How to Distinguish Heroes from Villians

HINT: The Rich Pretty One Who Spits at Cameramen When He Loses is the Hero

The photograph below, which I found on flickr user chris.huggin’s photostream, blew me away so completely that I felt compelled to break my own image format rule in order to do it justice. I guess technically it’s a detail of the original, since I cropped it drastically. The original’s here. Hopefully this won’t get yanked (I think I’m good, under the whole creative commons license thing), ’cause I needn’t point out how totally perfect it is both for this blog in general and this juxtaposition in particular.

Toronto, 26 June, 2010. Butchering the beef window.

South Africa, 29 June, 2010. What’s not to love.

Headless Clotheshorseman Gives Carlos Freire the A|X

Recommended for You: People Who Liked Legend of Creepy Shallow Also Liked Ripped van Twinkle

Everyone’s been wondering where Brazilian model Carlos Freire’s head is in the new A|X ad campaign (which you’ve seen by now unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t believe in magazines).

Say what you will about over-defined abs (I’m not a fan; I think they make people look like insects), Freire has the most impressive—if hypertrophied—external obliques in the business. My God. They’re gourd-shaped.

It is kinda weird. There’re, like, twenty different proofs featuring Freire that made their way, in some incarnation, into this campaign, and he’s headless in every single one of them (to be fair, I think I remember seeing one in which, like, one-third of Freire’s mouth is visible).

The commodification of the male torso continues. Heads just get in the way.

Quiz time! Without typing his name into an image search (or having a gear fetish, which gives you an unfair advantage), do you know which of the Brazilian male model heads below belongs to Carlos Freire?

Once you’ve made your selection, hold your computer up to a mirror to see if you were right!