Blame the Fab Five for making the metrosexual as ubiquitous as JLo’s derriere.
Michael Flocker, the author of ‘the Metrosexual Guide to Style,’ brings
a queer-friendly persona to his guide.
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By STEVE WEINSTEIN
Friday, February 20, 2004
In a survey of 2003’s most overused phrases, one of the big winners — even
ahead of wacky Iraqi terms like “shock and awe” and “embedded journalist” — was “metrosexual.” (“Someone
who has sex on the subway?” one of the survey participants asked.)
In a recent interview, Mark Simpson, the British writer who first coined the
term, admitted that the monster he’d begotten has taken over the world. Simpson
ruefully noted that he’d coined the term way back in 1994, but “most were in
denial about this new social problem” at the time.
Since then, men like sports stars David Beckham and Derek Jeter, actor Brad
Pitt and politicians (too numerous to mention, but we can start with John Edwards
and George Bush in his “Top Gun” drag) have popularized the concept and, more
importantly, made it acceptable to straight men wary that undue attention to
style would be too, well, gay.
Now, the inevitable guides have been published to tell the great unwashed
masses how to become full-fledged metrosexuals. One is by Michael Flocker,
a soap actor who I’m sure lives in Williamsburg. The other is — surprise! — by
the Fab Five, who have done more to bring metrosexuality into America’s living
rooms than every Democratic presidential debate and Spike TV James Bond film
festival combined.
Of the two, Flocker’s is the more modest. The cover features an illustration
of a man who exactly resembles Tom Cruise, with rays radiating out from him
like a modern-day Apollo.
This is entirely appropriate, since Simpson considers him the personification
of metrosexuality — other than Beckham, of course, who, with his love of hair
styles and gay-friendly persona, remains the ür-metrosexual. (Simpson wittily
says that there’s no secret about Cruise’s sexual preference: It’s clearly
for himself.)
Flocker goes through the standard style-guide stuff, like how to make a martini,
how much to tip a maitre d’, the dreaded single eyebrow. There are also some
witty illustrations, my favorite being the “carb face.”
He gives lists of what to read (or at least what books to namedrop), what
movies to see, what to hang on the wall. In the end, however, this is as much
a pep talk as a how-to guide.
Flocker wants to straight guys to feel comfortable pampering themselves. Overall,
he does a good job. This is a book I could send my brother in rural Ohio and
not be embarrassed — for him or myself.
The Fab Five’s tome, onto other hand, very much follows the pattern of the
show. That is to say, it’s wryly amusing, in that gay-bitchy way. It’s also
much firmer about the elements of style than Flocker.
For my taste, much of the information and presentation of “Queer Eye” resembles
those god-awful front-of-the-book how-to sections in magazines like Esquire
and GQ. You know, things like, “how to tie a bow tie”; or “how to take off
her bra”; or “how to pick your nose.”
The typical metrosexual is a young man
with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a
metropolis — because that’s where all the best shops, clubs,
gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight
or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has
clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure
as his sexual preference. Particular professions, such as
modeling, waiting tables, media, pop music and, nowadays,
sport, seem to attract them but, truth be told, like male
vanity products and herpes, they’re pretty much everywhere.
— British journalist Mark Simpson
Metrosexual: 1) 21st century male trendsetter;
2) straight, urban man with heightened aesthetic sense;
3) man who spends time and money on appearance and shopping;
4) man willing to embrace his feminine side.
— Michael Flocker, ‘The Metrosexual
Guide to Style’
Think about the guy you know who cares
the most about wine, who dresses sharp [sic], shakes hands
properly, and doesn’t smell like an athletic supporter.
Do you think he worries that his interests seems effete?
No. Because he’s too busy beating off women with a stick.
— The Fab Five, ‘Queer Eye
for the Straight Guy’
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A lot — OK, most — of this stuff veers toward the safely conservative. The
photographs look as though they could have been lifted out of a 1955 Town & Country.
But these guys do generally have good taste, and anyone (even gay guys) could
probably benefit from their advice.
With one exception: I have to admit, I just don’t get Carson Kressley’s fashion
sense. Most of the time, it seems to me, he takes a guy’s perfectly acceptable
wardrobe and dresses him like an organ-grinder’s monkey. But hey, what do I
know? I’m wearing the same stuff I was buying in my senior year of high school.
In the end, the question about metrosexuals really boils down to one thing:
is it good for the gays?
In an article in Details, gay writer Augusten Burroughs argues no, that they
are boring, that they bring us all down, etc. To which I say, hogwash. He’s
just indulging in that contrarian school of journalism, naysaying for its own
sake.
Metrosexuals, by definition, are guys who are accepting — welcoming, even — of
gay men into their lives. Sure, a lot of gay men don’t wax their backs or use
cologne. But the fact that these guys associate that stuff with us makes us
sisters under the skin.
The great divide has never really been between gay men and straight women,
but gay men and straight men. I say, anything that bridges that gap and brings
us all together can’t be bad, even if it is the shallowest form of consumerism.
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