I want to spend as little time on this topic as possible. I came across the subject of whether or not People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” award to Channing Tatum means that the contest is racist. Joanna Schroeder asks the question in the headline, and a good rule of thumb for question-headlines is that the answer is always “No”. Just another example of the “r-word” being used irresponsibly.
Slate got this latest round of racial outrage started:
And what is going on in 2012? Our Sexiest Man is white. Straight. Ginormous. Frequently goateed. Wearing a white tank top in his cover photo. Yes, he can dance. But as a nation, we must ask: What is left of Channing Tatum’s sex appeal after the final strains of Ginuwine’s “Pony” recede? Buzzfeed has described Tatum as “a thumb” and “a gyrating human potato.” His sexy is bland. Traditional. Republican in a Democratic year.
At GMP, Schroeder writes:
People explains that their Sexiest Man layout does include men of color, but what we all know is that it’s the cover that really matters. That’s the headline. That’s the guy whose value is upped by the title of “Sexiest Man Alive”. The rest of the guys seem to be present for tokenism and not much more. Did they ever stand a chance at the title? Probably not, just as a man of color probably doesn’t stand a chance at being cast as The Bachelor.
Producers and publishers can blame Hollywood, and Hollywood can blame the American public—after all, they only produce what people will buy, right? And according to them, Black men don’t sell.
But hold on a minute. What was the top-grossing romantic comedy of 2012? One of the top-grossing movies of the year? Hmm… Lemme think… Oh yeah, Think Like a Man! The film shocked traditional movie experts by staying in the top slot for weeks on end, starring a cast that was almost entirely comprised of Black actors and actresses.
First off, “Magic Mike” grossed $20 million more than “Think Like a Man”. There was also more general awareness about MM and about the lead actor, Tatum, than the other movie. If you asked a random sample of people who didn’t see either movie, many more would know that Tatum was in Magic Mike. Few would be able to name any actors from “Think Like a Man”. The appeal of that movie was limited mostly to black audiences who have maybe one movie every several years with an all-star black cast. It’s something of an event, and one that is a relief from the yearly Tyler Perry flick. Second, Tatum has been on the short list for a while for this award. Him and Ryan Gosling. It’s sort of like the Heisman trophy or an MVP award which is given to the guy who performs consistently well over the course of several years. Third, I girlfriend-sourced this question. Her simple but correct point was that there are no big-time black male actors whose superstardom rises up to this award. Idris Elba is little known. Taye Diggs is popular, but he doesn’t have widespread appeal. No other black actors have put in enough time or have had enough success to be considered for the award. This has nothing to do with the award itself and more to do with the overall popularity of black actors.
All of this reminds me of my critique of Nate Silver’s critics during the election polling discussions. First, why would you put so much stock in these conclusions? People is nothing but a magazine the content of which depends upon the opinions, tastes, and preferences of its readers. It is objectively worthless. Second, if you don’t like the process or think that it is flawed, come up with your own.
People Magazine
selects for this award through feedback from its readers, and a some type of selection committee also gauges which actors are trending. Tatum, for whatever it’s worth, is the highest-profile male star of the year, and he was in a movie that was overtly sexual. It doesn’t matter if Slate writers thought the movie was bland – the women who read People screeched and clawed at their seats during the movie.
All of this ignores the most obvious point:
people tend to be most attracted to people of their own race. To call any of the other reasons cited here racist is to call this preference racist. But a degree of it is either biologically determined or strongly culturally ingrained at a very young age (and mostly unavoidable since our parents and in-group tend to be of the same race). The country is majority white still, and that means that Hollywood studios make films with white actors and actresses. Thus, the actors who get top billing are also more likely to be the most likely candidates for stupid awards such as this. It goes the same with the TV show “The Bachelor” which exists on a network on which it’s viewership skews something like 13% black and 70% white.
In comments at GMP, Schroeder asks me why, if this is about demographics, has there only been one non-white winner over the past 25 years? Wouldn’t we expect there to be 13% black winners? That would translate to maybe 3 black Sexiest Men Alive. This is a naive way to think about the demographic issue and the preferences of the readership (which distills up to editors). Each year marks a new contest and each year the vote is reset. If you added up the collective tallies and rankings for each eligible actor, the sheer demographic dominance of whites will outweigh the votes of minorities. Each year the most plausible black male candidate faces a huge demographic deficit that only Denzel Washington has overcome. And when it comes to sexual attraction, identity politics is the rule.
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Really doesn’t matter what the demographics are, white men are always considered the sexiest and will always win in a poll of actual women. As the country browns (worsens), the contest will continue to be won by white men because nonwhite women like us way better than their own kind. That will never occur to the people who write for Slate/Feminfisting/etc though. They see “country majority brown, obviously the sexiest man should be brown”.
“Think Like a Man,” a black comedy based on Steve Harvey’s self-help book for black women trying to catch a husband, was a movie for middle-aged people, black primarily. I thought it was quite funny and enjoyable, but I’m middle-aged.
Slate seems to be full-bore status-whoring lately. And on that point: thank God the phrase “status-whoring” exists. I use it daily, and I’m as grateful for it as an Eskimo would be who just learned the word for White.
I haven’t watched The Bachelor in years, but an all black cast might pull me back in.
Black people rarely appear on The Bachelor. If I was black, that would make me proud.
Why are you giving space to this, Chuck? The only black actor with the looks AND box office totals to ever earn the slot has had the slot: Denzel a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago.
This is a non issue
Elspeth,
I give space to lots of topics that I probably shouldn’t. But the lack of logic in the argument and the constant beating of the race drum for any and every single racial disparity is something I can’t avoid taking down. People see the numbers gap and just quickly call it racist but don’t think of the deeper reasons that the gap may exist. This has parallels with many other topics I like to discuss.
But I sometimes write for GMP and figured I should respond, and I have an especially sharp eye for any chinks in Slate’s armor.
You seem to understand what is going on. I assume that you probably find the black actors more attractive than the white actors. If the People readership held the same preferences then a.) more movie stars would be black men and b.) more black men would be picked to be Sexiest Man Alive. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anybody preferring people of their own race, but for some reason it gets turned that way.
I’d encourage you to leave a comment over there. As of right now we have a bunch of white men and white women giving their 2 cents on the issue.
“Really doesn’t matter what the demographics are, white men are always considered the sexiest and will always win in a poll of actual women. As the country browns (worsens), the contest will continue to be won by white men because nonwhite women like us way better than their own kind. That will never occur to the people who write for Slate/Feminfisting/etc though. They see “country majority brown, obviously the sexiest man should be brown”.”
keep telling yourself that
Men of Color have bigger units than white boys
why do you always see Men of Color in relationships with white girls but never Women of Color in relationships with white boys?
I’m kind of equal opportunity when it comes to attractiveness in men. I think Michael Ealy and Idris Elba in particular are very attractive (Elba reminds me of my husband). Boris Kodjoe is divine by any standard but no one knows who he is.
But you know, I think the guy they chose is extremely attractive,I think probably have a crush on Daniel Craig. Hot is hot, LOL.
They did an all black cast for the Bachleor. It was called Flavor of Love.
Curb-stomping leftist idiocy is a noble goal, even if it’s a non-serious subject/source like People magazine. Probably moreso for non-serious subjects/sources, since the people in the everyday world are typically only tangentially cognizant of politics and they passively wallow in this leftist brain-numbing crap every day.
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Off topic:
Check out this story
http://www.techyville.com/2012/11/news/unemployed-black-woman-pretends-to-be-white-job-offers-suddenly-skyrocket/#
Watch for this story to “go viral” soon. If not this exact piece, a copycat story like it. It will make the rounds and all the right people will be talking about it and linking to it, and linking to eachothers pontifications about it, and the meme that blacks get ignored while whites get hired will become a topic of national conversation.
Black people are insecure. Nothing drives them or unites them like a racial cause against white people. Notice how instead of lobbying for a black man to be on the cover they denigrated the white men that are on the covers. Putting a black man on the cover will never end black people’s insecurity about themselves because white people still exist. Black people can’t reconcile their natural features with that of white people’s. They think that if white people are gone then they will be beautiful.
maybe i’ve been lurking the wrong websites, but i was under the impression channing tatum was considered by a lot of people to be a sort of off-white, white. he apparently said something about being partly creole once. i’ve noticed a lot NAM women feel more comfortable being attracted to “whites” who are vaguely/distantly ‘mixed’ or have a strong cultural background (‘ethnic whites’) that doesn’t fit into their view of generic mainstream whiteness, which is boring/alien/inauthentic.
Channing Tatum was picked as sexiest alive because that is who the Jewish media selected. A hugely disprortionate amount of lead actor roles in American movies go to black males now for the same reason. Will Smith is the #2 male actor in Hollywood now but doesn’t rank in the top 10 in Europe since they don’t have the same crowd pushing the same fetishes.
Black people are insecure. Nothing drives them or unites them like a racial cause against white people.
Blacks get fired up about racial issues because they only have relevance by virtue of their relationship or proximity to white people in the Western world. It’s a very derivative existence.
Nobody gives a crap about blacks in Jamaica or Haiti or Gabon, especially not other blacks in nicer places.
Blacks get fired up about racial issues because they only have relevance by virtue of their relationship or proximity to white people in the Western world. It’s a very derivative existence.
Were I them, I’d feel exactly the same way. I like to imagine something along the lines of if I suddenly got beamed to another planet full of advanced aliens with technology I could only dream of. They would look at me and surely pity me for having not quite evolved enough to create anything of substance they could possibly use being so advanced. They would offer me their technology and world, which I would marvel in with wonders I could have never imagined on Earth. But then, on the other hand, I would always harbor some resentment that in spite of having access to things mere mortals could only dream of, it would take my own race probably a hundred generations to even approach this command of technology and matter.
Yeah, sort of like that…
@Jac in DC. You would then go punch the locals in the back of the head and blame them for being speciesist.
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