While he’s yet to take home the coveted title of Most Stylish Man of the Year—though he’s come close a few times!—Andrew Garfield holds a special place in our hearts here at SG HQ.
The actor, responsible for the most iconic line uttered in a historical epic for millennials (“Sorry my Prada’s at the cleaners!”), has always charmed us. The accent! The style! Did we mention the accent!
Garfield has a new movie out that’s once again putting him front and center for us to swoon at.
Called We Live In Time, the dramedy looks like something I’ll inevitably watch on a plane and make my seatmate horribly uncomfortable with my gutteral sobbing at the sad parts.
Along with the rest of the greater media ecosystem, we’ve been fawning over Garfield’s press appearances to promote the film.
Here he is getting misty while reading a Modern Love story for the New York Times. There he is recalling the time he earnestly fanboyed over Will Ferrell on pop culture podcasts!
This isn’t the first time Garfield has wound up spotlighting male emotions more than the movie he’s promoting.
After the actor’s mother died from pancreatic cancer in 2019, Garfield appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and spoke beautifully about grief and loss and love.
The whole thing is worth a watch:
Now, it would be easy to dismiss Garfield’s tears as the side effect of a professional trained to easily access his emotions.
But I don’t want us to stiff arm this kind of public display. Because it’s never been more important to embrace men who embrace their feelings.
There’s such an insidious pull to a toxic form of masculinity right now, from Donald “I will be your protector” Trump to Logan Paul publicly dragging a Minecraft YouTuber(?) by ::checks notes:: releasing courteous DMs sent by said-YouTuber.
So I’ll just say: for me, it’s still sort of jarring to see a man cry, and happily defend his tears, so publicly.
And how lucky are we, how wonderful it is, to be shaken awake like that!
Garfield is teaching us something we should know already.
It’s like having to explain to your Fox News-pilled parent that no, adult men aren’t using girls bathrooms in middle school. Obviously, it would be better if you didn’t have to, but the benefits of intervening outweigh the benefits of letting them go on living in a cloud of misinformation.
Because that’s exactly what Garfield is doing. He’s telling us, You think men shouldn’t cry like this, should’t get emotional like this, but the good news is that’s not right! It’s actually totally okay to cry and to wear your heart on your sleeve, and get emotional at the futility of our mortality. At the memory of a loved one. At a sad story. Or even a happy one.
So the next time you get emotional and your first instinct is to stiffen up, to wipe away your tears before anyone else an see them, just remember:
Wearing your heart on your sleeve is so hot for fall. Team SG Says so.
Wear it proudly, and if someone tells you what you’re doing isn’t cool, tell him, no way bro. This is cool. Chicks dig this. I’m doing it.
image: @ameliadimz on Instagram / Style Girlfriend illustration
