Not Dead Yet

 There is a scene in the classic film This Is Spinal Tap in which the befuddled rockers try to understand why being labeled "sexist" is a bad thing upon their release of their album Smell The Glove. "Well, so what? What's wrong with being sexy?" wonders guitar virtuoso Nigel Tufnel. Their manager opines to the record exec, "It's 1982!" 

For historical perspective, it wasn't until 1985 that People Magazine began publishing their annual Sexiest Man Alive issue. That one featured a twenty-nine year old Mel Gibson on the cover. The first thing I would like to point out is that the balloting excludes, by definition, dead guys. Dead guys are not traditionally thought of as being particularly sexy, but they are notably sexist as a group. That's where a lot of your sexist thought originated: Dead guys. Misogyny is an ancient Greek word, after all. 

So you can see how tangled this web gets: sexy and sexist seem to come as a package. Now it's 2021, and People Magazine has selected Paul Rudd as this year's Sexiest Man Alive. Fifty-two year old Paul Rudd. We love Paul Rudd, but is he really the Sexiest Man Alive? Certainly age has very little to do with it, since Sean Connery was seven years older than Mister Rudd back in 1989 when he won the title. Sexy is as sexy does, it would seem. The same could be said of sexism, I expect. 

Selecting Paul Rudd is a pretty safe move by the crew at People Magazine. not the open-shirt-smoldering-gaze crew that we might have expected. Does that mean they are not being sexist? Or are they simply making a good faith gesture in a male-dominated planet that does not have to wait a year to laud women for their sexiness. This People Magazine thing is just an annual distraction from the flood of sexist depictions of women regardless of their age and station. 

And just in case you were wondering, I already told People Magazine to take my name out of the running, so you can't get me for conflict of interest.