"Blades of Glory," which opens tomorrow, may start with a predictable setup: The male pair in the operatic world of figure skating must be gay! But the humor is more nuanced than that.

Ferrell's Chazz Michael Michaels and Heder's Jimmy MacElroy are ultimately lonely guys and sworn rivals who bond as brothers when forced together.

There was a time, as impossibly long ago as it now seems, when two straight American men could go skinny-dipping or even share a bed without having to rip out their chest hair or yell like Tarzan afterward.

But today, as deciphering someone's sexual orientation becomes a national pastime, images of straight guys acting "gay" abound in movies, TV and advertising.

Consider the absurdity in Ferrell's "Blades" character - a metrosexual if there ever was one. He's a straight "sex addict" who parades around bare-chested in a turban and leopard print towel and religiously brushes his hair 100 times each night with a $12,000 handmade brush.

Ferrell has spent his career riffing on macho stereotypes, including NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby in "Talladega Nights" and TV news anchor Ron Burgundy in "Anchorman." In the coming "Semi-Pro," he plays a professional basketball player/coach/team owner in a 1970s-era American Basketball Association who refuses to acknowledge that his wife is sleeping with the entire league.

"He sort of embodies the false solution, but he does it with a nudge and a wink, ever since he was the male cheerleader on 'Saturday Night Live,' " said "Manhood in America" author Michael Kimmel, a sociology professor at SUNY Stony Brook.

"He plays the feckless ne'er-do-well who can't quite get it together. Then he becomes hyper-masculine and aggressive, and that's even more ridiculous. And finally he finds some balance in the middle."

"I still think that we're very much dealing with the whole macho thing," said Ferrell. "That's why I think it's so easy to make fun of. I don't think we're really that evolved."

There's nothing more laughable or downright discomfiting than watching "manly" men cringe and squirm after an encounter with their soft side. They wrestle nude ("Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan") or rub backsides and sing about "Guy Love" (NBC's "Scrubs") or accidentally kiss (Super Bowl Snickers ad) or snuggle up on an air mattress ("Wild Hogs").

But comedy in this arena is a tricky business. Just ask the folks at Masterfoods USA who pulled the Snickers Super Bowl ad after gay-rights groups complained (though the ad quickly became a hit on YouTube).

In the ad, two mechanics accidentally kiss while rapturously eating a candy bar, then, mortified, rip out their chest hair to prove their manliness.

"Blades of Glory" attempts to lampoon the whole manly/nonmanly thing as utterly irrelevant. Brothers Jeff and Craig Cox, who were the screenwriters along with John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, said they deliberately avoided making either character gay.

"Jimmy is like the younger brother to Chazz just like I am to Jeff," said Craig Cox, 27. Jeff is 30. "Their arguments are very immature … like a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old would have."

"They are athletes first and foremost," said Ferrell. "And yet they do allow themselves, in the middle of these competitions, to step back and go, 'Wow. This is weird. What are we doing?' And then they step right back into it and go, 'Wait, there's a big spin coming up. I love skating!' "

It's their drive to win that ultimately overshadows all the other issues, a passion so consuming that they'll endure the humiliation of performing together.

MacElroy and Michaels are forced to live together while they train. In one scene, they exchange hair-care tips. In another, they don tutus and leotards and cascade around a dance floor. That is until Michaels shoves a guy for getting too close.

Take "Wild Hogs," another male- bonding story - suburban guys in midlife crisis on a cross-country motorcycle trip. Much of its humor is about straight guys being mistaken for gay.

John Travolta's alpha dog Woody is often paired with the more delicate computer geek Dudley, played by William H. Macy. In one scene, Dudley longingly sniffs the cologne off Woody's neck and Woody threatens to kill him if he does it again.

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