America Has a Hunk Again

For years, America suffered from a severe hunk shortage. Until now.

Oh, first up, friendly reminder to purchase a CHH gift subscription for a friend, family member, or hated foe this holiday season!

For a while now, I’ve noticed that the concept of the “hunk” feels about as antiquated as Limited Too mood ring hairbrushes. But at one point, the hunk was a unifying factor among American women (and perhaps American gay men.) At one point, we had Elvis. Certified hunk. The Beatles were arguably hunky, despite not being American or looking like hunks. The ‘70s and ‘80s gave way to the quintessential all-American beach hunks and helped to fine-tune the Johnny Bravo aesthetics that made someone hunky—blonde hair (optional), tan (mandatory), absolutely shredded (is this even a question) and handsome in the way that makes the women who wore Converse to prom declare, “He’s too pretty for my tastes.”

Hunk mania probably peaked in the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington were the hunks of the ‘90s. We had boy bands full of hunks, from the Backstreet Boys to NSync. The movie Titanic gave way to Leonardo DiCaprio as Hunk Du Jour (At eight, I had a major crush on him and wrote him a love letter, mistakenly believing our age gap would keep us star-crossed and separated indefinitely.)

But at some point in the late 2000s, hunks started disappearing. Call it Obama liberalism, call it wokeism, call it hunk-eating fungus, but whatever happened, we stopped seeing hunks. We still have the occasional hunk, like Zach Efron, but he was more of an adorable, sexless imp who very quickly transformed into a humanoid pitbull with a facelift. We had the Hemsworth brothers, who were hunky in the ‘70s way, but were arguably too hunky for irony-poisoned modern American women, who pride themselves on having a “hall pass” for Jack Skellington and Anger from Inside Out. Sure, we were given weird off-brand hunk derivatives, but none were truly hunks. We had Harry Styles, who was a bit too skinny to be hunky and often wearing some kind of tulle skirt with a military-inspired crushed velvet blazer. We have, of course, Timothee Chalamet, who despite being famous for spreading STIs throughout NYU (and who I’m certain has a body count in the thousands) is not a hunk. Could you imagine Timothee Chalamet, oiled up and tan on Muscle Beach? No. I’m sorry to say, but he’s a theater kid. Maybe he gets mad pussy now, but it’s entirely possible he was shoved in a locker at some point. We also have Barry Keoghan, who I actually thought was wearing prosthetics to look “weird” only to discover he looked that way in every movie.

Briefly, it seemed like we had a new shiny hunk in the form of Armie Hammer, until he…well, I won’t make any Armie Hammer jokes because last time I did I was accused of running a sockpuppet account for his ex-wife (what can I say? Like any true hunk, the man has deranged fans.) But anyway, Armie Hammer was arguably the last real chance we’ve had at a hunk. And even then, he didn’t really become a household name until his thirties. Peak hunk age is twenty-five. The cards were never in his favor.

Just to be fair and balanced, and because I know someone will mention the glaring omission: we have Jacob Elordi and Glenn Powell. But those are only two hunks, and Glenn Powell has already been past peak hunk age for a decade. Jacob Elordi just doesn’t have the panty-throwing starpower to be a top hunk. And even then, we have just two hunks for approximately 180 million American straight women, bisexual women, gay men, and any third, fourth or fifth genders who may find men attractive (Not my anti-woke ass getting canceled by the sixth gender.)

Perhaps the women and gays of America have simply been starved for hunks for far too long, while insisting we don’t really want hunks because they’re “too pretty.” Maybe it’s our fault for tweeting stupid shit about how Glenn Powell isn’t actually good-looking (come on.)

Three other hunks I forgot to mention initially because I wrote this article at 5 AM after rocking my baby for two hours: Michael B Jordan, whose shirtless bod inspired audible gasps in the movie theater when I went to see Black Panther, but he’s already thirty-seven, Jason Momoa, who has the “mass hysteria” appeal but is forty-five, and Henry Cavill, another man who women have poo-pooed as being “too pretty,” who is also over forty. When was the last time that a hot, young, hysteria-inducing hunk appeared on the scene?

But after the shocking murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson (not to be confused with tech mogul Bryan Johnson who, by the way, is attempting to reach Peak Hunk in his forties by sucking the blood from his son) America got an answer to our hunk dearth: Thompson’s murderer, a twenty-six-year-old man (peak hunk age!) named (deep breath) Luigi Mangione.

Truly, being a hunk isn’t just about looks—it’s about mass hysteria. America has that now in Luigi, at least on Twitter, where someone has even created an account called LuigiCrave to post hot Luigi pics and updates. There’s a lot of Mangionemania on Bluesky too, but it’s much more boring, less thirsty, and they’re milkshake-ducking him (a term for cancellation of someone who was initially well-liked) for listening to Joe Rogan, when they initially thought he was an unproblematic leftist.

You’re canceling Luigi Mangione for being a crypto-right wing tech bro, I’m canceling him for giving one star to Matt Yglesias’ book on Goodreads. We are not the same.

To be clear, I’m not endorsing his actions. Murder is bad, even if you agree with the ideology behind it (and I’m not commenting on the ideology either way- is that enough disclaiming?) But that’s not what this is about. Putting his actions aside for a moment, we have to acknowledge that Mangionemania is about something else—our severe hunk shortage. Clearly the American people yearned for a hunk.