Justifying A Timberlake Man-Crush

The Magical Hanukkahtime Section Variety Hour is an eight-day cruise through every section at BC Magazine except the one where the author has any knowledge whatsoever. On the fifth evening: BC Video!(Programming note: in Gentile fashion, the regularly scheduled article for the 25th was postponed due to religious reasons.)Let's imagine if Justin Timberlake never recorded any music. What a wonderful place this would be. There would probably be no 'N Sync, and Janet Jackson's boob wouldn't have scarred a horny generation for life.Now let's cherry pick Timberlake's non-musical work into a list that best proves my point:• He did a Super Bowl commercial where he got his ass thrown into solid objects anytime a girl took a sip of Pepsi. No guy can vote against this concept.• When he hosted the Espy Awards, he delivered some great lines, including a legendary joke about Eli Manning: "[He] won a Super Bowl and finally got to see a woman naked. (Looking at Eli and his wife Abby) Pretty cool isn't it? I think so."• Then, of course, there was "Dick In A Box" on Saturday Night Live, which might be the zenith of his redemption:

It's not a career's worth of work, but it's a hell of enough to have a perfectly normal man-crush on the man, and perhaps to overlook his musical atrocity geared toward a completely different demographic. (Q: What has 100 legs and no pubic hair? A: The front row of an 'N Sync concert.) It's also more than enough to show that Timberlake appears to have a sense of humor about his own career, and that the 18-35 males pretty much, well, think he's gayer than a sack of ... um ... gay powder. (It's like talcum powder, but it dresses better.)Even if you can't forgive him for lyrical crimes against humanity, consider this. The difference between Timberlake and Clay Aiken is versatility. Aiken is famous because he was discovered on a choreographed television show that churns celebrities out of people who do nothing but sing extremely well. Timberlake has that quality — which is why he cashed in on it and made it his flagship talent — but he dabbled in TV and film media and struck a chord with enough WASPy fans to, if nothing else, give him a pass. You have to respect that, considering where he started with his fame. I don't know if Aiken has the ability to shine on the stage when he's not singing, which makes him the Michael Phelps of pop music ("love this man, for he ... SWIMS FAST!"). To round out the sports analogy, Timberlake is the Peyton Manning or Curt Schilling of music.I'd have never believed I'd one day admit — nay, have — a Justin Timberlake man-crush, but there it is. And here's another slight example, which probably just shreds up the final scraps of the ManCard.For three straight days in Barbados I heard a song that got in my head, and I actually quite enjoyed it. I Googled a portion of the lyrics to find out about the artist. It was "4 Minutes," the duo by Madonna and Timberlake. At first I wanted to scream and shower and scrub every square angstrom of shame off my skin, but then I thought, "Hey, my first instinct was that it was a fun song." I still showered, though, because it was Barbados and you basically need to hose yourself off every five minutes because of the heat.

Article Author: Matthew T. Sussman

Sussman is the founder and former editor of Blogcritics Sports. Twitter: @suss2hyphens

Visit Matthew T. Sussman's author page — Matthew T. Sussman's Blog