2017 has been an astonishingly depressing year. The federal government is a roving omnishambles. As bad as things look in the United States, the situation is arguably worse abroad,...
| |  | | | | Alyssa Rosenberg on culture and politics | | | | | | This June 7, 2016, photo shows Blake Shelton performing at the 12th Annual Stars for Second Harvest Benefit at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP) | 2017 has been an astonishingly depressing year. The federal government is a roving omnishambles. As bad as things look in the United States, the situation is arguably worse abroad, from escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula to the resurgence of the far-right in Europe. The reckoning with a culture of sexual harassment and sexual assault currently taking place is important and long overdue, but also exhausting and miserable to wade through. Which is why recently, I’ve found a great deal of comfort in the silliest controversy of the year: the heated debate over People magazine’s choice of country singer Blake Shelton as the Sexiest Man Alive. I do not, personally, find Blake Shelton particularly sexy. I think Luvvie Ajayi is basically right when she says “Shelton … has the sort of face that is a copy and paste job. Like, on the day God was putting him together, God was all ‘Oh wow. It’s the Sabbath already. I should be resting.’ And then He copied the face of like 500 other people he had made and VOILA! Blake’s face happened.” There’s also the fact that he maybe has a tendency to say things that come across as racist or homophobic. I don’t have an enormous stake in who is the Sexiest Man Alive. After all, the whole thing is a shtick to sell magazines. No matter how much we disapprove, we’ll only have to live with Blake Shelton as Sexiest Man Alive for a year, unlike some other features of our current reality. But after all the bitter, bruising arguments of the past several years, it’s absolutely a relief to argue over what makes a man sexy rather than Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, or how Harvey Weinstein got away with it for so long, or the president’s inability to forthrightly condemn white supremacists, or the fact that no one seems to be able to make Roy Moore just go away. It’s a reminder of the fact that some day, we may be able to resolve some of these awful tensions currently wracking our national life, and go back to actual idiocy. It’s a kerfuffle from a better time. And as absolutely dumb as it is, I’m grateful for it. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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