Hello all,
A lot going on in these Hell Times but I thought today, a return to form: a roundup of some of the Goodest Boys of the week. And whoa boy (press L to soothe, yes I’ve been playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild)—the good boys are back.
Matt Damon stops saying slurs after his daughter writes him a treatise, then actually clarifies he never said the word to begin with.
But on this note, here’s an older newsletter about the press cycle / demand for celebrities to have “good takes” and/or somehow noble ethics simply because they are (maybe) in our favorite media.
Diane Keaton Posts Good Men Montage With Song
In a similar vein, I do not refresh Diane Keaton’s Instagram to see what she’s thinking about anything, ever, but holy shit this is so funny and strange.
Imagine Diane Keaton making this slideshow. Or asking someone to make this. Imagine Diane Keaton waking up and thinking, Today is the day I post my Good Men slideshow. Imagine Diane RECORDING THE BREATHY WHISPERING SONG THAT ACCOMPANIES THE GOOD MEN SLIDESHOW. Imagine her needing to clarify at the end that this list is not, in fact, exhaustive. Cooing an extremely haunting and definitely threatening: “BUT THERE’S MORE!” she implores us to remember there are other good men! Some of them might not even be famous! Diane, never stop!
To some commenters the “problem” with the Good Men video is that she included some duds like IDK Mel Gibson and neglected other Good Men. But I think that misses the point of how fucking funny the entire situation is. The making of the Good Men slide show is absolutely more essential to discussion here, in my humble opinion, versus whether the men she included were, in fact, Good Enough.
It’s also a lovely reminder to me and maybe you that though my work has definitely evolved, it has never simply been about men (read my book). At its core being a good boy is gender neutral.
The TV show “Sexy Beasts”
Speaking of how good boyness is quite broad—a theorem rather than static definition—here we see it in the wild applied to the Netflix dating show “Sexy Beasts.” Below, two prospective singles sit in a (real) horse driven carriage as they wear elaborate and truly incredible prosthetic makeup: one a dolphin, the other a rhino.
The premise of the show and attitude of the contestants is extremely good boy: they all want to move beyond the superficiality of online dating, a swipeable hellscape where aesthetics rule all, and instead connect as people—which fair enough. They are not like other singles, though. They alone will rise above the supposed hollowness of online connection by wearing truly incredible makeups that probably took 6-7 hours to apply. It is very much this:
But the premise folds in on itself in spectacular fashion: they are just like other singles on dating apps, swiping and griping and letting loosely informed judgements about the other—heavily swayed by suggested appearance—dictate their romantic pursuits. This is never so obvious as when a contestant is voted off, an occasion which demands their “unmasking” and glamorously reveals them to be, gasp, hot. Almost always the person who has sent them home will bemoan sending home someone who was in fact very hot. Woe is me, the Ghoul was a Goddess! I have regrets!
So yes, the show vaguely gestures at some sort of utopian appearance-neutral means in which to find connection, but lol, it doesn’t get there. Sure, you can’t see their faces. But literally all of the contestants are thin, none are visibly disabled that I can remember, and when the masks do come off, they are all very “conventionally” hot! These are all attractive people!
Obviously it’s a television show and the goal seems more about the hilarity of watching two heavily made-up animal-demon-people try to flirt with each other and also drink beers with their elongated snouts. But watching it was an amazing dissonance: these people are here for the right reasons, they need you to know this, which apparently means waiting a date or two before confirming they are dating a hot person. Alas, the costumes are nothing more than a trompe l'oeil of how hot they will be underneath their uncannily boring small talk, insight gleaned according to the very metrics that plague most dating apps.
Poetry
I will not elaborate.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo releases his best performance piece yet (lest you forget Mask Wall, or that time he wrote a book about his superb leadership during Covid whilst his constituents were still dying of Covid): a video slash spoken word poem “defense” in response to numerous accusations of sexual harassment in which he argues he inappropriately touches everyone, actually. It is all very upsetting so I will not go into detail but this video is…something else. Definitely reads like someone who didn’t do the things he’s accused of!
To my Sweet Subs I will be back in your inboxes soon with some reading recommendations, an update on my adventures in video gaming, and maybe an illustrated Love Island explainer. It’s fine, we’re doing fine. If you want my thoughts on other things too, feel free to subscribe and send me an email :)
Here’s my dog:
Lots of love,
Shelby + Clem