Monday, August 22, 2011

White man’s overbite

Along with Baby Fish Mouth, this term was immortalized in the classic rom-com, When Harry Met Sally, more than 20 years ago. You’d think that we whities would have learned by now not to bite our lip in an attempt to look cool while boogie-ing to "I'm Too Sexy." Because there is no way to look cool while doing the sprinkler or the lawn mower while mouthing “I"m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt.”

I’m all for unself-conscious dancing—there’s far too much attention to cool these days—but white man’s overbite is not an uninhibited maneuver. It’s studied and contrived and about as sexy as Jon Heder and Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory.

(photo: msjamiekeiles.tumblr.com)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you believe "I'm Too Sexy" was playing on my iPod as I read this?

Erika said...

I'm a woman so I realize this may not count. However, I actually do the overbite thing - withOUT having contrived it. It seems to be either a)shame based, due to doing something I know I'm not good at, or b)some subliminal way of helping one's ageing brain to concentrate.

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