Jeremy Allen White looks great in the Calvin Klein ads – and that’s a lesson for us all
Sex sells. Just ask the fashion label Calvin Klein, whose adverts flogging perfectly white (and salaciously tight) men’s underwear have led to global pant domination. Its formula of “hunky celebrity guy du jourbrooding in tiny whities” has been turning heads for decades, so you might think we’d be immune to their masculine wiles by now. Not so, as the breathless response to last week’s ads featuring the actor
Jeremy Allen White proved. In the campaign video, White, best known as chef Carmy from the hit TV series The Bear, is seen wandering New York, before climbing the stairs of a building and emerging on to its roof, where he strips down to his boxers and does some half-hearted exercise (mostly stretches but he chucks in a little pull-up too). This is before he falls on to a conveniently placed rooftop sofa (no plastic covering? Doesn’t it get wet?), and we see that he had his trainers and socks on the whole time.
It wasn’t his ability to remove his shorts while walking and without taking off his trainers that got tongues wagging – or rather, panting. It was White’s muscular, toned and tanned physique.
The still images show him pulling the underwear waistband down to reveal a defined inguinal crease or “love line” (the pinnacle of the male physical ideal, apparently), and lounging on the rooftop in jeans, flies open and shimmied down to show the underwear. “This is what every woman needed to start 2024 off right,” reads one comment on Calvin Klein’s Instagram. “I hope this is someone’s gay awakening,” reads another. A comment simply saying “YES CHEF” earned 1,600 likes.
So why should we care about this latest chapter in internet thirst? I think there is a lesson here. Part of the reason the campaign caused such a stir is that White was hitherto not considered a hunk. It was a surprise to see an actor who is usually cast as the salt-of-theearth relatable everyman elevated to Adonis status. But let’s be real: most actors in big film and TV productions – even if they are cast as the girl next door or a weather-beaten detective – are very good-looking, and in conventional ways: fit and slim, clear skin, perfectly coiffed and groomed. It’s slightly
ludicrous that anyone is surprised by White. He’s on TV – of course he’s a classically handsome man.
There are exceptions, such as EastEnders, which Will Smith said he loved because it was not like American soaps, “full of beautiful people” (rude, but let’s move on). We can also thank reality TV for bringing a little bit of body and beauty diversity to our screens. Still, I yearn to see someone with acne or crooked teeth cast as the regular Joe they are supposed to be. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed lip filler in period dramas.
It’s worth remembering how exceptional these supposedly normal people are. We live in a time obsessed by image; we’re forever being marketed at, told that if we buy this, eat that and do this torturous exercise, we can look like these “relatable” stars. And it’s just not true. Aside from genetics, few of us can buy access to their products, their experts and the amount of time they spend in pursuit of hotness, as we juggle commutes, work and arguing with a toddler about eating broccoli. It doesn’t help that relatability is big business for media personalities. It’s why they are constantly downplaying the difference between their lives and ours. Asked how he got in shape for the shoot, White told GQ he “ran, jumped rope … did calisthenics [and] ate plenty of fish”. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suspect a personal trainer or two played a part.
So, let White’s pictures be a reminder that we should not measure ourselves against celebrities, even those that are supposedly just like us, and not waste too much time and money trying to emulate them. Above all else, I’d seriously steer clear of being on any rooftop with your trousers down. I suspect the police might have something to say about that.
Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK
ican Institute found that only 17% of Arab Americans say they will vote for Biden in 2024, down from 59% who did in 2020. Muslim Americans recently began an #AbandonBiden campaign, focusing on the sizable Muslim American communities in swing states such as Michigan, Arizona and Georgia.
As Axios notes, Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 154,000 votes, but there are at least 278,000 Arab Americans in Michigan. Biden took Arizona, a state with an Arab American population of 60,000, by only 10,500 votes. In Georgia, Biden prevailed with a margin of 11,800 voters, in a state that has an Arab American population of 57,000.
While it is true that not all Arab Americans are eligible voters (some may not be citizens, some may be too young), it’s also true that the 2024 election is expected to be won on razorthin margins. Every vote, including every Arab American and every Muslim American vote, matters. Disaffection with Biden isn’t limited to Arab and Muslim Americans, either. The president also has a young voter problem: according to NBC News, a November poll by Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling firm, found that only 61% of voters under 30 would support Biden if the election were held today, and 56% gave him a “poor” rating on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
So we are faced with a dilemma: on the one hand, there’s a Democratic establishment that seems to believe disgruntled voters will choose Biden out of “a lesser of two evils” thinking. But that line of thinking is not just insulting to these voters. It is also so politically cynical – and explicitly harmful to Palestinians – that it’s hard to believe
Biden holds himself to any values besides ruthless political calculation.
On the other hand, we have the presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, who promises not only to revive his abominable Muslim ban but also to implement “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”. Trump has also described people coming across the US’s southern border as “poisoning the blood of our country”, and told Sean Hannity that he would be a dictator, but only on “day one” of his presidency.I’m feeling nauseous. Why have our political choices sunk to supporting unconscionable violence or electing cartoonish fascism? Adding to my nausea is a feeling of paralysis that I haven’t been able to overcome for the last two months, a sense of profound helplessness in the face of such horror.
I know I’m not alone. I recognize the same feeling in so many people around me. We go to work. We shop for groceries. We meet up socially for dinner or to attend cultural events, but there’s no joy in any of this. Instead, there’s sadness and dread and shock hanging over everything. There are images we can’t unsee. There is anger we don’t know how to direct. And there’s shame that we aren’t doing enough to stop the slaughter.
The times when I’ve felt a tinge of hope emerge have been on the marches I’ve attended to stop Israel’s bombing of Gaza. All women-led (from what I can tell) and with marchers of all ages, ethnicities and identities, the marches are testaments to the collective need to do something. Perhaps for that very reason, they’ve also been much maligned by the powerful.
Back in October, the erstwhile UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, suggested waving a Palestinian flag at a march could constitute a criminal offense. Governments in France and Germany have sought to ban the keffiyeh – the checkered scarf associated with the Palestinian struggle – from schools and protests. And the US Congress wants to put words in your mouth when you chant: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
I have never felt particularly close to any politician but, at this moment in history, I’ve also never been more convinced that they all live together in a large, gilded mansion, behind a fortified wall, and located in some alternate universe, even though their purpose is to be among us and represent us and our interests. (Polling continues to indicate that a large majority of Americans want the US government to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to prioritize diplomacy, yet the White House refuses to do so.)
Maybe the problem is not that our politicians are failing, but that our politics are failing. We need a new kind of politics, globally – one that is not beholden to billionaires, that is not mesmerized by power. One that is instead justly accountable to everyone it reaches.
Come to think of it, buying an authentic keffiyeh has become nearly impossible, since they’re currently in such high demand. Everyone the world over now knows the slogan “from the river to the sea”. Global news outlets are writing explainers on how the watermelon became a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
Why does this matter? The search for a durable solution for how Israelis and Palestinians will live together used to revolve around self-determination for two peoples. More and more, it centers on justice and equality for everyone. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Palestinian cause is drawing more attention from so many corners around the world. Everyone should be able to identify with the need for justice and equality, both locally and globally.
Maybe that’s what makes Palestinian liberation so frightening to the political classes. Maybe that’s the hope for 2024.
Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist