents themselves, then I'm a metrosexual and I'm not afraid to admit it.
We have had a lot of bad press lately, and it's time some of us stood up to be counted.
I like my shirt and tie to match. I keep up with fashion trends and I would like to think I'm quite well groomed. Is there anything wrong with this?
In June, during the long hiatus from the Premier League's global fashion deities, the marketing and advertising conglomerate Euro RSCG sparked a feeding frenzy in magazines and on opinion pages, not to mention weblogs, about metrosexuals.
Countless articles since have discussed grooming products like hair wax, moisturisers, toners, jewellery and even make-up, including nail polish.
On this page Peter FitzSimons demanded of us, "Choose, you bastards! Blancmange or BLOKE?", which one feels probably means he had his head neatly tucked under the bottom of a ruck instead of listening to his arts lecturer at Sydney University during that class on post-modernism.
Otherwise he would welcome diverse images of the Australian man, rather than pigeon-holing us into convenient boxes with labels on them. Fitzy, we metrosexuals are now denizens, so get used to us.
Nonetheless he raised a very salient point. Namely, he bemoaned the "marketing schtick" that is "all pervasive". Let me be so bold as to get in touch with my feminine side here and "bond" with Mr FitzSimons on this point by asking: is this all just a clever con by the marketers and advertisers?
The short answer is - probably. There have always been men who care about their appearance and who were willing to use products to enhance their looks.
Why else would we be subject to those ridiculous ads on hair replacement, or the lopsided, patchily matched toupee that looks like a well-directed sneeze could hilariously but devastatingly dislodge it?
In Elizabethan times aristocratic men wore wigs and make-up along with the women. Were these men Elizabetho-sexuals?
In the 1980s Warwick Capper redefined what it meant for an Aussie bloke to "care about his appearance" with the world's tightest shorts and bleached blond locks. Were the men who copied him Capper-sexuals? I happen to think Bob Carr and Peter Costello are among the better dressed politicians. Does that make me a Bobo-sexual, or worse a Costello-sexual?
It is true - it is "marketing schtick". Why else would they have AFL players in a new ad campaign selling shampoo? But we like it!
What's wrong with putting moisturiser on after a day in the surf, or packing the face cleanser when you 4WD to the top of Mt Stirling on a camping trip to see where they filmed The Man From Snowy River? Does this make me a metrosexual miscreant?
No. It makes me a modern late-20s Aussie male and I've got lots of friends just like me. They're straight, they dress well and they care about their appearance.
Recently I heard how a young urban professional male was shocked because a male colleague had applied face cream and hand moisturiser in the office. It happened in the news bureau of a major national newspaper in Canberra.
I wasn't surprised. I've lived through a Canberra winter. It's brutal on your skin. You'd be silly not to look after it.
None of this is really much of a surprise. It makes sense to me. It's not weird and it's certainly not somehow un-Australian.
Even the PM had a makeover before getting to The Lodge to deal with those eyebrows, which was, like most of this stuff, common sense. Which is an attribute most Aussie men would claim to have in abundance.
You think you had apartment problems? I found this article on Ask the Imam (typos and all)...
LOL!!
My wife works at a TV station, and there's an on-air talent that everyone thought was gay. We later deduced that he wasn't and this whole 'metrosexual' thing finally cleared things up.
An outstanding find, weegee.
Well, I, for one, certainly wouldn't eat the cooked food if his friend and a Hindu gay man were cocking in the kitchen.
Eight years of bad mammaries.
Assalamu Alaikum, dudes! Join the Ask The Imam Xtreme Teen Table forum with Imam Ali "Chip" Salim as he answers questions from everyday Islamic teens. Need the 411 on dating, school, or explosive wiring? Write Ali at:
deathtozionistsonsofmonkeysandpigs@asktheimam.alqaeda.org
Dear Chip:
After the back-to-madrassas Mosque sockhop last weekend, my friend "Hassan" drove me home - at least, he started to, and then he pulled the old 'ran out of gas' trick. Before you know it, he was all "Russian hands and Roman fingers," trying to get me to put on a Semtex belt. "Come on," he said, "all the faithful are doing it! You will too if you really love Allah. "
Well, needless to say I told him in no uncertain terms that I am NOT that kind of boy. I believe that blowing up yourself and a pizza parlor full of kufr is sacred, beautiful thing, and I will save myself until I get a special fatwah from my Imam. The problem is that I really think Hassan is really groovy, and I don't want the other martyrs to think I'm some kind of "nerd." What should I do?
-- Perplexed in Bridgeview, 17
Dear Perplexed: We seek martyrdom and love martrydom! Grant us O God the Death of the infidel and his Jew master! Death to the sons of monkeys and pigs who has rejected the prophet!
Dear Chip:
I have developed embarrassing skin blemishes. I'm not sure how it has happened, since I have avoided contact with kufr food and always "use the left hand" after I do my restroom business. So far I have been able to hide it under my burqqa, but I'm worried that it will eventually disappoint whatever husband my father finds for me, and he will have me beheaded and not return the dowry.
Should I break down and buy some of the kufr 'zit cream'?
-- Mortified in Detroit, 13
Dear Mortified: We seek martyrdom and love martrydom! Grant us O God the Death of the infidel and his Jew master! Death to the sons of monkeys and pigs who has rejected the prophet!
Dear Chip:
Can I catch anthrax from 'soul kissing'? I mean, other Muslim boys.
-- Curious in New Jersey, 15
Dear Curious: We seek martyrdom and love martrydom! Grant us O God the Death of the infidel and his Jew master! Death to the sons of monkeys and pigs who has rejected the prophet!
Dear Chip:
I've been wondering about those 72 virgins awaiting me in paradise. If they are really hot like my Imam says, I'm worried that I'll "spill my seed" too early and the other martyrs will giggle. Also, if I get too tense to get a boner, will Allah think I'm gay and send me to burn in eternal Hell with all the jews?
Nervous in Sacramento, 19
Dear Nervous: We seek martyrdom and love martrydom! Grant us O God the Death of the infidel and his Jew master! Death to the sons of monkeys and pigs who has rejected the prophet!
Confidential to AH in Toronto: The Quran says "if thou shaketh more than three times, thou are playing with it; it is unclean and thou must hacketh it off with a scimitar."
This statement just may be at the root of all this metrosexual bologna.
Reminds me of when we hired a new cook in our fraternity house. Turned out he was gay. Hell of a cook, but after one incident when I came down into the kitchen to find that he had entertained his boyfriend on a mattress on the kitchen's food prep table, I advised my fellow brothers not to eat anything that came up out of that kitchen with whipped cream on it.
Metrosexuals don't get my attention! Remember that just because a male does not have "feminine" qualites it does not mean he is ungroomed, fat and hairy.
Far from this being any indicator of effeminacy, I think history's manliest lovers have been like this: think Casanova's luxurious colognes and chocolates. And besides, women love guys who are well-turned out and well-dressed. And my girlfriends seem to love doing my eyebrows and putting makeup on me, so I tolerate the brows and wash off the makeup.
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