Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 20, 2024
The internet loves itself a cute boy. We all like a nice non-threatening screen idol with Film Twitter appeal who also doesn’t mind doing underwear ads for our shameless consumption. Every generation gets its sex symbols and the entertainment industry is never short of bright young things to push into the spotlight in the hopes that they’ll become the next big star. Well, the internet has a new trend: hot rodent boys. You know the type. They’re cute but not symmetrically perfect action bros. They’re svelte but still muscular, their ears stick out a little more, and they have a quality that is both magnetic and dorky. The current pack of hot rodent boys includes the likes of Jeremy Allen White, Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor, Timothee Chalamet, and Barry Keoghan.
That’s right: we have a brand new name for ‘slightly unconventional hot dudes who want to be character actors.’ This is what happens when you’re not steeped in the lore of the likes of Willem Dafoe for most of your life. Open the schools. Put that copy of Light Sleeper in the Blu-ray player.
It’s a very millennial/Gen Z thing to cloak a compliment in an insult, to the point where you wonder if it’s all meant to be this mean. Calling someone a sexy rat isn’t especially kind, even if you say it with the heightened zeal of social media melodrama. Calling your own lazy tendencies your goblin era isn’t quite the same thing as letting Mike Faist know you think he’s hot but in a way you’re not supposed to. What it suggests, ultimately, is that some people just aren’t meant to be seen as attractive, at least not by the standards of society at that given moment. ‘Yeah, I think you’re alluring, but you’re not identical to every other man who bears the sex idol title, so I suppose I have to compare you to an animal? But it’s affectionate?’
I’m overthinking it, I’m sure, but it all made me think about how staggeringly limited our ideas of male attractiveness are, particularly in the entertainment industry, and how ill-equipped we seem to be to widen those barriers. It’s easy to downplay how bad men have it in the inescapable hellhole of impossible beauty standards compared to women. It’s a different kind of trauma, to be sure, but it’s still there. Every time I see an actor give a teary-eyed interview about their 18-month workout routine and inability to eat carbs lest they lose that 12-pack, it makes me wince. One of the reasons I lament my favourite actors signing up for these franchise flicks is because I know they’ll be forced to get the same body type everyone else has in that genre. The industry keeps narrowing down the definition of a sexy man on the big screen and women largely reject it, or are at least somewhat sceptical about its intentions.
And remember, it’s not like these ‘hot rodent boys’ are that unconventional looking. Josh O’Connor has ears that stick out, but he also has a body that will not quit, as Challengers reminded us as frequently as it could. Chalamet is pale and has a strong jaw, which harkens back to old Victorian portraits of poets of questionable moral character. Adam Driver is just a historical romance rake hero written by Loretta Chase (seriously, read Lord of Scoundrels and get back to me.) They’re all still tall, still physically fit, still white. They’re all still on the Pinterest board of some executive wondering how to cast the next bland superhero (and they’ll all be made to bulk up and gain the same physique as every Marvel dude.)
The whiteness of the rodent boys/internet boyfriends slate has long been a problem. When The Hollywood Reporter shared its most recent list of rising stars with future A-List potential, they lamented the whiteness of their choices but didn’t seem aware that they were perfectly capable of expanding upon their own limited views. If 35-year-old Glen Powell is still considered young enough to be a rising star then why not Greta Lee, for example? When the same faces are repeatedly singled out as the great hopes of Hollywood’s future, it perpetuates the narrow cycle of who is viewed as special. This is not to say that we want everyone to start referring to men of colour as sexy rats (yikes on so many levels.) But why do we seldom single out these actors in the same way we do their white counterparts? We’ve never had a grander array of options - Jharrel Jerome, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Caleb McLaughlin, Trevante Rhodes, Dev Patel, Kelvin Harrison Jr. - but the headlines aren’t there.
If any good has come from this minor hubbub, it’s a chance to kick sh*tty male beauty standards down just another inch or two. It’s a welcome return to the era of great faces. I’ve long lamented that we don’t have enough interesting visages in the mainstream film and TV world. Ozempic, buccal fat removal, veneers, chin implants… they’ve sanded down the quirks of genetics and given us an assembly line of interchangeable actors who have begun to verge on the uncanny. I swear, there are some major stars headlining big movies right now who just don’t look like they used to even five years prior. It’s a homogeny that is somehow beiger than the already staid status quo of decades prior, yet more oppressive in its pervasiveness. We’re so starved for a change that even the mildest deviations sends us into a tizzy. Josh O’Connor’s ears are just that powerful. I welcome the change. It’s better than nothing, I suppose. But these hot rodent boys aren’t Willem Dafoe just yet. They wish.
