Every so often, an aesthetic. Last summer there was talk of the return of the ‘indie sleaze’ aesthetic, that lanky man profile that promoted problematic idols like Pete Doherty many years ago. At the end of 2023 we analyze the shabby rich, that man so powerful and privileged that he can be completely free to dress and has given us unspeakable images of Adam Sandler, Justin Bieber or Pete Davidson. This constant praise of masculine aesthetics that escape normativity (muscles, suit or neatness, men dressed to conquer either a partner or a mother) makes it clear that the canons of masculine beauty are moldable and, above all, They are always willing to exploit any particularity or deviation to make them something attractive, turn them into a trend and, because the world is the world, make it profitable.
The latest example of this dynamic is the boom of ‘hot rodent men‘, that is, men with a mouse-like appearance, a label that the international press (from The Independent to CNN via The New York Times) uses to praise the appearance of figures such as Timothée Chalamet, Barry Keoghan, Jeremy Allen White, Mike Faist or Josh O’Connor.
When a user came across an image of the protagonist of Challengers In the midst of promoting the film, his words made it clear that the phenomenon of men with the appearance Ratatouille It is not a mere invention of the media. “He looks like a mouse that has a big heart and has become a prince,” said the Internet user. Why the rodent comparison? These men have big ears, big noses, small eyes, dazed expressions, seemingly small bodies (although they can also be gym creatures and underwear campaign gods). And at the same time as all that, they are authentic sex symbols. Far from being ugly, they represent a new way of being handsome. Coincidence or not, this comparison coincides with a moment in which all types of rodent animals (from chinchillas to capybaras or capybaras) are triumphing on the Internet and raising sighs for their clueless beauty. Social media never disappoints.
The Dating Trends 2023 analysis of the dating platform Bumble ruled that one of the most popular trends in the dating world is the so-called open casting, a formal and fine way of the very classic and Spanish wide sleeve. This implies meeting people other than the type we normally look for and, according to surveys, 38% of Spanish singles are today more open to meeting people who move away from their usual tastes. And the zeitgest seems to support the cause with the rise of a whole host of new stars who have that call somethingthat he ne sais quoithat He is not handsome but he is interesting (and let’s not fool ourselves either: if the Hollywood industry elevates you as a sex symbol, the chances are that you’re hot and that’s it, even if it’s not in the manner of Brad Pitt or Chris Hemsworth).
As Alex Abad-Santos wrote on the American website Vox When talking about how dad bod or body fofisanowhich describes the physique of men characterized by their “beer belly” and of which Leonardo DiCaprio was once the great patron saint, is one more way of inviting society to applaud unworked male bodies (although some hot rodent men, they do have sculpted bodies, like Jeremy Allen White, who has been the image of Calvin Klein men’s underwear). “Historically, beauty pressure has been worse on women while men’s appearance was less important than their economic value. I think the ‘rodent hot man’ concept perpetuates it, because it continues to invite us to praise a type of non-normative male beauty while women continue to be victims of a suffocating aesthetic pressure to comply with normative canons,” explains Jill Burke, author of How to be a Renaissance woman (Ed. Crítica, 2024), where she unravels the origins of beauty ideals that still accompany us today… When talking about women, of course.
“Society tends to accept more types of attractiveness in men compared to women. It must be taken into account that those who are reaffirming and praising the type of masculinity of the hot rodent men They are women, who are attracted, emotionally or sexually, to men… different. A man who doesn’t worry about having to appear macho is usually someone who isn’t as affected by the cultural norms of toxic masculinity. For this reason, some people are attracted to those who do not perform that masculinity,” says Cecilia Bizzotto, Sociologist, spokesperson and content creator for JOYclub Spain. “In straight, cis environments, men have more freedom and approval to express themselves in a feminine or more fluid way. On the other hand, in the same environments, women must behave in a typically feminine, fragile, passive, intuitive, sensitive and dependent way to obtain male approval,” she points out.
Alex Abad-Santos says that pop culture is full of examples of beautiful women who fall in love with less attractive men, and apparently, reality repeats the behaviors of fiction when taking into account that the protagonist of The Bear He’s dating Rosalía or Chalamet’s girlfriend is Kylie Jenner. Anthropomorphizing animals and turning them into typologies of male beauty can be funny or unusual, but we must not forget that it can be another trap for any male defect to end up being integrated into popular discourse until it becomes a virtue. In the case of male comparisons, famous actresses have been compared to horses or, also, to rats, even in hugely popular television series, and it has never been with the aim of presenting a new canon of female beauty, but to call them ugly.
It is also important to note that although what is praised about men who are compared to cartoon mice is that they move away from the canons, as Biel Moreno, activist and collaborator of Afrocolectiva, explains, “the hot rodent man “It is not only a trend exclusive to white people, since it requires features that we will not find in other ethnicities, but it is also a clear indicator that when the industry accepts other types of beauty, it continues to revolve around Eurocentric canons,” she explains. “Whenever we enter the world of beauty, racialized people are aware that some of the norms or trends do not apply to us. Historically, the features standardized as attractive or desirable have been imposed by the West, and its ideals originate in white supremacy. Light skin, a narrow nose, thin lips, light eyes, straight hair and a slender figure, among others, are the main Eurocentric attributes that today continue to be indicators of beauty in the fashion, film, television and advertising industries,” she adds.
Content creator Blake Neiman Thornton has dedicated a video to analyzing this phenomenon, and states that “every media outlet telling someone they are ‘gupifeo’ is the ultimate form of internet gaslighting” and agrees with Moreno in stating that the term is racist. “The underlying message is that only white men can be unconventionally attractive. My understanding is that the term ‘gapifeo’ is a term that is not just a term that is not … hot rodent man “It means that even if you are pale, short and unable to iron your shirt, society will still want you to star in a Calvin Klein campaign. Meanwhile, men of colour have to look like a Benetton combination of James Bond and Superman,” he says.
“To be part of this privileged selection, one needs to meet much more demanding standards, such as completely symmetrical facial features, flawless skin and bodies that meet European standards. These agents are only selected if their beauty is in balance with the white imaginary and its exoticization,” adds Biel Moreno. The hot rodent man is not a bad start, but we hope that the next time we talk about a new trend in male or female beauty, it can find new colors, new ages and new shapes.
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