I always liked
Tom Ford. He's, as far as fashion designers go, both hunky and creative artsy-fartsy, but the new
Vanity Fair thing is just so tacky. Salon's Rebecca Traister
correctly points out the weird ego trip that Tom takes us on, in which he, an openly gay man, makes all his women go naked and his men wear polite suits, but maybe it takes a gay man to see the horrific misogyny in Ford's Hollywood issue.
Gay men are often adored by straight women because we listen to their problems and have a nice take on those flats you want to buy, but the reality is that gay men have no need for women and have very little problem objectifying them.
Sex and the City might have the gals believing that their gay bff's are pretty token accessories, but— how to put this delicately, the runway goes bo ways, sweetie. Gay men are not the sweet, sensitive guys you make them out to be. They are, in my experience, more masculine, more competitive and more Alpha Male in their attitude then most straight guys. The gay male obsession with making women beautiful is not, I think, some deep seated love of the female form, but rather an attempt to control, restrict and define the woman as the object of the man; the woman as blank canvas, essentially.
Tom Ford's spread in Vogue doesn't really advance this truth so much as crystalize it into fine relief. I suppose what amazes me most is that somehow he managed to keep it unerotic in the process. I mean, geez Tom, if you're going to
make Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson your little bitches, at least have some fucking fun with it.
I always liked Tom Ford. He's, as far as fashion designers go, both hunky and creative artsy-fartsy, but the new Vanity Fair thing is just so tacky. Salon's Rebecca Traister correctly points out the weird ego trip that Tom takes us on, in which he, an openly gay man, makes all his women go naked and his men wear polite suits, but maybe it takes a gay man to see the horrific misogyny in Ford's Hollywood issue.
