Obviously, I am about a month behind with this post, but then, I'm about a month behind in life generally. My Christmas card list is now my Martin Luther King, Jr. Day card list. That, however, is beside the point. The point actually being that I disagree with pretty much all of People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive 2012 issue.
I have a long history with People Magazine's annual Sexiest Man Alive issue. My mom and I would laugh over it, it always came out just in time for the trip home at Thanksgiving, it was the perfect length to take up that hour and ten minutes it took to fly from Utah to Washington, and it was extra handy when my college roommates and I were building The Shrine to David Duchovny and subsequent iterations of the Man Wall. However, the tide has been changing.
Perhaps it is that I am getting older, perhaps I'm getting more cynical, or perhaps less tolerant of the opinions of others. Who knows. However, I do know that People Magazine declaring Channing Tatum the Sexiest Man Alive is the last straw. I didn't complain when they chose Ryan Reynolds, because he is funny and plays his smarminess to great effectiveness. I know that People Magazine needs to appeal to a multitude of tastes. I understand that there are intricate calculations involving sales
volume, a foundation of popularity, who needs to be promoting what, etc.
However, when Colin "Mr. Darcy" Firth, is relegated to a thumbnail photo in a one-page section about men going grey under a title referring to one of the most unpalatable fiction series in recent history, I have to say something. I cannot stand by silently while scads of my TV boyfriends, long running members of the Fantasy Boyfriend League, are left out in the cold for an ever growing number generic boy-bandesque beefcakes.
