The curse of the twinkling eyes and the six-pack abs
People magazine is celebrating three decades of objectifying men.
On Tuesday night, after most of us are tucked into our unsexy beds after another long and unsexy day at work, the 2015 Sexiest Man Alive will be unveiled during Jimmy Kimmel Live. Prediction: this year’s winner will have a full head of tousled hair, his eyes will twinkle, his smile will radiate, his jawline will be as chiseled as his six-pack abs and he will have no idea he is doomed.
Science will tell you there is no such thing as a curse. Of course, there was a time when science would also tell you lightning never strikes the same place twice or gum takes seven years to digest. I can still recall the panic I felt in Grade 3 after taking a dodge ball to the head and accidentally swallowing a wad of Dubble Bubble.
Damn you, science, for making me cry that day.
Remember in early October when we all scoffed at the Taylor Swift Curse? Well, did the Blue Jays win the World Series? Or did they disintegrate after Ms. Swift played two concerts at the Rogers Centre? The Jays were also hexed with the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse and, in the end, the Curse of Bad Umpiring.
The point is there are many curses in pop culture that defy explanation.
The so-called 27 Club, in which famous musicians such as Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse all died at the same age? Hey, science, what’s that all about? Then there’s the Superman Curse, the Chunky Soup Curse, the Exorcist Curse and even the curse of James Dean’s Porsche.
It is into this sludge of superstitious bunk that I offer a new, previously unreported jinx: the Sexiest Man Alive Curse.
Who was the first winner in 1985? Mel Gibson. What eventually became of his “cerulean blue eyes” and “Mad Max smoulder”? Put it this way: based on details from his spectacular flame-out, if Gibson is holed up in a scuzzy bar right now, my guess is he’s mumbling about “the Jews” and calling his waitress “sugar tits.”
Sexiest Man Alive was the beginning of the end. And not just for Gibson. Mark Harmon won the next year, followed by Harry Hamlin in 1987. Who? Exactly.
Two of the next five victors would die tragically — 1988 winner John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash and 1991 winner Patrick Swayze of cancer.
Sean Connery won in 1989, looking like a hungover carnival psychic with his white turtleneck and bloodshot eyes.
But after this distinction, Connery only starred in one more film that grossed more than $100 million.
Hey, People, there is nothing sexy about a downward trajectory.
In 1990, sandwiched between Connery and Swayze, came Tom Cruise. I don’t know about sexy. But between the Oprah couch-jumping and the Scientology creepiness, Cruise now seems like a shoo-in if People ever launches a Craziest Man Alive edition.
You probably don’t remember the 1992 cover in which winner Nick Nolte resembles a high school chemistry teacher. But you may never forget the 2002 mug shot in which he looked like a crackhead vagrant who was secretly crashing in your attic and wearing your grandmother’s floral blouse while befriending dust bunnies.
In 1993, People mixed things up and crowned Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere as “The Sexiest Couple Alive.” The two would divorce less than two years later. There was no winner in 1994, which now seems like a blessing for whoever didn’t win, probably Donald Trump.
Johnny Depp has been the Sexiest Man Alive twice. He has never won an Oscar. My exhaustive research has also uncovered an SMA correlation with high-profile romantic splits — see: Ben Affleck (2002 winner), Jude Law (2004) and Ryan Reynolds (2010) — and a more general, “Whatever happened to . . .”
Whatever happened to . . . Pierce Brosnan? Denzel Washington?
There are exceptions to every curse. Harrison Ford, winner in 1998, dodged a near-death experience while flying his plane. He continues to go strong. But let’s remember: he is Han Solo. George Clooney and Brad Pitt have achieved Sexiest Man Alive twice each. This suggests immunity to the curse might come from marrying a woman who is even sexier and smarter than you are.
(Oh, Amal; we can still have a great life together. Leave him!)
I don’t know much about last year’s winner, Chris Hemsworth. But given his striking resemblance to Fabio, I fear only bad things are on the horizon.
So if People really cared about the sexiest men, they would end this wretched spectacle after Tuesday night. Not just for these sexy men, but for the rest of us. Thirty years of male objectification is enough. It has led to unrealistic “handsome expectations” as we squeeze into skinny jeans and glob product into our hair.
Even science will tell you this is wrong. vmenon@thestar.ca