A man named Harry Styles took his name in an unfortunately odd but literal way and posed in a woman’s dress, showing off his chest wisps on the front of a women’s fashion magazine. This being 2020, the story couldn’t simply end with an unsightly man in drag. It had to become something bigger.
For some self-styled avant-garde celebrities, this was a transgressive act that needed celebrating. “Our whole lives boys and men are told we need to be manly,” actor Zach Braff huffed. “Life is short. Be whatever the f— you want to be.”
This was mostly a response to tweets by liberal-Vogue-staffer-turned-Never-Trumper-turned-professional-Trumper Candace Owens. Owens hysterically called the magazine cover and the cross-dressing Styles spread inside an attack on masculinity.
Other tastemakers told the world they were bursting with “pride and adulation” for the singer and actor posing in a Gucci gown and blazer. Other celebrity dudes felt the need to don their own Gucci gowns in solidarity.
Millionaire celebrities in dresses, though, are not in need of defense. Nor is cross-dressing anywhere near subversive, avant-garde, or brave.
Shakespeare’s Rosalind and Viola might have raised eyebrows in their days. Dustin Hoffman didn’t need anyone to stand behind him in solidarity after Tootsie. Some Like It Hot wasn’t regaled as a cultural breakthrough.
Heck, Kurt Cobain, Rudy Giuliani, and countless famous men have dressed in drag. It’s a gag that goes back to whenever the toga went out of fashion. And androgyny has been thoroughly mainstream for the entire life of every living American — consider David Bowie, Prince, Annie Lennox, and Grace Jones.
It’s kind of funny to see Styles turned into something other than a celebrity in a fashion magazine by a desperate desire to make everything political. But it’s also sad to see people try to turn ordinary celebrity vanity into something either uniquely pernicious or stunningly bold and brave.
