a beautiful picture. Even though it won't get me wearing designer white brief pants. Let me explain. I don't spend too much money on things like underwear and I imagine Armani won't come cheap. Briefs are uncomfortable. I feel all sweaty and achy after an hour or two stiched into them. Also, white is just not practical.
Culturally this is quite an intersting image. Not so much in itself- it is just a bloke in well fitted underwear. But that it made the front page of The Sun, with the headline SwollenBalls. This is the first time in my memory that a semi naked man has been on the front cover of a tabloid, as far as I remember. Admittedly though I am not a regular reader of the tabloids so I could well be wrong. It all goes to show the increase in the cult of male beauty.
A little bit on the semanology (or should that be semenology) of white underwear too. White makes us look pure and divine at the same time. So basically it makes you gives off a classical virginal aura, which works against the carnal temptation of the flesh. A saucy juxtaposition. But this kind of unbridled encouragement of male lust is quite a new thing in dominant popular culture. It is usually pushed back in an effort to repress homosexuality, and keep women in their place. Heterosexuality is widely applauded though, and jeered on with photos of nude women at all angles. And as feminists have been saying for years it encourages the objectification and commodification of the body. As this trend develops expect more young men to have surgery and take steroids.
I'm not going to pontificate further on this. As I don't really care. Also because, as I read somewhere else, media analysis is the most pointless passtime in the world, save knitting.
Meanwhile, thanks to throughball for this, buy some of Beckham's half eaten food. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Antiques-collectables/Food-drink/Other/auction-130249060.htm
