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Longtime readers of the Fame Audit will know that the purpose of this feature is to audit someone's fame. Is he as famous as they should be? More so? Less so? Etc.
In this installment, however, we're going to brush aside an assessment of Stanley Tucci's notoriety (is he as famous as he should be? Uh, sure) and move on to a more delicate debate -- one that has confounded this observer for years and caused him to land in heated, spittle-soaked, cooking-instrument-throwing, relationship-destroying, fists-flying, soul-cursing, child-slapping, arm-twisting, wedgie-until-you-say-"Uncle"-administering fights:
Is Stanley Tucci hot?
This all started when this observer and a close acquaintance -- whose personal details will be obscured sufficiently here, to spare her the unrelenting embarrassment and universal disdain that her warped ideas so clearly warrant -- started talking about bald dudes. Specifically, the question of whether bald dudes can be sexy.
This observer, it should be pointed out, is not bald, though has had occasion to consider the social implications of male pattern baldness, due to certain worrisome genetic markers evident in this observer's male forebears. (Father: cue ball. Father's brothers: cue balls.)
Furthermore, this observer is a heterosexual male, though your ability to believe that assertion may waver over the coming paragraphs.
Furthermore, this observer thinks, and has always thought, that Stanley Tucci is hot. You know -- thought so in a totally hetero kind of way.
So once upon a time, this observer had occasion to discuss the baldness of an innocent and absent third party with the aforementioned Close Acquaintance, during which conversation the C.A. -- having initially chastised this observer and this observer's brother-in-law for even mentioning the baldness of the Innocent and Absent Third Party -- went on to assert that it's every woman's fear that her be-haired fiancé should one day become, as she put it, a "dirty baldy."
Now, having spent many years with the Close Acquaintance, this observer is willing to believe that she let slip this horrid phrase in a moment of both jocular and ill-considered faux-malice. In most situations, this Close Acquaintance is a kind, warm-hearted woman who's generous to children and the elderly and doesn't judge.
Yet there it was. "Dirty Baldy."
At this point, this observer assumed he held the trump card in any discussion premised on "Bald Men, Sexiness Of." Said trump card, of course, being Stanley Tucci. You could also go with Patrick Stewart, a universally acknowledged Sexy Bald Man. Or, if you're Canadian, or just...you know, smart, you could go with Pierre Trudeau, not only quite possibly history's Sexiest Bald Man, but also very probably history's Sexiest Politician Ever. (Seriously. Go back and check the tapes. This guy was Beatlemania in a tailored suit. When he said, "Just watch me," even this observer felt like going out and buying a pair of panties, wearing them for a week, then sending them to Trudeau in the mail.)
In fact, this observer felt so confident in the rightness of his bald-men-can-be-sexy argument -- an argument, it should be noted, that's predicated on the fact that, for a bald man like Stanley Tucci, the very confidence that your proud-baldness evinces is the sexiest quality of all -- that he forewent the more obvious Stewart and/or Trudeau routes and went straight for the equally unassailable (or so he assumed) Mr. Tucci.
"What about Stanley Tucci? He's hot."
To which the Close Acquaintance replied, "No, he's not."
What?
After which day, this observer has, from time to time, informally polled female relatives, friends, acquaintances, and passersby on the question of Stanley Tucci's Hotness. To which this observer has been somewhat flummoxed to find an unscientifically calibrated 3 to 1 ratio of "Not really"s to "yes, of course"s.
At which point, this observer invites you, great internet hivemind (or, at least, the self-selecting sample of judicious, kindly, good-natured, intelligent people who read this site) to weigh in on the issue of Stanley Tucci's hotness.
Yet be assured that this observer has always stuck to, and will not be swayed from, his contention that Stanley Tucci is hot. In fact, this observer has become ever more entrenched in said position, in part because this observer saw Big Night, and because this observer remains a staunch proponent of Embracing the Baldness, a philosophy to which dishearteningly few Hollywood actors (Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci...er, Stanley Tucci) adhere, and yet one which must be applauded by all right-thinking peoples as we move toward the utopian ideal of a world in which physical diversity is embraced and celebrated rather than feared and driven from the village by torch-wielding maniacs shouting "Out! Out, dirty baldy!"
And because, dammit, Stanley Tucci is hot.
In fact, he's a lot hotter than Hank Azaria, a man who is commonly cited as Hotter Than You Think -- and who, it should be pointed out, looks like he probably succumbed to the temptation of the hair plug. We're just saying.
Never mind that Stanley Tucci has great fashion sense and was fantastic in that otherwise frankly kind of boring movie Joe Gould's Secret, and generally is a welcome addition to any filmed entertainment, especially the forthcoming, we-want-to-see-this-way-more-than-we-should-admit The Devil Wears Prada , in which Mr. Tucci plays a fashion director in a role that, let's face it, could very well have gone to the less-sexy (there! We said it!) and possibly baldness-avoiding Hank Azaria. Who, yes, does all those funny voices on The Simpsons and therefore deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor. But who then will honor the proudly bald?
Who will honor Stanley Tucci?
This observer will. This observer and all those who stand with him -- which is to say, the right-thinking people of this country who are not judgmental, or spiteful, or full of tiny, evil thoughts, but instead celebrate hotness in all its forms (and here this observer will not conclude with "even baldness," as if baldness is some malformed child that we take pity on and welcome into the fold against our natural judgment. Nor will we conclude with the even more patronizing "especially baldness," as though baldness is, among the malformed children, the most malformed and pitiable and therefore difficult to believe could ever engender feelings of warmth. But we will instead conclude by saying -- ) especially the form that conveys confidence (sexy!) and comes twinned with exceptional skill (sexier!), which is to say, the form personified by Mr. Stanley Tucci.
Amen.
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