IUC Fashion: Mickey Rourke as Naked and Pure as Obama’s America

It is not often that I swoon over a greasy-haired man whose face is marked with acne scars, alcohol abuse, fight wounds and age, but in the case of Mickey Rourke – the Obama generation’s Lazarus –, I toss aside my vanity and coo away for this beautifully beaten-down brute.

 Perhaps it seems a tad tardy to be discussing Rourke’s archetypically cool acceptance at the Golden Globes, but now that the inauguration is over and the Oscar nominations are in, the time could not be better.  For, America has Obama and Hollywood has Rourke. 

Self-consciousness, struggle, and freedom (as opposed to obliviousness, silver spoons, and iron-fistedness) are the themes of 2009 and all three are represented in these two men.

 Like Obama’s fearless saunter down Pennsylvania Avenue, proving to America that he is a man first, president second, Rourke walked up to the Golden Globes’ podium with proof all over his perfectly outfitted body.  Dressed in slim black pants, a silk-lapelled, black, velour jacket and sporting the most hard-earned soul patch in history, Rourke treated our nation of watchers to a unique gift – he showed us what it means to be a man first, a star (a real star!) second. 

 It is a rare and uncomfortable treat for us to see an actor who knows exactly who he is and to watch him parade this awareness unabashedly, no matter how lowdown and dirty he has gone.  But there is a honesty in watching a man as naked as Rourke – in that feeling that we know nothing – that purifies us for settling into Obama’s America.     

(IUC Fashion Editor Erin Hershberg)