Taste the Rainbow: Adding some color to the Hot 100

Posted by

on June 4, 2008

Marcus Patrick

As you may have heard, we recently unleashed the results of the second annual AfterElton.com Hot 100 poll, in which we asked gay and bi men everywhere to tell us who they find to be the most gorgeous men currently gracing our planet. The results offered a few surprises, some of them good and some of them not-so-good. One of the not-so-good?

The list is overwhelmingly white.

Actually, a cynic might counter that the fact that the Hot 100 is whiter than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir isn't so much a "not-so-good surprise" as it is "not-so-much-of-a-surprise at all". I mean, just look at the pop culture landscape in general. How many non-white men do we see on TV period, much less in dynamic, well-written characters or in images of strength and sexiness? Regardless, it's disappointing that no Asian men made the list (last year Lost's Daniel Dae Kim, Heroes' Sendhil Ramamurthy and out actor B.D. Wong ranked) and that the first African-American man doesn't appear until #51 (Taye Diggs).

The discussion can get complicated, sure. For example, Cheyenne Jackson (#4) can likely credit some of his smoldering good looks to his Native American heritage, so the whole question of what makes a man a "man of color" might not be ... well, black-or-white. Hopefully it might someday be a moot point, as the American racial landscape becomes more and more integrated and harmonious.

But for now, it's troubling. And while I personally don't advocate politicizing what one finds attractive (honestly, most of us stopped apologizing for what turns us on years ago, or we wouldn't be here), the issue here is likely one of exposure. And in that light we thought we'd offer up some hunky men of all different shades who we think should have a reserved spot on the list next year.

Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, The Namesake)