Where Did All the Harrison Fords Go?
Wake up, babe, a "new era for masculinity" just dropped.
Last week, I came across one photo from a People column called “Vintage StarTracks. The photo shouldn’t have taken me by surprise… but it did. Vintage StarTracks hashes out some regular “This Week in [X Year]” throwback content, giving modern viewers a glimpse into a bygone era.
For a spiritually “old soul” Zoomer like myself, I relish in any opportunity to see what the world looked like before I was born. It’s a world that, for many reasons, I wish was still around. But, I digress…
The photo in question was taken in March of 1981 and Harrison Ford could be seen wearing only a small swimsuit and lounging poolside while soaking in some Southern California sun. Why did this photo stand out to me?
Well, he looked really, stupidly normal.
Normal amount of body fat. Normal amount of muscle. Normal facial features. Normal hair style. Normal swimsuit.
In comparison to Ford’s healthy physique, today’s Hollywood heartthrobs have biceps, quads, and abs that look like they’ve been inflated by a regular regiment of performance-enhancing drugs and a bodybuilder’s workout routine.
Think: Henry Cavill, Mark Wahlberg, Jason Momoa, Michael B. Jordan, or any of the Marvel Chris’s (Hemsworth, Evans, and even Pratt too).
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with their impressive, modern physiques, but just seeing Ford – a leading man of his day – unclothed and unbothered while looking like a normal dude really put something into perspective...
We can and should talk day in and day out about how unfair female body standards are: body image role models for women have disproportionately large bums and unbelievably slim waists, perky breasts but thin arms, and their facial features are wide, defined, and upswept.
It’s almost impossible to achieve unless a woman has won the biological lottery, or if she has oodles of cash to spend on breast augmentations or lifts, Sculptra body filler, liposuction, eyebrow lifts, eyelid surgery, face lifts, Botox… I mean the list could go on.
But we also really need to address how unfair male body standards have quietly, yet quickly become. Those standards have underreported consequences.
Look, diet and exercise is only one piece of this puzzle. Henry Cavill, allegedly, is happy to eat the same regimented meals every day, work out hard, and do it all with a wake-up time around 4AM.
But his hard work in the gym or his great dietary habits don’t change the fact that he was blessed with a beautiful face. Additionally, his body might just be one that puts on muscle more easily and has such a strong metabolism that he can keep excess weight off while others struggle to stay remotely slim.
Men in Hollywood used to look a lot less “pretty.”
Their noses were more prominent. Their brow-ridge was thicker. Their foreheads had wrinkles. Oh, and the corners of their eyes too.
Their look was less like Harry Styles or Zac Efron and way more like Clint Eastwood and Dean Martin, generally speaking. There were some “pretty boys,” like James Dean or Marlon Brando, but I’d even dispute how “pretty” they were.
Just look back at any pictures of Sean Connery, Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Omar Sharif, Robert Redford… in comparison, a good portion of today’s male celebrities have either naturally have more feminine facial features or they’ve undergone cosmetic surgeries and procedures.
The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) puts out annual reports for surgical and non-surgical procedures and what was uncovered with their most recent global survey might shock you.
It’s not just women who hate how they look, male body dysmorphia is REAL.
For men, the top five surgical procedures were…
Liposuction (365,935 procedures)
Eyelid surgery (312,950 procedures)
Gynecomastia (305,340 procedures)
Rhinoplasty (239,971 procedures)
Fat grafting - face (126,493 procedures)
For men, the top five non-surgical procedures were…
Botulinum toxin AKA Botox (1,370,495 procedures)
Hyaluronic Acid aka dermal fillers (571,260 procedures)
Hair removal (281,036 procedures)
Chemical peel (142,752 procedures)
Non-surgical fat reduction (136,650 procedures)
But then, when you dig deeper into the sex-based distribution for certain cosmetic procedures, further – and more puzzling – body image issues are revealed.
103,678 men got an abdominoplasty. 112,450 underwent ear surgery. 55,812 got buttock augmentation (implants and fat transfer) and 10,164 got buttock lifts. 13,012 had thigh lifts. 88,089 got face lifts. And finally, 69,902 got brow lifts.
While some of these procedures were undoubtedly meant to correct physical abnormalities or defects – like ear pinning which is pretty common to correct protruding ears – the top procedures correlate almost perfectly with Hollywood’s ideal male body.
And that image of male beauty isn’t necessarily a standard that men should aspire toward.
Men who are lean, with a healthy amount of muscle, tend to be the most attractive from the female gaze. There’s certainly nothing wrong with a guy wanting to get absolutely jacked in the gym, but too much muscle can be a bit of a turn-off.
Apparently, Chris Hemsworth’s own wife Elsa Pataky wasn’t into how beefy he got in order to play Thor.
"My wife was like, 'Bleh, it's too much,'" Hemsworth said in a 2022 interview with USA Today. "There are a lot of my male friends who are like, 'Yeah!' but a lot of female friends and family are like, 'Yuck.'"
Not all women, but some, would also tell you that the bodybuilder aesthetic reflects poorly on a man’s character – indicating feminine levels of neuroticism over his body image. This obsession over musculature could be perceived as shallow, egotistical, and self-centered.
As I wrote in an article for Evie earlier this year about scientific reasons why women might actually want a “tall, dark, and handsome” man:
‘Roided-up figures really cater more toward the male gaze, and, in my opinion, suggest feminine degrees of neuroticism about appearance. Hypermasculinity may win points for men among men, but ask any woman you know if she’d rather settle down with a Mr. Olympia or a far-less muscular Chris Pratt, and I’d wager she’d pick the latter.
Behavioral ecologist Macken Murphy has debunked some male beauty standards that wrongfully inflate preferences beyond our actually modest tastes. Some people may point to one-off evolutionary psychology studies when they say that women are attracted to protectors and providers – but we just don’t live in high-stakes, dangerous conditions like our ancestors used to.
Furthermore, too much muscle might indicate that a man has heightened levels of testosterone. This, in turn, could communicate to a woman that he is prone to hostile, aggressive, or outright abusive behavior.
Hours spent in the gym can’t change a man’s face, however.
Male interest in plastic surgery has been on the rise, and one plastic surgery clinic posted a blog detailing reasons why. They attribute this change to men wanting a competitive edge in their workplace, looking like the age they feel, and even wanting their own shot at the infamous “Mommy Makeover” called the “Daddy Do-Over.”
Some surgeries may enhance masculinity, like gynecomastia or male breast reduction or liposuction to their love handles. But I found it curious that surgeries which are otherwise quite feminizing, like eyelid surgery, dermal fillers, facial fat grafting, face lifts, brow lifts, and Botox were gaining popularity among men.
Could women be to blame for this new, male facial beauty standard?
Studies have shown that women on hormonal birth control prefer less masculine faces and as we know, rates of hormonal birth control are higher now than ever before. Are our weakened preferences contributing to decreased standards for masculine beauty?
One one side of the token, you have hypermasculine standards a la Chris Hemsworth. On the other side of the token, you have feminine standards a la male Kpop stars. As a kid who grew up chronically online, my interest in anime quickly translated into the Kpop industry. I got into Kpop pre-Gangnam Style and the major “Hallyu” wave.
From my perspective, the evolution of male beauty standards for Kpop stars has nosedived dramatically. The first few generations of male Kpop idols (the 90s and through the 2000s) still had masculine features. They were taller, muscular (but in that Harrison Ford way), had stronger jawlines, and so on.
The more recent waves of male Kpop idols now look willowy and almost dainty, are shorter, have less muscle, have had their jawlines shaved into a v-shape, and have undergone countless other feminizing facial procedures.
Sure, cultural norms are changing, but it would appear that there’s a perfect storm of shifting norms that encourage men to either adopt a more extreme masculine look, or feminize themselves.
It’s not just South Korea where we’re seeing the rise of “flowerboys” and “soft masculinity,” Vogue put it well when they said that men like Timothée Chalamet are “ushering in a new era for masculinity.” While the soft boy aesthetic might just be a niche, role models like these can have a major influence on a man’s mental health.
Some surveys suggest that over one quarter of adult men regularly struggle with their own body image. One study from 2021 suggested that men are more likely than women to display signs of body dysmorphic disorder.
I’m not saying that we need the male equivalent of the “body positivity movement,” but I just wish that normal male bodies could be seen as the standard again.
Where did all the Harrison Fords go? I know they’re out there somewhere, despite how hard Hollywood wants us to believe otherwise.
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