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   Monday, January 19, 2004

GLAMOURAMA

A guy at the pub last night started another one of those "gay-men-are-just-shallow-and-bitchy-and-I'm-so-tired-of-this-scene-yada-yada-yada" routines. I've never been sure how to respond to these since half of me thinks, "Yes...and?" while the other half thinks, "Cheer up, for Christ's sake!" It occurred to me though that, as with all things, it's simply a matter of how you look at it.

If I may begin by generalizing madly, gay men love glamour. Whether it's movie stars, supermodels, porn actors, fashionistas or just people with that extra something, we gravitate towards them, worship them and strive to be them. While the rest of the world tells us we're an amusing diversion at best, abominations at worst, homosexuals strive for definition at all costs, and a glamourous definition is best.

A popular buzzword a year or so ago was 'flawless.' That was -- and I don't doubt it still is -- the goal: flawless clothes, flawless hair, flawless looks, flawless surroundings. Hell, isn't that what's made Oscar Wilde's "Dorian Gray" still relevant after over a century? None of this is new, but what my complaining guest at the pub is rankled by is the dark side of it all: in striving to become so much better than the "ordinary" people who disparage us, we run the risk of scraping away any of the quirks and imperfections that make us human.

Looking around the pub on any given night, seeing so many pretty boys with the same fashionable haircuts, the same Abercrombie and Fitch clothes, the same pinched faces giving nothing away, I often think of the Borg Collective from 'Star Trek' who "strive for perfection" with their one group-mind. It's not that far a stretch, I tell you.

Fortunately, this person's only noticing the glamour. If you cast your eye past the people who shine the brightest, you'll be pleased to see that there's a great number of interesting attractive people either content enough with themselves to embrace "the ordinary" or, better yet, bold enough to celebrate their individuality, quirks and all. They're the ones acheiving a new kind of glamour -- a less-brilliant colour perhaps but a deeper, richer colour -- and I hope those people get more attention from now on.