- Right now you're doing like baby giraffe walking.
You wanna be very confident, so keep your core tight.
You wanna like glide across the room.
Yes!
(upbeat music) (audience applauds)
- Hi everyone, and welcome to another
episode of What Does It Mean?
Today we have a submission from Aria,
and he has a questions about guys and high heels.
Let's hear what he had to say.
- I saw a couple of guys on the street
the other day walking in some high heels.
And, you know, nothing against that,
I'm just not really used to seeing that.
Is that cool? (audience applauds)
- In order to answer your question, Aria,
I invited, yet again, our resident gay expert,
Dr. Ryann Graham.
- Oh, thank you so much for having me.
- Thanks for being here, doctor.
- Yes, oh, I mean, again, not a doctor.
So we have a submission from Aria?
I do understand his curiosity when it comes to men in heels.
I get that question a lot.
I myself love wearing heels.
- What are these, Payless?
- No, actually, it's called (speaks in foreign language).
The thing about high heels that's so surprising is that
they were actually worn by men long before women.
While we don't know the origins of high heels,
we do know that before the 17th century,
they were used by eastern horseback riders
so they could stand up in the stirrups for easily.
So, while the eastern countries were using high heels,
they would meet with other western civilizations
and wear the high heels and that's when they
made the jump from eastern countries
to more European and western civilizations.
In the early 17th century, a new
fashion trend arose in the upper class,
where women began adopting men's style in their clothing.
The new masculine wardrobe included heels.
- How did we get to where we are now?
- [Ryann] Men strayed away from
extravagant things towards the 1740s,
and fashion was associated with femininity,
and therefore, a lot of men stopped wearing things
that were associated that, such as heels.
The French Revolution comes around
at the end of the 18th century,
and things that were seen as frivolous
and upper class, they were highly criticized.
And so women stopped wearing high heels as well.
There was a time when everyone was wearing
flats or kitten heels, even worse.
It was truly a dark time for fashion and high heels.
I don't think I would've survived.
But, luckily, high heels made a huge
comeback in the mid 19th century,
and women started wearing high heels again.
But at that point, it seems like high heels
were so far removed from men's fashion,
they just stopped wearing them.
You know what? I think the best thing we can do
is just go to a store and get you some heels.
Okay, so we're gonna get you your first pair of heels.
- I'm really excited. - It's gonna be so fun.
Oh, she's a perfect fit. - Is this good?
- Try to stand up in it. - Okay.
- But look how good your calf looks, look at that.
You need to put the other one on, come on.
So the soft shuffle in a swift walk.
Ball to toe, so...
Come, come.
Oh, look at her.
- So now we're gonna give some of the straight men
at the office a little heel makeover.
Now we're in the lobby of the office
and we're looking for our first subject.
- Wait, hey, Zack!
You're a straight guy. - Yeah.
- Hello. - Allegedly.
Have you ever considered...
- Oh, okay.
- Have you ever considered wearing heels?
- Maybe like as a child, like, you throw 'em on
just to be like, heh, look at this, but nothing...
- I never did that as a child. - Yeah, wow, Patrick.
There's a lot that we need to unpack here, I think.
- Yeah, I mean, this is another video.
- I fall over just wearing normal shoes.
And I just try to get back up real quickly
and like no one sees you. - Oh, did you see that?
As you noticed, we go have a gay expert right here.
He's gonna Queer Eye the (beep) out of you.
- Okay. - But just like your feet.
- What size shoe do you wear?
- I'm a size nine.
- Gotta divide the seven, add the six.
It looks like you're gonna need a size 11 shoe.
- What hurts, your masculinity?
- No, that's fine. - Don't worry about your blood
circulation, you'll have 'em on for a few minutes.
- It's just a lot of untangling shit, you know what I mean?
What's that about? - I feel confident.
- That's the thing, it's supposed to
give you a lot of confidence.
You wanna have your shoulders back,
and make sure you're always serving face.
Who are you right now in these heels?
- I feel like a lawyer. - Ooh, okay. What case?
- Like I'm taking down Wall Street.
- Oh my god, wow.
- I think my feet look pretty ugly in these, quite honestly.
- Don't blame the heel, baby.
Behind us, we have Dr. Ryann Graham
actually teaching Shane--
- You're gonna take long, confident strides.
You're a lawyer, you are Ally McBeal right now.
- I am Ally McBeal. - You're Ally McBeal.
You're gonna walk into that courtroom,
gonna swing those doors open, you're gonna say,
"Hey, fat cats, you're going down."
- Oh, that's good. - You're going down, fat cats!
- After a full five minutes of training,
we're gonna see how Zack is gonna handle the heels.
- Yeah, give 'em a shoulder. - Oh, look,
he's giving us attitude.
Yes. - You're a fashion model.
- [Fernando] I almost don't believe
that he's not a homosexual.
Can you run?
- Right now, you're doing like baby giraffe walking.
You wanna be very confident, so keep your core tight.
You wanna like glide across the room.
Yes!
(intense music) - Court is in session, boys!
(claps)
- Yes! - That's amazing.
- Yes!
- Do you wanna try again?
- But honestly, the character was there.
- I think we need a purse first.
- A purse? - We gotta figure that out.
- We can get you a purse. - We gotta figure that out.
- He wants a purse. - This is a look.
- Now this, this feels like me.
- Is that Elle Fanning?
In order to top off his performance,
we actually gave him props.
And he has a witness!
- Court is in session, you corporate fat cats!
- Wow, I am shooketh.
He's serving me Sex and the City realness.
- You were right! - I told you.
- Having these on really does make me
focus more on the way I carry myself.
- How do you think that went, Doctor?
- I think it went really well.
I think a lot of people learned a lot today.
We changed lives, on heel at a time.
(audience applauds)
- Maybe. - I'm sensing that
you're not taking us serious here.
- Oh, no, of course not.
- We're trying to change your (beep) life.
- Hey, Unsolved is on a new channel.
And now your part.
- Subscribe here. - That was my part.