Salon/Tina Brown: Arnold and the boys

[Raster]

A strange new convergence: Terminator candidates in a "Queer Eye" culture.

Aug. 14, 2003 | I came back to the States from my holiday in England to find the nation in celebrity carnival mode. London may be convulsed by the Hutton report, but in America it doesn't even register. Over here, the media Mardi Gras began with the sexual-assault accusation against the sloe-eyed superstar Kobe Bryant, which sent every TV crew in America on a camping trip to a Colorado courtroom. In quick succession we got Mike Tyson going bankrupt, Jennifer and Ben hitting the rocks, and the break-out phenomenon of the cable TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," in which five flamers move in on a hapless hetero like a swish SWAT team to give him a lifestyle makeover. It was a 24-7 tsunami of trash even before Arnold Schwarzenegger made his bombshell announcement on the "Tonight Show" that he would run for "Guffner uff de grade stade of Cullifornia." At which point in my house, we shut the TV down and debated something more substantive. The new craze for low-slung, mid-butt-clinging jeans worn by popschlock cover stars: for or against? The consensus here: We like Paris Hilton showing her navel, but feel tragic about Britney Spears' newly flaunted aft-end cleavage.

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/brown/2003/08/14/arnold/index.html

[realFedUp]

1. amusing.

summerfaire.