Lit up by a rock music soundtrack,
with 600 media hacks as well as banks of screaming fans,
the unveiling of David Beckham had all the razzmatazz
you expect of football's biggest one-man brand
He'll be the Paris Hilton of the American sports world
He's already so L.A.
Victoria Beckham Provides the Porn
America and Hollywood, so long at
the cutting-edge of commodifying masculinity,
have fallen far behind
America is today somewhat conflicted,
fearful and hypocritical about one of its
greatest inventions: the mediated, male sex object
In the US, Speedos, Beckham's favourite beachwear,
are all but banned because they are seen as "too gay"
Which, apparently, is still the worst thing
you can accuse a man of in the US
- and the reason why the US, unlike the UK,
experienced a backlash against metrosexuals
American masculinity desperately needs some tarty tips
on how to tart it out more
Enter Becks, the tartiest tart in Tarttown,
who relishes being seen as "gay"
- and also relishes being seen by gays
("because they have good taste")
What's more, he's a jock not an actor
Beckham officially unveiled as L.A. Galaxy playerDavid Goes to Hollywood
Los Angeles - Football superstar David Beckham was officially unveiled as a player of the Los Angeles Galaxy Friday, marking the most ambitious move by a US football team since Pele joined the New York Cosmos in 1975.
Lit up by a rock music soundtrack, and attended by 600 members of the press as well as banks of screaming fans, it had all the razzmatazz you expect of football's biggest one-man brand.
"Why says LA doesn't love soccer?" cried the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, bedecked in an LA Galaxy shirt at the club's Home Depot Center stadium. "Do we love David Beckham?" he added. "Ah, come on, do we love David Beckham?"
Villaraigosa captured the exclamatory mood as Beckham met his new supporters for the first time since the moment in January when the former England captain shocked the sporting world by announcing his transfer from Real Madrid.
Beckham, 32, is expected to earn an estimated 250 million dollars over the course of his 5 year contract as football bosses in the US hope that his media celebrity helps shift the world's most popular sport into the national mainstream.
Wearing a dapper grey suit, Beckham smiled widely as he sat on the podium to be greeted by thousands of fans and a mob of cameramen.
His arrival in the Los Angeles with his pop star wife Victoria has already sparked massive media interestand a surge of season-ticket buying for the team which currently languishes next to bottom in the Major Soccer League, MSL, the premier competition in the US. The team has also sold 250,000 team jerseys since his signing.
Beckham signed for the Galaxy earlier in the year after a long spell of sup-bar performances on the pitch, which saw him dropped from the Galacticos of Real Madrid and the England captaincy and team.
But he forced his way back into the Real team to help them win the title, silencing critics who viewed his US move as a sporting sellout and sign that his best playing days were over.
Galaxy team manager Alexei Lals called the unveiling a "historic moment" in US football.
As most of the world already knows, today Becks is proudly "unveiled" by LA Galaxy on their home turf.
Brand Becks, the ultimate metrosexual who transformed himself from a talented professional soccer player with a cute smile into global me-dia, is the not-so-secret weapon in their campaign to seduce America into opening its arms, legs - and, most importantly, wallets - to that obscure version of "football" played without crash helmets, padding or artillery barrages by the rest of the world.
In case you can't wait for the unveiling, you can find a selection of adorable photos of Ken Doll David "taken" from every delicious angle in his new strip in the Times.
Or coquettishly meeting your gaze on the cover of Sports Illustrated, ball under his arm. Or on a car bonnet on the cover of W magazine flexing his tits and tatts in trousers that appear to be pulling themselves off. Oh, and that ex-ex Spice Girl wife of his is somewhere in the picture too.
Spice Boy Becks is the total commodity who has totally commodified himself - and turned soccer into his personal billboard.
ESPN, the channel televising Beck's first game in his LA Galaxy strip on July 21, have arranged for an extra TV camera to feast entirely on David for the duration of the entire game, lest we miss any moment of his spornographic body in motion - as well as making sure that they get their money's worth. Who said that football was a game of two teams of 11 men?
ESPN are already airing an ad promoting the match, in it Becks leaves a heartbroken Europe for an ecstatic US, with the Beatles' Hello Goodbye as the soundtrack - referencing a previous "Brit" invasion.
Some are already talking about "Beckmania".
The Beatles may have been bigger than Jesus, but Becks is bigger than soccer (which is why all those articles about whether he will or won't make soccer popular in the US somewhat miss the point).
And after all, in the 1960s the Beatles successfully exported pop music back the US, the country of its birth, having taken it further and transformed it into something even more saleable.
Becks in the noughties is exporting metrosexuality back to the US, and in fact to the very town, which, in the 1950s, came up with the prototype for it in the delectable, Cinemascoped form of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and James Dean, and Elvis Presley.
It was also the US that produced possibly the first metro sports star in the form of 1970s NFL star Joe Namath, dubbed "Broadway Joe", an aesthetically inclined quarterback who advertised shaving cream and... pantyhose.
But once he retired, America pretended he had never happened - leaving the field open to dandy soccer players like David Beckham.
America and Hollywood, so long at the cutting-edge of commodifying masculinity, have fallen far behind. America is today somewhat conflicted, fearful and hypocritical about one of its greatest inventions: the mediated, male sex object.
In the US, Speedos, Beckham's favourite beachwear, are all but banned because they are seen as "too gay". Which, apparently, is still the worst thing you can accuse a man of in the US - and the reason why the US, unlike the UK, experienced a backlash against metrosexuality.
American masculinity desperately needs some tarty tips on how to tart it out more. Enter Becks, the tartiest tart in Tarttown, who relishes being seen as "gay" - and also relishes being seen by gays ("because they have good taste"). What's more, he's a jock not an actor.
Which reminds me, perhaps Becks will offer some friendly advice to his new Scientologist neighbour Tom Cruise. Cruise, the all-American Dream Boy gone wrong, who once wooed the world by dancing in his underwear on a sofa in his 1980s film Risky Business, but now jumps up and down on chat show sofas, needs Becks more than Becks needs Cruise, who is now globally rather less popular than Becks.
However much Becks may deny movie aspirations, his Hollywood career has already begun.
Mark Simpson @ CIF