I’m finding myself more and more out of touch these days. The other day I was lamenting with Veronica the fact that there’s a whole new crop of movie/TV stars that I don’t even kind of find attractive. It’s puzzling to me, this whole obsession with women who look like Barbies and men who look like boys (though I guess the women who look like Barbies thing is hardly new). But yesterday, as I walked by the window display for Banana Republic (a store I find usually falls in line with my aesthetic sensibilities), I discovered the trend has moved from men who look like boys to men who look like Apes.

See what I’m talking about? At least it’s Apes with a capital A. Not, like, low-grade unintelligent apes, but more the ones who are scientists and doctors and whatnot.

Now, I’m sure this young man must be really nice on the inside, or maybe really good at math, or maybe he’s really good at juggling naked. Maybe he’s a famous swashbuckler, or diver, or person who has given a million dollars to feed starving puppies. Please enlighten me. Because if I’m just to judge him on how good he looks while he’s wearing Banana Republic threads, I have to say, I’m underwhelmed. I’m quite sure he has broken some major barriers in the modeling world. And for that I really ought to be applauding the underdog here, not dogging him. Surely this is a positive trend.

Or perhaps life is finally beginning to imitate art, and we get to look forward to a future on the Planet of the Apes. Cornelius was kind of a catch, after all.