TORSO tumult
GERSON ON SHIRTLESS TRUDEAU: THE NEW NATIONAL OBSESSION,
I’m sorry, dear reader. I’m sorry that I’m going to extend this national summertime obsession with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s shirtless midriff by yet another day. But here I am. And here you are. Neither one of us wanted to be doing this with our lives.
This uncomfortably popular August- time news story began last week.
A Peterborough family hiking in Gatineau Park in late July ran into the prime minister and his family near a cave. Some plucky pre- teen snapped a selfie with the bare- shouldered Trudeau and by early August the picture was making the rounds on social media — as the prime minister’s heritage moments so often do.
The international media took note; as did we. What of the decorum of a shirtless prime minister? Whither the dignity of the high office? What is the history of shirtless world leaders?
One might have expected Trudeau to be a tad chastened by the domestic hand- wringing. Instead, he doubled down with a shirtless photobomb at a beach wedding.
Maybe it’s because it’s August, and parliament isn’t sitting, and what news there is is dreary and economic and mostly dreadful. So now we enter the second round; the thoughtful examination of why Trudeau’s torso has remained in the news for so long. Why has this become a national obsession? For that matter, why are we so concerned with Trudeau’s looks, again? There is also probably something obvious to be said about the fact that we’re objectifying a male politician’s looks in a way we wouldn’t dream of doing to a female — although Trudeau himself seems happy to play that double standard right back at us.
In fact, none of this seems coincidental at all. So much of the staging feels entirely deliberate — even the casual air that tends to accompany Trudeau’s viral episodes seem anything but spontaneous. There is no doubt that Trudeau has been blessed, in a stereotypical sense, with conventional good looks and an attractive physique, but surely it’s escaped no one’s attention that the prime minister has done everything in his power to amplify these traits in the same way that so many teen idols have done before him.
The subjects of this outlandish female adoration all seem to have a few physical gifts in common; thick hair and symmetrical beauty is certainly among them. But go back further. The Beatles, The Coreys. In my day it was Jonathan Taylor Thomas, and then Robert Pattinson of Twilight.
These men are all attractive in an almost stereotypically placid way. Baby-cheeked and fit without be- ing distractingly muscular, they are remote, safe and unthreatening.
Far be it from me to get too sniffy about setting men up to unrealistic standards of beauty. Turnabout may be fair play. But there is something rather odd about going ga- ga for the types of men who are safe to admire from afar. In Trudeau’s case, this kind of gooey admiration also adds a note of progressive political virtue signalling — all the more bizarre because it is so regressive.
Not only does it demonstrate an appreciation for Trudeau’s looks, but also for the regime change that preceded it. This is so very unlike former prime minister Stephen Harper, he of the dowdy dad bod.
Best of all, no actual opinion on policy or substance is required for this show, just relatively intact abs.
It’s summer and the cottage is full and the lake is beckoning and l et’s not worry too much about the dropping loonie or the dismal job numbers just yet. Wait, is that shirtless Trudeau at a beach wedding!
Or, for Trudeau’s churlish critics, its obvious counter; that these displays, like the man himself, are all just shallow and showy and calculated. Or worse, indecorous.
What prudes.
THESE MEN ARE ALL ATTRACTIVE IN AN ALMOST STEREOTYPICALLY PLACID WAY. BABY- CHEEKED AND FIT WITHOUT BEING DISTRACTINGLY MUSCULAR, THEY ARE REMOTE, SAFE AND UNTHREATENING. — JEN GERSON