PEOPLE Magazine has done it again. Last month they revealed this year's "Sexiest Man Alive"...John Krasinski. And, Brittany and the hosts of the Who Weekly podcast, Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, are not satisfied. The three of them get into the disconnect between who Hollywood thinks is hot versus who the internet is thirsting after. All with the mission of answering: what makes someone sexy in our year 2024?Support public media and receive ad-free listening & bonus content by joining NPR+ today: https://plus.npr.org/Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What are the reactions to John Krasinski being named Sexiest Man Alive?
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. Okay, first things first. What is your reaction to John Krasinski is this year's sexiest man alive? Okay. People Magazine has done it again. Last month, they released their annual Sexiest Man Alive issue.
And John Krasinski has been crowned the sexiest man alive. Yes, the guy who is most famous for being your average good guy on NBC's The Office 15 years ago. That guy is 2024's hottest man. I'm completely unsurprised.
I want to say that I was shocked and appalled. But after you think about it for one second, you're like, that makes perfect sense.
The person checking me out at the register was like, this pic has been very controversial.
Wait, that's funny. Oh, my God. She's like, you're buying this?
What? I know what you're thinking. John Krasinski? Controversial? He's so inoffensive. Well, that is the offensive part. It's not that he's not considered hot. I just haven't really heard his name in any conversations about sexy men this year. Sexiness has actually never really been part of his public persona.
This pic left me and the co-hosts of Who Weekly, Bobby Finger and Lindsay Weber, wondering how there could be such a disconnect between who the internet is thirsting for and who Hollywood is pushing. Has Hollywood lost the plot on who's hot when they try to appeal to all of us at once? And are we maybe actually living in an era where niche sexiness is more relevant than mass appeal?
Today, I'm revisiting my conversation with Lindsay and Bobby about who Hollywood thinks is sexy. We're breaking down some of this year's objects of male desire and the forces behind why you think they're quote unquote sexy. Because who you think is sexy isn't always determined by you. Hi.
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Chapter 2: Why is there a disconnect between Hollywood's choices and internet preferences?
Thanks for having us back for such a good reason.
Yes. Oh, the best reason. I'm not going to necessarily name names from the past few years, but I think we can all agree that some of the recent Sexiest Man Alive picks are people who don't necessarily feel culturally relevant for their sexiness that year. But also like over the past like 40 years, I mean, there's only ever been four black men named Sexiest Man Alive.
And one biracial black and Pacific Islander man who is The Rock. All the rest of them were white. Even in this year's issue of the 12 men who actually gave interviews and had little featurettes, eight are white, including John Krasinski on the cover. Three are black and one is of mixed Latino, Middle Eastern, European heritage.
I mean, it's not the most diverse bunch and not really a reflection of who our culture actually finds hot and who they're talking about.
Chapter 3: How have diversity issues in the Sexiest Man Alive picks evolved?
No. It also seems like a thing that people doesn't really seem to care about. They get scrutiny every single year for these reasons, but they don't really ever change anything. But why do you have to pick someone so boring? The more I think about it, the weirder it seems.
Yeah. Idris Elba, who was it a few years ago, is actually really a great pick. It's like, because he has a swag and he knows that he's sexy and has played into the idea of being sexy in various funny ways.
He's been in sexy movies. John Krasinski has not been in sexy movies.
Right. No, he's not been in anything sexy before. Exactly. I also, another thought that we've been having on our team about this is, where sexiness kind of is in entertainment right now. It's kind of missing. I mean, a study found that since the year 2000, the amount of sex and nudity in films has decreased by almost 40%. So sad.
A number of picks for sexiest man in the last decade have been Marvel stars where, you know, no sex is famously the vibe. We're in an era culturally where there's perhaps less of an erotic charge to some of our hot actors because of the decrease in sex on screen. How do you think that affects who we see as sexy?
I mean, half the guys on this list of past people, Sexiest Man Alive, were selling rom-coms or rom-droms at the time of their sexiest crowning. I'm looking at this covers through the years and I see Patrick Swayze. I'm like, yeah, like these were the guys that were like the swoony romantic leads. But it makes sense if they're selling a sexy movie to do that. And we have not as many of those.
So it does make sense to me, sadly.
I miss sexy movies.
You scroll through the Sexiest Man Alive cover list on people's website, and it's like, throughout the 90s, it's like, oh, right, when movies were sexy. And as you scroll up, and then you get to, like, Blake Shelton, it's like, I think we've lost the plot.
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Chapter 4: What trends are we seeing in the portrayal of sexiness in movies?
But it's hard to deal with that because then you see across the whole internet memes about Jeremy Allen White, who I would argue that everyone's kind of like, he's not traditionally sexy, but he's so sexy. And I'm kind of like, we all agree.
We all agree. I see a lot more people finding Jeremy Allen White sexy and opining about his sexiness than I do see about someone like Ryan Reynolds who checks all the traditional boxes. Yes.
Ugh. I mean, I think because it's a visual medium, they're going for photos, they're going for a specific look, a specific traditional cover story.
I understand that definitely they're looking for a certain type of square-jawed, crew-cutted, white American sex appeal. Or maybe not even sex appeal, but just attractiveness. But also sometimes when they choose those left-of-center picks... They're still not guys that women would necessarily find appealing. So sad.
Okay, let's talk about some of the guys that audiences, the internet, and our group chats have actually been thirsting over this year. Let's talk about these rat boys for a second, okay? For those who don't know, this summer the internet fell in love with dudes who the internet says maybe look a little rodent-esque in a cartoon mouse kind of way. Again, this is not my definition.
This is what the streets were saying, okay? The two Challengers stars Mike Feist and Josh O'Connor, along with Barry Keoghan and Timothee Chalamet. I would say that a lot of these guys have a different look than the sort of like usual male American stars, like all American jock charm. What do you think people are finding erotic about the rat boy archetype?
Well, the projects that they're in, for one thing.
Yes.
Challengers is a sexy movie.
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Chapter 5: What is the 'rat boy' archetype and why is it gaining popularity?
Dev Patel takes off his shirt to shower and everyone starts watching him and kind of cheering. And I'm like, movies aren't sexy anymore. We don't have sexy stuff anymore. And it was like, oh, they're leaning into this fun, sexy stuff that used to be prevalent everywhere. And it was such a fun throwback.
I went to a press screening, okay? I went to a press screening. There were serious critics, all this stuff, to go see Monkey Man. People were screaming when Dev Patel took off his shirt. Fully rocked. People who were there in a professional context were screaming when he took off his shirt.
He directed himself in that. He was like, you're going to film my body this way. It's just like, that's fun.
Exactly. I still kind of feel like we're in a place with Hollywood where – AAPI men are kind of lumped together or kind of pushed to the margins. Like I think about like Shogun was one of the biggest shows of last year. And this is like an Emmy winning show.
A bunch of Emmys.
Yeah. Yes, exactly. And also had a lot of hot guys on it. And they were not necessarily mainstreamed.
All you have to do is watch Shogun to be like, oh, this is a show filled with sexy people. Why isn't it getting that coverage? And that's like just something that's going to be happening in legacy media forever.
Yeah. Again, I kind of feel like with Dev Patel, as somebody who's done everything from a popular teen drama to some of the most critically acclaimed films of the past 10 years, if a white actor had done that, the response by Hollywood platforming this guy would have been way different than it was for Dev Patel. Totally.
And that's almost why I think that Monkey Man was an even bigger deal because in a way it almost feels like Dev Patel is asserting this aspect of himself that like a lot of people refuse to acknowledge or celebrate. And he's like, I'm gonna have to take it into my own hands and direct a movie where I get to like tell everyone that I am sexy and I want to be called sexy.
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Chapter 6: How does the context of a role affect perceptions of sexiness?
Yeah, I think that's a very good point about people's sexiest man alive list. Essentially still being a legacy media project and legacy media is going to project and protect the things that legacy media holds dear. And a lot of that is shaped by white supremacist beauty standards. I mean, at the end of the day, people is going to people. People is going to people.
People is going to John Krasinski. Yeah. Yeah.
All right, all right. Lindsay, Bobby, and I are turning to daddies next. You know, Idris Elba and Pedro Pascal. And looking at how the gay male gaze went mainstream. More sexy men after a quick break. Okay, so I want to talk about daddies now. You know, George Clooney, Chris Maloney, Idris Elba. I wonder, like, what's going on? What's going on with the hot daddies?
What's going on with the hot daddies? The internet sexualizes daddy in a really fun way that I'm not sure people is willing to contend with.
Yeah. I mean, People Magazine, they are going for daddies because they do love to be like, this father is a good father. They don't mean daddy in that way. That's what I'm saying is like, they don't even see that. Like, that's not a category for them in Sexy Man. They're saying like, we're just going for like someone who's a good family man.
Right. Like John Krasinski, as he talked about in his interview. Who's not daddy, but is a father. Yeah.
Even though they will put a daddy in the list without ever really referring to him as a daddy.
Yeah. Well, also, daddy is like gay terminology. And let's get some more gay guys on the list. Because guess who's going to love being called sexy and being objectified? That's right. A sexy gay guy.
That's why I'm looking at the- Put Luke Evans on the cover. You know?
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Chapter 7: Who are the hot guys of 2024 that the internet is obsessed with?
Perhaps, you know, this person who's a daddy to you has a little more money or more experience, but also perhaps more body hair or a more dominant presence or a more pronounced brand of masculinity. Yeah. I wonder... Is our cultural sexiness sonar changing? Are our tastes in sexiness shifting at all? Not if you look at the people.
If you don't look at people, if you don't look at the people cover, then I think yes. And I think that that's just, that's a factor of, you know, people casting not the same type of person in every single movie. And as long as that continues to happen, then I think that sexiness is going to, like, continue evolving or keeping up with, like,
what people actually like and what people actually, like, desire, you know? But if you only put Glenn Powell in every movie, then we're going to have a problem. Then, like, the sexiness reaches this kind of stasis. And I do think Glenn Powell is sexy. I don't mean to sound like I'm being mean to Glenn Powell. I think he's sexy.
No, you do not sound like you're being mean to Glenn Powell. How dare you be rude to Glenn Powell?
Imagine thinking you could be mean to Glenn Powell.
But what's great about the internet and the kind of like flattening of everybody weighing in is that even just a tweet can convince you somebody is sexy. Because if it's about context, somebody could tweet a funny tweet about Jacob Elordi being sexy in a certain way that gets you. It's like he always carries a book. That's sexy to me.
And like all of a sudden my perspective on this actor who maybe wasn't my
wasn't my thing oh he's too tall imagine saying that oh he's too tall all of a sudden he's sexy to me also you have your short king that is a that's an internet that's an internet creation the short king all right now Barry Keoghan who's a little short is now a short king now he's sexy it's just like it's just like a turn of even a turn of phrase can do it and that's why I think we're broadening because all I need to do is see a different context for somebody who I might not have liked before and all of a sudden I'm like fully on board right and it's just a matter of seeing that
it's the scrolling it's tiktok it's reels it's like yeah it's like if that thing isn't sexy to do do one to three flips and you will find something else that's sexy and like the next flick flick sorry it's just like one to three flicks and you will get something sexy in your feed because there's just like sexiness everywhere totally totally
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