Tom Cruise has been out and about promoting his latest film, Collateral, by playing in a baseball match near Tokyo. You might think this incongruous (the movie has nothing to do with baseball), but Cruise is smart, and he’s figured out that, done right, there is no promotion as effective as demonstrating your pitching action in front of a crowd. Did he step up to the plate wearing those funny knickerbockers? Did he heck. Cruise’s chosen outfit for the event was some kind of sweater and a pair of surprisingly snug-fitting blue jeans. Make no mistake: he knew that the second he spread his legs, those motor drives would go ape and his 42-year-old butt would be the next day’s hot news.
The jeans Cruise wore are the kind of buns-hugging, thigh-clinging denims that were toppled from the style top 10 by the baggy, anti-fit, low-slung crotch sort way back in the 1990s. Cruise’s tight jeans have pull lines across the groin and faded rub marks in strategic places. By wearing them, he was making a deliberate statement: “I’m a fit guy, dammit, and even if you haven’t seen them since Cocktail, I’m a tight-jeans kind of guy.”
It’s not Cruise’s butt-flaunting that makes this so significant. It’s that something about the image of the actor in his straining denim has helped to clarify our thoughts about men and tight jeans in general: the world divides into tight-jeans men and baggy-jeans men, regardless of the whims of fashion. You can actually define a man as a TJ or a BJ — and it tells you everything you need to know about his personality.
TJ man wants everyone to see that he’s fit all over because he is ultra-competitive and driven. He does not have a sense of humour about himself (not when it comes to his appearance, reputation with women or achievements, anyway) and he never gets involved in anything he cannot win at, or that might make him look gay. (Dancing is a difficult area for him.) Jon Bon Jovi is a TJ; so is Richard Gere. Justin from the Darkness is, too, of course, but he is an ironic TJ, which is different.
BJ man is less self-conscious. He likes male and female company (TJ finds the male-bonding thing pretty high pressure); he is not necessarily less vain, but he is probably more secure about his sexuality and certainly less obsessed with his physique. Chris Martin is a natural BJ man; Justin Timberlake is another. Their attitude is: “Whatever, I know I can.”
Naturally, BJ man is the one we like best, but — just to complicate matters — what we’d like most of all is to see him in some really tight jeans. If Justin T were to be forced into the skinny drainpipes Ewan McGregor wore as Renton in Trainspotting, that would be good. Or maybe Joaquin Phoenix — please?
The Sunday Times
