




Although Esquire surely added the category just for fun, how many of us haven't thought the exact same thing about the Titanic superstar? It's not as if DiCaprio is out there wearing lipstick and teetering on Manolos, but he's certainly femme enough to turn men's heads (while, oddly enough, being a sex symbol to an adoring female public).

What's going on here? Have we Queer-Eyed ourselves to the point that gender distinctions don't matter? Have American men metrosexualized themselves to the stage that little Lord Fauntleroys are the new "it" boys? Have we reached the time when a man in a dress (and full-on makeup) isn't shocking or the least bit mirthful?



Katz, like the other straight-up dudes on He's a Lady, isn't the cross-dressing type. But he should never underestimate the broad appeal of guys in skirts, for men who veer purposefully into womanly realms.

Shtick such as Uncle Miltie, Some Like it Hot, Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire has always been good for wholesome laughs. But what does one make of this month's W magazine, in which couture fashions are put on male models instead of female? Or the MAC cosmetics ads showing a dandy gent sporting over-the-top maquillage? Or the dazzling countenance of a dolled-up Billy Crudup in the period film Stage Beauty, in which the handsome actor plays the most beautiful "actress" in England?






"When all this [metrosexualization] started, it had already gone too far. It's the mainstreaming of certain things that have been relegated to homosexual activity. An increase in male vanity? Any quick glance of history will tell you that men have been vain as long as they've been men," says Hyman, a former Vanity Fair staffer who has written for The New York Times and The New York Observer.


"It feels more acceptable for a guy to watch pro football on a Sunday afternoon" after having shopped in the morning for "a mid-century design Danish chair," he said. "Men's interests have expanded, and that's positive. We're jocks and brutes, but now we're moisturized, feminized, emasculated? I don't think it's that. It's not either/or."



Maybe this trend toward girly men is a good thing. Or not.

"What's happening is that we're indoctrinating men into some of the bad things women are forced to do. Men didn't have drawers filled with beauty products. Now instead of liberating women, we're simply bringing men into that same situation," Thompson says.

"After Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, guys have to think a lot more about what they look like and smell like. The good news is that they put the toilet seat down more often. The bad news is that they have to wear product."


Neither are we. But doesn't DiCaprio make one hot chick?

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