by White’s breakout role was in “The Bear,” starring Carmy, a chaotic chef who returns home to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop. But maybe you remember the way he aspect in the show as much as in his performance, specifically, the bicep-hugging white shirt that acts as his uniform. Or, perhaps more specific, his appearance in a still image that quickly became an Internet meme: a shot of Carmy in a back room, having a heated conversation. His carotid is protruding, his hair is a mess and looks like it stinks, but the shirt hugs his arm nicely. “I’m too scared to watch The Bear because I’m actively in therapy to stop falling for men who look like this,” read one popular tweet. As another noted: “This screenshot did more for the bear than any advertisement.” This is the reputation that White’s ad exploits: a sleepy-eyed idiot radiating sex but also cloaked in prestige and praise from intellectual critics. The statue himself picked up a statue of his own this month: the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor.
Calvin Klein has always trafficked in high and low, in classic American athleticism, shot through with an unleashed primal lust. The discomfort of this combination animates the brand’s most famous advertisements, from a too young age. Brooke Shields says nothing comes between her and her Calvins to Mark Wahlberg – still, back then, hip-hop star Marky Mark, fresh from a tough youth of racially motivated violent attacks and a Rolling Stone photo shoot with Calvins hiding, clutching his trash and laughing like the kid next door side. (Wahlberg’s acting pivot would eventually lead to an Oscar nomination; that’s what gravitas can give a cupcake.) Justin Bieber, emerging from his own child star antics, also sported Calvins on the cover of Rolling Stone (headline: “Bad Boy”) Before anything else, he begged for a sign, using the newly launched social media hashtag #mycalvins in 2014. He got his wish, appearing with rippling muscles and praying hands (his single “Sorry” was released that year) and sparking much discussion about its robust bulk.
Some other Calvin Klein ads fail to have the same friction, the same wrongness. Why doesn’t the actor Jacob Elordi Ads go viral? Simple: it was too pristine. White is photographed as if he were a statue, but the vibe about him is always bad. In the poster of him, he is lying face down, with his jeans pulled down: a callback to Kate Moss’s infamous Obsession perfume ad from the 1990s, in which she lies naked on a dark couch. This is a difficult move for a man to make, especially one who wants to be taken seriously. We expect to see women posing like this in fashion magazines, no matter how alarmingly vulnerable they may appear. But a man in this position still runs the risk of being ridiculous.
There are slightly fascist overtones to the way Calvin Klein values. The same fetishistic focus on masculine strength was part of the aesthetic of Nazi propagandists, perhaps most notably in Leni Riefenstahl’s “Olympia,” which documented the 1936 Summer Olympics with black-and-white images of the human body as a machine. The Renaissance art the campaigns refer to is itself an homage to classical antiquity, the same kind of faded reinvention of the past that today’s Western civil supremacists embrace. Klein’s trick is to balance heroics with sleaze. The brand shows us the musician Dominic Fike half-naked, lying on the floor of a dilapidated caravan; captures actor Travis Fimmel looking uncomfortably youthful, with his considerable package on display. (How surprising is it that Calvin Klein worked with the estate of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, who used his models to sexually attract the viewer?) Advertisements seduce us with what we are ashamed to want. This is part of why models like Wahlberg, Bieber and White get attention, while understated beauty like Jamie Dornan doesn’t, and why groundbreaking ads (the musician FKA Twigs confident in her athletic ability, the trans model Bappie Kortram wearing bra) instead provoke censorship.
In fact, Jeremy Allen White’s underwear ads were so successful that people seemed to forget that he was, in addition to a meme, a working actor. At the Golden Globes, interviewers brought up the ad again and again when talking to her co-stars in “The Bear,” to the growing chagrin of actress Ayo Edibiri. When an “Extra” anchor produced a large poster of the ad, she pulled it off camera and laughingly objected: “This is a work show!” “Does it make you uncomfortable?” the host asked White, while the rest of the cast looked hurt. “Sure,” he said, to which the host responded incredulously: “He does it?!? – as if a touch of discomfort isn’t exactly what makes a successful Calvin Klein ad. A blushing White responded emphatically, “Yes.” The presenter’s assurance that he looks great addresses the ongoing danger of pulling down his pants for Calvin Klein. The ads may refer to heroes of the past, but appearing in them does not equate to heroism: the point is embedded shame. Thank God for the simplest glory a trophy can provide.
