I Guess Fran Lebowitz Has Never Seen Richard Simmons Before

Social commentator and author Fran Lebowitz talked to Elle about the current state of style and the entire interview is hilarious. It’s like talking to your crabby auntie who wears the same white button down and black skirt to family reunions and sits in the corner nibbling on Royal Dansk cookies while making stank face. Fran thinks yoga pants are destroying women, believes ladies can learn from drag queens, thinks NYC is suffering from a mirror drought (because so many people are walking around looking a mess) and says that a man in shorts is one of the most terrifying things to happen to her eyes. Auntie Fran’s got some fightin’ words!

Fran (who looks and dresses like this) says that when she was a kid, men didn’t walk around in public with their bare legs exposed. The HELL is she talking about? Jesus Christ wore a loincloth and the loincloth was the precursor to man shorts. Man shorts have existed since the beginning of time. Fran really goes in on shorts and says shorts are to her what CROCS are to me. They give her the non-stop heaves.

“I have to say that one of the biggest changes in my lifetime, is the phenomenon of men wearing shorts. Men never wore shorts when I was young. There are few things I would rather see less, to tell you the truth. I’d just as soon see someone coming toward me with a hand grenade. This is one of the worst changes, by far. It’s disgusting. To have to sit next to grown men on the subway in the summer, and they’re wearing shorts? It’s repulsive. They look ridiculous, like children, and I can’t take them seriously.

It’s like any other sort of revealing clothing, in that the people you’d most like to see them on aren’t wearing them. And if they are, it’s probably their job to wear them. My fashion advice, particularly to men wearing shorts: Ask yourself, ‘Could I make a living modeling these shorts?’ If the answer is no, then change your clothes. Put on a pair of pants.”

I don’t get her point. No, I couldn’t make a living modeling shorts, but I couldn’t make a living modeling pants either. Even though I’m a Barbizon graduate, I couldn’t make a living modeling anything, except make potato sacks. But even then it’d be hard. The competition would be stiff.

I grew up in Southern California, I live here now and I spent many summers sweating my ass lips off in NYC, so I just have to say: Fuck you, Auntie Fran. You can pry my shorts from my cold, dead legs, which will be nice and cold instead of hot and sweaty, because I didn’t wear pants! Yes, it’s true that when I wear shorts I look like a cross between a hairy toddler on Easter Sunday and Mickey Mouse, but I don’t care. When it’s hotter than Lucifer’s under tit, I don’t want to suffocate my legs in a cocoon of cloth while ladies in skirts and shorts get to happily frolic around as the gentle breezes caress their thighs. It’s so serious that whenever it’s really hot out and I have to go to some formal event like a wedding, I have to fight the urge to buy ultra sexy convertible pants. Convertible pants can easily take you from formal mode (the ceremony) to party mode (the reception).

I don’t think Fran really thought this through. If she was the Secretary of Style and outlawed man shorts, Richard Simmons would no longer be able to sashay down the street in his signature Dolphins. If Richard Simmons could no longer sashay down the street in his signature Dolphins, the sun wouldn’t come out, rainbows would cease to exist, butterflies would go extinct and every crop would wither and die. We’d all have to huddle together in the cold darkness while listening to Fran bitch at the wind.

With that said, where do I sign the petition to make Fran Lebowitz the new host of Fashion Police? Fran’s whole crabby interview is here if you want to read it.

And here’s just a few pictures of hot pieces in man shorts throughout the years. These pictures either prove my point or prove Fran’s point. You be the judge.

Pics: Wenn.com, Splash, WhoSay, Instagram, FameFlynet