The female commentator says "makes his feet look very small" towards the end, after he takes the pants off, which is a bit cryptic.
Plushenko's been doing that routine since 2002. Yes, it is a muscle shirt he's wearing, and yes, he is straight and married to a sociology grad student or something like that.
Or so the Freemasons would have you believe.
Ah ok, I thought it looked a bit fake.
What do you think you're doing, trotting up the steps like that? Your blades, dude!
married to a sociology grad student or something like that.
Beard!
No figure skater has shoulders like that. The same skater has another routine (this is an exhibition one, obviously) which is funnier and possibly more gay where he has a really cleverly designed costume that looks like a tuxedo.
Halfway through the routine, he pops something on the shoulders, and it turns into a long-sleeved skirt with a dress. And then he skates around doing more feminine skating moves (spirals, laybacks). And then *foom*, the skirt is back up in the tuxedo, and he's skating as the man. The music is doing something goofy, so basically, the guy is skating as a man, as a woman, and then does a curtsy and a bow at the end, changing the costume the whole time.
Definitely not one of your traditional sporting guy sports, figure skating.
A long-sleeved shirt with a long skirt, I mean.
Oddly, posted 9 without seeing 8.
2: And then, I think one of the male commentators says, "He has such a great personality!" IYKWIM.
I've had a long-standing rule for myself - don't watch any video that apostropher posts. That which has been seen cannot be unseen.
I remember now why I had that rule.
I liked that routine, and I didn't think it seemed gay, more like silly costume party. The skating cowboys seemed gay.
I agree with Cala and Tia; this is a development of the same kind of showmanship we've been seeing from Philippe Candalero(sp?) and Elvis Stoiko for years now. The otherwise inarticulate male commentator said as much. I also agree the cowboys were much gayer.
Well done, though, with the shoulders and all; I wonder if he's going to have to do that at every performance from here on. Liked the bit with the hair brush.
I didn't watch the cowboy video, but can you really get gayer than gold lamee briefs? Not that there's anything wrong with it.
I didn't think it seemed gay
It's figure skating. That's like saying, "I didn't think that boxing match seemed violent."
The weird thing is, when the guy is skating competitively, he's just about the most uptight skater out there.
And I don't get gay out of this routine. I get a lot more of The Full Monty than gay.
But I'm evaluating relative gayness in the preestablished context of figure skating, and I think that was one of the less gay-seeming things a male figure skater could do, seriously. It seemed like a straight person playing around with the gay/Chippendales costumes.
19: After looking at the comments, I think there may be a broader rule available than "Figure skating is gay." I think, maybe, any competitive event that can be properly described with the word "routine" is going to seem a little gay. That, I think, would include things like rhythmic gymnastics.
I think, maybe, any competitive event that can be properly described with the word "routine" is going to seem a little gay.
And if what you're wearing is an "outfit" or "costume" rather than a jersey or uniform then it's totally gay.
You guys need to click on the link in 9. And, as far as routines go, skateboarding; remember, we're talking gay not lint-puppety.
And if what you're wearing is an "outfit" or "costume" rather than a jersey or uniform then it's totally gay.
And if it's a "singlet" then it's gay not just in theory but in practice.
Excellent counter example, Weiner.
They're usually called 'programs.' Even gymnastics calls the events by the apparatus or 'floor exercise'. It's exercise!
Not that this makes much of a difference.
Figure skating has a huge homophobia problem, oddly enough. Only one skater has ever officially come out. The rest are all worried by reprisals from judges.
Figure skating has a huge homophobia problem
Bizarre. Is the one skater Rudy Galindo?
Yes. It's very weird, given that what, anyone would be surprised?
Although maybe figure skating = gay is more an American thing. It doesn't seem to have the same stigma in Europe or Japan.
I second that "bizarre". Seriously, what's next, reprisals against homos in the fashion industry?
but can you really get gayer than gold lamee briefs?
Gay men do not wear gold lame' briefs. Trust me. I have seen a lot of gay guys in their underwear, and not a one of them was wearing gold lame'. In fact, the only men I have ever seen wear gold lame' briefs were straight guys doing a bad job of playing Rocky in the local production of RHPS who thought a little costume authenticity would help cover for their otherwise lackluster performances.
Gay men do, however, know how to spell it.
Ahem.
If you want to see gay, watch the cowboys-on-ice video. If you are gay, I suggest you watch it alone or with someone with whom you are very, very comfortable, because that shit is just wicked hot.
The gold lame' thing strikes me as very post-Soviet-Russian fashion. Ten years ago, anyway, Muscovites seemed to all think it was the '60s again: everything was shiny, everything was day-glo, everything was bright and loud and flashy. What wasn't a flourescent primary color was a shiny chromatic.
Gay men do, however, know how to spell it.
Do they generally use an apostrophe in place of an accent acute?
On this keyboard they do!
OK, so I was unnecessarily snippy. Sorry.
Hey, you claimed to be able to spell, not to use HTML. And there is no such thing as unnecessarily snippy.
22 gets it exactly right. Any activity that involves "performance" is going to be gayish, because Real Men aren't supposed to "perform" for others--they're supposed to be unselfconscious. Performance and awareness of audience are things women are supposed to do. Hence metrosexuals, hence teaching being a "woman's" job (whereas professing, where the teachers aren't supposed to care about the audience but are supposed to unselfconsciously focus on the subject material, is a guy thing), hence singing and theater, etc.
they're supposed to be unselfconscious
Thus we can demonstrate that, according to Benjamin Constant, the modern condition is to be gay.
re: 37
Yes, but with special dispensation for guys playing guitar or holding a microphone in rock bands.
1) I did not see the performance as "gay". I am not even sure what "gay" means here, bt I watched it, and it did not look that different from what I have seen of a Chippendale's routine. Not that I have seen all that many, a couple movies and HBO specials, but can someone explain to me why the Chip dudes are so not gay and this guy is?
bitchphd makes a strong point at 37, but I still see men finding many kinds of performance, umm, not gay. I am having trouble with a taxonomy of male exhibitionism.
Thoroughly enjoyable video. Though Plushenko kind of looks like an outrageously buff Paris Hilton with a mullet.
I came late to the "is it a gay sport?" discussion, but I'm curious what you manly men think about bullfighting: gay or not gay?
Hard to say (NSFW, unfortunately, because I'm there).
My dad's landlady in Spain once told him that all matadors are gay. So there's that.
Do you think that holds for picadors as well?
bullfighting: gay or not gay?
Definitely Spanish.
42: Oh my good lord, what a humiliation.
40: I dunno if the Chippendales guys are gay, but they're sure not sexy to this straight girl.
I'm not sure if Chippendales is gay exactly; I think the impetus for these things is to be self-consciously "wild," some false attempt to mirror male behavior with strippers.
What about actors (male and female)? Actors perform, but male actors are not stereotyped as gay.
So anyway, I'm no manly man nor an expert on what's gay, but bullfighting seems like a tough case. Here we have a man in tights and an outlandish costume dancing around a bull waving a cape. And, that cape's not red. But I thought bullfighting was traditionally an extraordinary macho culture (I mean, dudes with swords, and bulls are no joke), and the European origins make it hard to judge. Someone should work up a bullfighting figure-skating routine like this (the ur-text which has so far gone unlinked on this thread).
Male opera singers, rock stars, jazz musicians, classical musicians? All perform. Not so gay.
I think figure skating and gymnastics and ballet re gay because of the tights, and because the sports are traditionally considered to be sanctioned 'girl sports', not because of some 'performance is t3h feminine' meme.
Is 37 supposed to be serious or funny?
Figure skating is "gay" not because of tights - think wrestling - but because of the flamboyant costumes, and the whole twirlyness and feyness of it.
Anyway, that video was awesome, and totally not gay. Anyone who thinks it's gay, well, they're obviously overcompensating for being sekretly gay.
Here we have a man in tights and an outlandish costume dancing around a bull waving a cape.
Or Manny Ramirez. Potato, potahto.
And 52 is not a good refutation of 51.
And there is no such thing as unnecessarily snippy.
I heartily disagree. All the same, I did not think Robust necessarily snippy.
Wrestling is gay because of the strenuous same-sex bodily contact tights, darn tootin'.
54: Well, classical musicians are notorious for not performing in that sense: They sit there stone-faced, or perhaps throw themselves around in apparently unselfconscious ecstasy,* channeling the music. Jazz musicians are similar except that they're supposed to do more of the unselfconscious ecstacy -- the classical musician may fling herself around on the piano bench or shut her eyes as she fiddles away, but the jazz musician is practically supposed to be rocking back and forth -- but still, the idea isn't that they concern themselves with their images. And that unconcern is often a conscious image, but it's not supposed to look that way.
And of course we're in complex territory when we talk about gayness. Opera singers may not be stereotyped as gay, but opera fandom is certainly gay-identified -- right? (incidentally, I fear that having clicked on the top Google hit for "diva" I've been entered into some database as a risk) -- and what we're talking about isn't what actually is gay, or even what appeals to gay people, but some idea of gayness. With a little bit of "You know, that is completely homoerotic if you think about it for half a second" which pretty much applies to all manly straight-guy-identified sports (see link in 9 again). I mean, can we really cite wrestling as evidence that tights aren't gay? But it certainly isn't gay-identified as far as an ignorant het in Lubbock knows.
*OK, why the fuck can't I find a picture of Susan Sarandon with a cello in The Witches of Eastwick?
pwned on wrestling, and it may be objected that the image I supplied didn't actually include tights, so. (And if you google image "wrestling tights" that is the first pro wrestling image.)
Opera singers may not be stereotyped as gay, but opera fandom is certainly gay-identified -- right?
News to me. I like some opera. If pressed, I would think of it as old-people identified.
And, I guess I am going to include my snark re: 37:
hence teaching being a "woman's" job (whereas professing, where the teachers aren't supposed to care about the audience but are supposed to unselfconsciously focus on the subject material, is a guy thing
Right, salary and the seriousness of the subject matter probably has nothing to do with it.
Something to quizzle y'all: Musicians and atheletes often self-identify as entertainers. (Especially when pressed about whether they're role models.) Yet, they are not "gay."
strikingly much less hott than the cowboys on ice thing, due to the chippendales-style mimicry catering to stipulated female (read, "inverted" male) desire. the actually gay cowboys on ice, making a straightforward appeal to gay sexuality, yields a result much hotter to the female viewer. nonetheless, still kinda hott. imagining the discomfort of the men in the stands makes it meta-hotter. plus, the hair thing--i was loving that. there was a lot of grreat Rrrussian soul.
I think it's the spectacle-ness that's getting coded as gay. If we think of the event against a background of similar spectacles, it doesn't seem gay. If, as with competitions, we think of it against a background of non-spectacle events, then it seems gay. Musicians - not necessarily gay. American Idol - gay. NBA dunk contests - kind of gay. NBA games - not gay. And so on.
NBA games are also in the "think about it for half a second" category.
62: The requirement was 'performance' and 'awareness of an audience'. That a classical musician has. If we want to add 'attention-drawing flamboyance' as a requirement, fine, but then we're moving away from 'must be feminine to perform' requirement.
Plus, gymnastics doesn't have a 'performance' component that requires 'connection with an audience'. It's exciting to watch, and the judging is subjective, but there's not an artistic score and no one cares what you're wearing (teams wear uniforms) or if you're smiling if you perform a triple back layout with a half twist.
65, 66: We don't just mean 'lame' or 'candyass', I think, when people say figure skating is 'gay'. Because people are always willing to describe the skater as gay. Even the silliest dunk contest or home-run contest is not going to make people think 'I don't want my son to play basketball, because people will think he's gay if he ends up in a dunk contest.'
New rule: everything's gay!
When you understand this, only then will you be truly free.
66: "I think it's the spectacle-ness that's getting coded as gay."
If true, then most heavy metal concerts would be coded as gay. And some acts have been known to wear tights. And then there's this.
I'm so confused. It appears that everything is indeed gay.
New rule: everything's gay!
Except sucking cock, right? 'Cause that's just a hobby.
DA:
AFAIK, the glam rock pseudo- heavy metal bands of the 80s, like Poison and Ratt, were considered pretty gay. Also, if the whole point of the event is the spectacle (as is true with some musicians, I think), then it doesn't get considered as gay. There is no obvious comparison forced upon the audience. But if you showed people a bunch of taped performances of metal bands and music with minimal spectacle (I know nothing about music, so I can't offer a comparison) and asked them to choose the "gay" performance, I bet a surprising number would choose the metal bands.
69: I think floor exercise does have a connect-with-the-audience component.
I was a gymnast as a kid and used to read about the sport obsessively. Back in the day, judges would in fact deduct points from a competitor for not smiling, and I remember a story about a gymnast whose leotard zipper broke during a routine, and that alone killed her chances at a medal.
Then again, I guess post-Comaneci, judges have stopped caring about smiles. Svetalana Khorkina was famously surly at the 2000 Olympics and it didn't seem to hurt her.
74: I think you're right. The floor exercises have a spectacle-ness to them: you always see the gymnasts smiling and doing that wierd back-arch think at either corner of the mat.
SCMT: considered gay by whom? I was fourteen around that time, and all the guys at school loved those bands. Wham was considered gay, and Culture Club -- not the hair metal bands.
As for bullfighting, I think, broadly speaking, there's a special dispensation made for Latins. I.e. in Latin cultures men are allowed/expected to be more flamboyant/self-consciously showy than their Northern European derived counterparts with no implied loss of manlilness. Look at dance styles, for instance.
The same is true, but in a different way, for African American men.
DA: Huh. I was about the same age, and no metal-head in my school would admit to liking those bands. And if they'd met your friends who loved 'em, they would have felt obligated to beat them up. Or (because they often weren't the largest guys in the school) make rude remarks about them behind their backs.
75: That's the female gymnasts. Guys don't smile, or do the back-arch thing, or perform to music. It's definitely a spectacle, and movements are intended to be aesthetically pleasing in addition to being powerful, but it's not a sport that these days, at least, involves playing to an audience.
(I'll agree that this is largely post-Nadia on the women's side. Being pretty and graceful and flexible paled next to a kid pushing the athleticism.)
69: I'm suggesting an amendment to bphd's original suggestion in 37; it's projecting self-conscious awareness of the audience that is making people say "gay!" Turning your back on the audience like Miles Davis shows as much awareness of the audience as making eyes at it, but it signifies lack of indifference to the audience. This does not help us account for Mick Jagger (or Terrell Owens), though.
About gymnastics, isn't the issue partly that the sport is female-identified? Similarly for figure skating; the biggest stars in both [judging by the "I can think of their names" criterion] are women.
This does not help us account for Mick Jagger (or Terrell Owens), though.
Clarify, please.
SCMT: I grew up in southern Ontario, in a city that, to this day, seems stuck in 1983; it's quite possible those bands were more popular there than elsewhere.
80: "it's projecting self-conscious awareness of the audience that is making people say "gay!""
Why isn't stand-up comedy coded "gay"? It's a performance, and the performer projects self-conscious awareness of the audience. Or does this only hold for singing and dancing?
Mick Jagger self-consciously plays to the audience. Terrell Owens, with his touchdown celebrations for instance, also self-consciously plays to the audience. Neither gets called gay in the way that figure skaters and actors do.
Except sucking cock, right? 'Cause that's just a hobby.
Hobbies are totally gay.
Why isn't stand-up comedy coded "gay"?
That's a good question; I'm trying to take the things that are making people say "gay" and see what they have in common. Maybe it's that standup comics don't project awareness of the audience as people who are watching them, but usually engage them more or less directly? A difference between showing off for someone's gaze and talking back at them. So stagediving wouldn't be coded as gay either.
Standup comedy also strikes me as pretty macho and homophobic a lot of the time, FWIW.
Beneath this all is the fundamental question of why do we care; maybe "everything's gay!" is the best rule to follow.
I.e. in Latin cultures men are allowed/expected to be more flamboyant/self-consciously showy than their Northern European derived counterparts with no implied loss of manlilness.
I had the impression that in those cultures a man can have sex with other men with no implied loss of manliness, as long as he's never the "receptive" partner.
Time for Unfogged's most popular link again!
Except sucking cock, right? 'Cause that's just a hobby.
Hobbies are totally gay.
According to the Onion, blowjoblessness is an important economic issue , not just a hobby. Further, having your cock sucked apparently is not gay.
The morning star is gay.
The evening star is gay.
I had the impression that in those cultures a man can have sex with other men with no implied loss of manliness, as long as he's never the "receptive" partner.
No, SB, it's probably just that the language barrier prevented you from realizing the locals were constantly referring to you as "The Prissy One".
Seriously though, apparently the standard of "only the fuckee is gay" used to be the case in the States too up until about the mid-twentieth century, at least in major cities. Whether or how this might be related to immigrant populations from Latin countries, I don't know.
Wow, you guys are way behind on that video. That kid got famous with that 3 years ago and is on tv all the time now.
81: Duh, that's what I was saying. It's not performance that's feminine as much as male participation in a strongly female identified sport. Female-identified sports do indeed incorporate a fair amount of performance/audience connection. But I think the 'gayness' follows from teh exclusive girly, not from teh performance. And the tights.
OT -- I was wondering how much it sucks to be an American man. I'm a woman. I can dress colorfully one day, in black the next. Femme one day, and butch (well, as butch as I get) the next. Earrings? Long hair? Short hair? All okay. Nail polish? If I feel like it. Make-up? If I feel like it.
And if I were in an office where I had to dress conservatively and judging from work experience, wear too much make-up, dye my hair, and get my nails done, I'd feel like that was sort of limiting. Not seriously so, but I'd notice it.
Do you guys feel trapped by it not being acceptable for straight guys to wear lots of different clothing styles, or does it not occur to you? This is just curiosity. An attempt to understand the male mind.
Sorry, I'd forgotten about 54. As for, do I find this limiting: Personally, no. I mean, I never think, "I'd like to be wearing some other kinds of clothes than the ones I'm being forced into by this role," except perhaps when life forces me to put on a suit, and in those situations women have a much more difficult negotiating job I think. My sartorial pitfalls I think run much more to "dorky" than to "gay" anyway. That's not to say that I don't get annoyed by gender expectations in other ways (NB), this just happens to be one where my ox is less gored.
I also don't have any problems with my lack of sartorial choice; in fact, I prefer to have my range of clothes limited so I don't have to expend much energy on what I wear. And being an American man really doesn't suck nearly as much as I imagine being anything else would.
I notice that everyone's been tactfully avoiding musical theater here.
And, Matt, I really question how great a gap there is between "dorky" and "gay" in male fashion. Arguably, "gay" represents a refined aestheticization of the same qualities that would seem "dorky" with a lower production budget.
Granted, not all "dorky" qualities can transcend into "gay," but at least some of them do. The same fedoras that look ridiculous on pimply teenagers can become hott on well-groomed 40 year-olds. That too-tight pair of jeans on a dorky teen chess-club champion can become, with a little styling and lighting, a major turn-on, as long as there's some underlying je ne sais quoi for the sex-modistes to work with.
Capes, however, can almost never become hott; some dorky is too dorky.
Capes, however, can almost never become hott; some dorky is too dorky.
I recently learned that my paternal grandfather had an opera cape, and top hat, etc. My bet is that he looked stylin' when he stepped out in the 30s or whenever.
The same fedoras that look ridiculous on pimply teenagers can become hott on well-groomed 40 year-olds.
One of the things I miss about Chicago is the relatively large number of hatted men one saw.
The cape is not a men's fashion that is likely to be reinstored. We may mourn this, but it seems to be definitive. I had a cape-like wrap once, a vintage 1960s thing with cute armholes. The night I wore it out with my bag draped over my shoulder and unsecured (because, you know, putting it under my capelet would have ruined the line), a helmeted motorcyclist ripped it right off. The cape=not practical for modern life.
But I bet you looked good in it! Isn't the lesson here that you were carrying too much?
Only the keys to my apartment and my passport.
There's actually a funny follow-up part to that story. See, I'd thrown the cape over little bits of nothing to take stealth nudie pictures in touristic parts of Paris. So when the bag was stolen and my roommate and I were effectively locked out, we went to the police station to file a report, got a police escort home (because my address was in my bag), and then the cops looked up my cape as I scaled the metal grillework to break into the apartment with a high heel. "C'est du spiderman!" they exclaimed.
The story of how to get a US passport replaced in a foreign country when you have no convincing ID will wait for another day.
So yeah: the cape was cute, but I decided it wasn't quite practical for me and gave it to a friend.
The only good Mormon's a Jack Mormon.
Re 103: Tia, I think the gauntlet has been thrown.
Did I ever tell you about the time I was traveling through Northern Africa on a camel, but had forgotten to bring underwear, and a local sheik taught me how to fashion them out of the leaves of a date palm? No?
Palm leaves? Stiff. Scratchy. Sharp.
103: Jackmormon is the hero!
Stiff. Scratchy. Sharp.
Just like Tia!
That's not how your mother described me last night, M/tch.
Yeah, she added "boring", I was just trying to be polite (as is my wont).
