Happy Boys

The company behind the phenomenally popular Chinese "Super Girl" series (think pop idol, with girls only, and released in a country that hasn't developed an immunity to idol shows yet) are replacing it with a male equivalent, "Happy Boys", proving that it's possible to make something enjoyed by over a third of a billion people but not have a clue about the real reason it's popular. The producers live in an admirable, if naive, world where it's the excellent singing and genuine interest in the development of a young artist that keeps people watching, where the young attractive girls performing for the viewers approval is merely a fringe benefit.

They may be using boys to destroy the concept of their massively popular show, but it's taking revenge by annihilating the very concept of 'boys'. The happy boys are the most effeminate males this side of a gender-change surgical theatre waiting room. I honestly cannot imagine a girlier boy existing anywhere until a male ballerina is touring a biological lab and is accidentally bitten by a radioactive tutu.

At great risk to my own Y chromosome I've been wading through images of the pansies posturing for popularity, chewing cigars and wrestling bears which are also chewing cigars once an hour to preserve my testicular integrity. I have skimmed off only a few examples below, but in order to prevent a critical loss of manliness you are advised to watch a Schwarzenegger film or headbutt a wall for each of the following pictures you look at. Even if you're a girl.



This person is listed as a "boy", proving that the Chinese must have advanced automation to an impressive degree, as only a soulless machine could have ticked the "male" box for this contestant without adding a question mark or demanding a full medical exam. Cover everything below the neck with your hand, tell yourself that you're looking at a guy. This will feel similar to when you say "I'll just have the one" or "I swear I'll go to the gym tomorrow".

I've seen prepubescent albino girls with manlier frames than that, and I can only assume that emergency ripcord on his shirt is so he can swiftly pull it off to prove he doesn't have breasts. He's obviously used to defending his gender, with that piece of throat armour ready to flip up and conceal his critical lack of adams apple, drawing any attackers within range of those loose dungaree straps hanging from his belt - though when you're fighting accusations of being a slightly mannish lesbian, loose dungaree straps don't help your case one bit.



This guy has absolutely no right to be involved in any project where the concept of maleness is even implied. He should be serving coffee in a feminist library, being obsessed over by pseudo-intellectuals who can remember in vivid detail every time a girl has accidentally brushed against them. They're scared off talking to her by the gang-sign of "The Mincing Mimsies", who dominate the downtown with their cutting fashion co-ordination and strike fear into their enemies with choreagraphed dance numbers.



Now this is just a tragedy of overcompensation. While marching into the wilds and wearing the skin of whatever you kill out there is incredibly manly, it only works with bears and wolves. Something that had a chance of eating you. Marching into a farm and slaughtering a sheep does not cut it. When your barbarian garb is 100% wool and machine washable, you fail to inspire the fear of the bloodthirsty warrior in those who behold you. You inspire the urge to lay your robes in front of a blazing log fire and curl up with a mug of cocoa, and after that you might as well hand your penis in as dead weight.

Even worse is the way the forearm sections are crudely tied down, as if this tender flower would do anything dramatic enough to risk it coming loose. It takes a lot for someones elbow to look small and fragile next to a blanket and a rug, but through a lifetime of avoiding protein and sunlight this brave stick-insect impersonator has managed it. I will move on to another target now, for fear that even the weight of my criticism might snap his rickety bones.



I don't know how this guy got into the competition - perhaps the Advertising Commisison warned the producers that they'd better show something that actually looks like a "Boy" soon or face stiff fines. All I know is that they took a Bond villain, disarmed him by giving him a rimless hat, and shoved him into the mix to bring the average manliness up to a non-zero number, and for that we can all appreciate his sacrifice. Look at the toll it's taken on him; I don't care what you say about racial traits and characteristics, anybody with a face like that used to have chest hair and his has been burned off by sheer overexposure to the other contestants, whose abundance of estrogen is slowly robbing him of his manhood by osmosis. But he soldiers on, brave soul, and for that he will forever be remembered in the Halls of Valhalla; albeit a hall that smells more of air-freshener and grooming products than the others.

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The producers threw everything they could at this one to make it look male. It's a bad sign when the schizophrenic combination of army camoflague pants and flourescent construction gear, on a truck, in a loading dock can't diffuse the overall feel of "girly". It adds up to the worst attempt by anybody to be something they're not since Vanilla Ice first said "Yo". Best of all is the expression of pure disgust on the face of the driver, who's obviously worked ten hours a day since he was five and is now turning his cold stare on the viewer:

"You did this. By watching you are complicit in these crimes. You have made a joke of all I and my kind have ever stood for."

After his photo was taken, he walked into the distance to become a lumberjack.