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Surface
Reclaiming the gay male identity from our image-obsessed culture

by Rob Williams
Published 6 April 2006

I may be revealing too much here, but it’s a little-known fact that my very first crush was on the cartoon character Underdog. For those of you with foggy memories, or if you were born after the original Star Wars came out, “Underdog” was a cartoon that ran on NBC from 1964 to 1973. (Let me clarify that I was only 4 in 1973, so I’d like to think I caught it in reruns. I said I’d like to think this.) Underdog was a super-canine who talked in rhyme (“There is no need to fear, Underdog is here!”). Though he was obviously a rip-off of Superman, he was neither buff nor broad shouldered, tall nor handsome, nor even square-jawed. He was short with skinny legs, had a sort of lumpy body and a huge nose, and appeared to be bald. And he was, well, a dog.

His alter ego was Shoeshine Boy. Whenever he would hear his girlfriend, ace TV reporter Sweet Polly Purebred, warble, “Oh where, oh where has my Underdog gone?” Shoeshine Boy would slip into a phone booth and emerge as Underdog, ready to save the world (that is, when his powers didn’t fail). Although my mother was probably shaken to learn that I loved Underdog, she didn’t flinch when I told her, but instead tried to explain or redirect my love: “It’s good to love dogs… as pets,” she told me.

In these early years, I knew I was different. This wasn’t the first sign. But what drew me to Underdog I really can’t say. Was it his mild mannerisms? The sensitive, poetic line readings? (“Not bird, nor plane, nor even frog, it’s just little ol’ me, Underdog.”) The bookish, Clark Kent-inspired glasses that Shoeshine Boy wore? Maybe it was all of these. Or maybe it was because this was before I was wholly inundated with countless images of what or who I should have crushes on, or what the idealized image of manliness or masculinity should be. No one told me I couldn’t have a crush on a cartoon dog; probably because no one expected me to be having crushes on anyone at age 3 or 4. But I did. Even though I couldn’t explain it, I simply knew how I felt. That humble, loveable Underdog did it for me. Probably just as Big Bird or Captain Caveman did it for you. (Lest you start thinking this is going to be a story about a boy and his dog, let me transition.)

It wasn’t long, however, before I switched loyalties and fixated on other cartoon characters. For example, the “Superfriends” – Superman, Batman and Robin, but especially the blond, chesty Aquaman, in his green tights and form-fitting bright orange shirt, which perfectly accentuated his every rippling muscle.

By the time I was a pre-teen and then full-fledged teen, I had fallen in love with, lusted after, crushed on and had masturbatory fantasies about (among others) the Marlboro Man, Tom Selleck (are they not the same person?), the cowboy from the Village People, Mick Fleetwood on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors album, Freddie Mercury, the Karate Kid ’s Ralph Macchio, Billy Dee Williams (well, Lando Calrissian on Star Wars , to be exact), He-Man and most of the Masters of the Universe, and various International Male models (to say nothing of my infatuation with a bearded co-worker of my dad).

Are you getting my drift here? There is great diversity to these images, to these former fantasies of mine (I swear, I’m no longer into the Karate Kid). I was a shiny-faced, high-pitch-voiced gay kid with fickleness to rival the multiple personalities of Sybil (not to mention a cowlick I could work like nobody’s business). But nonetheless, these are the images I was faced with while in my youth before I was thrust (so to speak) into the world of gay culture.

The sad part is that over the years, the images available to us have grown less and less diverse, specifically in the gay community.

When I finally became aware that there was a term for how I was born (i.e. gay), it seemed the plethora of diverse images available to me in my youth had been whittled down. I remember once driving through Hillcrest in the mid 1980s with Cynthia, a lesbian friend of mine in her late 30s (she was the producer of New Image Teen Theater, a political, partly-improvisational theater troupe that I was a part of at the time). We had probably just come from lunch at the Crest Café or Teddy’s or the Chicken Pie Shop. I asked her why it seemed that all of the gay men in Hillcrest had handlebar mustaches and receding hairlines (I was 15, OK?).

She assured me this wasn’t a gay trait – though I did have her check my scalp for thinning just in case – and remarked that it seemed to be the look that year; that gay men go through such phases.

Some of the phases of gay men I’ve noticed throughout the years (feel free to add some of your own. I’ve left a few lines blank):

Handlebar mustaches, feathered hair, Caesar haircuts, highlights and shaved heads.
Platform shoes, flip-flops, Vans, Reeboks and work boots.
Muscle shirts, plaid shirts, Polo shirts, Polo shirts with the collar flipped up and tank tops.
Beards, mustaches, sideburns, goatees and soul patches.
Body hair, shaved bodies, trimmed bodies, waxed bodies and plucked eyebrows.
Leather arm bands, rainbow necklaces, pooka shells and Lance Armstrong bracelets.
Jeans, khakis, leather pants, sweat pants and more jeans.
Cutoff shorts, Daisy Dukes, cargo shorts and gym shorts.
Yours:

The male ideal

The look will change slightly every few years, to be sure. But is it me? Does the gay community seem to be moving toward an aesthetic uniformity that’s frankly pretty alarming?

Take a look at the covers of magazines geared toward us. No, I’m not talking about Inches , I’m talking about such high-end rags as Out ,The Advocate and Genre . Who do we see on the covers more than anyone else? Smooth, chiseled, primarily white men often scantily clothed or, just as often, straight men and women also scantily clothed. The bottom line is that you rarely see any real diversity on the cover of our gay and lesbian magazines.

For instance, the latest issue of Out magazine has Madonna on the cover (how original!), and the interviews and profiles inside feature actress Jennifer Tilly (who’s played gay), crooner Michael Bublé (but he sings showtunes!) and “Saturday Night Live” comedian Chris Kattan – all straight (yes, shockingly, Chris Kattan is straight). Recent covers include hotties Jake Gyllenhaal ( Brokeback Mountain ) and Kevin Zegers ( TransAmerica ). Yes, both in high-profile, important GLBT films, but both straight. OK, so before this essay starts heading in the direction of Rob against the straights (really, I’m not. Some of my best friends are straight), let me redirect.

Even the covers that aren’t dominated by straight celebrities opt for outrageously gorgeous, partially clothed (as in the recent swimsuit issue) male models with perfect Adonis-like bodies and stories like the recent “Five ways to a hard butt!” and “18 pages of Guy-Candy!”

Guy candy?

And then there are the print ads. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can admire (even drool over) a nice set of washboard abs as easily as the next gay, er, guy, but when this is all we are presented with in every magazine (or rather, every form of media), it has to start taking its toll on our psyche. I mean, I don’t look like that. And when perfect, chiseled torsos are the only body types represented, I begin to worry. Am I supposed to look like that? Are we all supposed to look like that, to aspire to look like the men in these ads? Is this the male ideal?

Check out the ads in our local GLBT papers (apologies to my editor, but you know it’s true). While it’s great that we have out realtors, dentists, lawyers and cleaning services, as well as gay-friendly car dealerships, do we really need the half- and full-page ads featuring gyms or offering self-improvement (cosmetic surgery, laser hair removal and Botox, just to name a few)? Most of the revenue for our local gay papers depends solely on these advertisements, so I suppose in order to keep these papers in print, we do. But are we, as a community, really in need of that much improvement to our bodies?

For that matter, what about the bar ads, phone-sex ads and Web sites displaying hot, muscular, lean, athletic and usually hairless and youthful body types? Again, it comes down to money – these ads pay for our paper. To be fair, the bar photo sections of our newspapers (including this one) are getting better at showing diversity. I’ll give them that. In between pictures of sweaty, stunning go-go boys you will now find bar patrons of varied ages, ethnicities and even genders represented (I don’t know about the bodies; most of the photos are only of their heads).

According to Edisol Wayne Dotson in his book Behold the Man: The Hype and Selling of Male Beauty in Media and Culture . “Print advertisements found in numerous magazines and newspapers tell men (and women) – sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly – how men must present themselves, how men must take care of themselves, what men must own, how men must live, what men must smell like, and what it is that defines male sexuality.”

Get the message?

So what is the message we’re supposed to take from these ads and magazine covers? That, unfortunately, if you’re not young and in tremendous shape with a full head of hair (but not too much on the rest of your body), you’re not in the same league as what Out magazine or Genre or even, yes, The Advocate tells us is the ideal man.

But whose ideal? Certainly not everyone’s. Yet these magazines claim to be for the GLBT community. The out.com Web site even states: “Gay Culture Defined.” So this is the definition of gay culture?

When was the last time (or maybe the question is how often has) a transgender/transsexual person was featured on the cover of high-profile magazines such as Out ,Genre or The Advocate ? Or what about someone representing the leather or bear community? The senior citizen community? Any person of color (not straight)? The disabled? Don’t we all make up the community?

And, again, I know that it comes down to magazine sales. The hot covers with the hot, young, shirtless guys (whether straight or not) sell more than the covers with a fully clothed, middle-aged gay man (or woman, for that matter).

So how are we in the community supposed to find representations of ourselves if we don’t fit into these idealized molds? When will diverse body shapes, colors, ages and sizes be as celebrated?

And what happens when we don’t find ourselves – when we aren’t represented? It’s believed that the repetition of these idealized, “perfect” images feed and fuel negative ideas of self-worth leading to numerous health-related issues.

Tom Wall, marriage and family therapist intern specializing in crystal meth addiction, “absolutely” believes addiction is tied to body image. “Most of the men I work with explain that crystal makes them feel good about themselves and the way they look,” he explains. “These are men who have felt shame around who they are as men due to their attractions to the same sex. That shame runs incredibly deep. I think it’s important to look at how we as a community also judge each other within the community. All one has to do is go out to a nightclub and just listen to some of the comments people are making about others. If we don’t learn how to accept each other in our community – including how our bodies look – how are we ever expecting the larger society to accept us?”

“Masculinity is a cultural creation,” Dotson states. And it’s up to us to work or even fight for changes. But, unfortunately, most of the community accepts these misrepresentations with little resistance.

That is until now. This month, a group of artists in our community are presenting an exhibit called “Beyond the Surface,” which, according to the artists, “aims to represent a slice of the contemporary gay experience from a different perspective.”

According the show’s brochure: “These four artists (Stephen Remington, Justin Frizza, and curators Andrew Printer and Sam Frazier) don’t see themselves in those ads and photos and magazine covers, and they don’t want to. They create their own reality, and, more importantly, when necessary, they create their own fantasy. They believe diversity is good, but that the diversity being offered is not good enough. They strive to go beyond that which the surface offers. In the end, they want to be known for their idiosyncrasies and complexities, not as a stereotype. They want to be known for how they see the world, not how the world sees them.

“The body of work in the exhibit hopes to challenge conventional stereotypes and begin to explore a segment of the population that enjoys a greater, if not truer, profile than ever before.”