Gregory Gorgeous on The Avenue Show

Gregory Gorgeous. You may have heard of him – he’s pretty big on YouTube. Every so often, I check out his channel because I find him to be very charming and funny. Sometimes he’s also ditsy and ridiculous. He’s one of those rare guys who actually looks amazing with makeup and women’s clothing. His fashion sense and personality is something truly fierce, and I commend his confidence to stay true to himself.

Some people have problems with blurring the line between genders. Many of us grew up in households where our parents taught us that this is how girls should behave and look like, and this is how boys should behave and look like. So when we see a man walking down the street wearing a dress and heels, it can cause confusion or even outrage.

But why is this? If a person isn’t doing any harm and is merely wearing clothes typically associated with another gender, why is that such a big deal? The clothes on our backs and the handbags we carry are just a form of self-expression. Let me tell you something – even those who don’t cross-dress are guilty for committing many fashion faux-pas! So if a guy wants to wear women’s clothing and can actually pull it off with flair, why should he be penalized?

Gregory Gorgeous is starring in a show called The Avenue. It’s based in Toronto, and is a reality-based show that’s reminiscent of The Hills. While I don’t think this will receive any awards, I do give it the thumbs up for being open-minded. There aren’t many Canadian shows out there that star a gay man who wears makeup and women’s fashion and that isn’t a deliberate comedy.

Okay, so the acting is pretty amateur. And yes, you can hear clothing rubbing onto the microphone so it’s totally a low-budget production. But the premise is fun and easy-going. Not every show needs to be a cheesy musical headache like Glee, a gory murder mystery like Dexter, or a beaten-to-death show like American Idol. Sometimes you just want something light and fluffy so you forget that the world is the place of hard knocks.

What do you think about Gregory Gorgeous on The Avenue? Will you be watching it? Do you support men who embrace femininity?

Heidi Montag & Plastic Surgery: Low Self-Esteem Cuts like a Knife

People love to hate Heidi Montag (or Heidi Pratt since she is married to the most hated reality TV villain, Spencer Pratt). She’s been the butt of many cruel jokes revolving the staged ‘candid’ shots of the couple hamming it up for the paparazzi and her failed attempt at a music career. When she went under the knife, it only added fuel to the fire.

The Hills star has transformed before our very eyes. In season one, she looked sweet, bubbly, happy, and natural. Then a few seasons later, she opted for a nose job and breast implants. Then in November, she went through 10 plastic-surgery procedures in a single day and came out looking like this. (Watch the Access Hollywood interview to hear Heidi Montag speak out about her experience.)

I actually thought Heidi looked gorgeous before her surgery – she had this sparkle in her eyes that I can’t quite describe. When she smiled, her whole face smiled.

I’m also not against plastic surgery. I’ve fantasized about having breast implants someday, but threw that dream out the window because I always come back to the same conclusion: I don’t want to rely on surgery to make me happy. I want to become stronger from within and learn to accept myself as is. That is what a real feminist does – deal with hard problems instead of resorting to quick fixes. And I never want to define my happiness solely on the size of my boobs. That would just make me depressed.

Heidi Montag’s plastic surgery got me thinking about how closely a woman’s self esteem is tied to her looks. There’s a suffocating amount of pressure on us to look a certain way – fake.

Even though we know that the photos of those models have been airbrushed and even if we know that there’s nothing real about that woman, we still think, “Wow, she’s beautiful” and then pulled out the mental yardstick as we compare our physical ‘failings’ with her positive attributes. It is this process by which we gradually loathe ourselves and make it our goal to look like someone entirely different.

You could say that we learn to disrespect ourselves.

But it was something Heidi Montag said in the January 25, 2010 issue of People magazine that pissed me off and made me pity her. When asked if it worries her that people will fixate on her large breasts, she replied:

“I hope so. They better! That’s kind of the point. Sex appeal is really important and it’s not saying that you’re only sexy if you have big boobs. That’s not true at all, and honestly the way I got Spencer, I had no surgery. It was my inner beauty that he loved.”

So she wants people now to notice her because of her boobs. Lovely. So many women have fought so that we could come as far as we did since getting the right to vote. But now ignorant statements like this throw the stick in the bicycle’s spokes.

And she claims that Spencer Pratt loved her inner beauty, and that’s what he fell in love with. Well, what about Heidi? Does she also not love herself for her inner beauty? Apparently not since she was quoted as telling someone during an interview that she’d rather die than to be flat-chested. Nice.

Things like this bother me because it’s proof that women still have such problems linking their self worth with how others perceive them. Instead of being happy, you’re happy because someone else is happy.