GLR January-February 2023

F IG . 3. Left: Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun . Middle: Marlon Brando in The Wild One . Right: James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause .

them accordingly: “the ideal shape eyebrows was arched; thick, bushy eyebrows were viewed as a potential sign of clownish ness; while those pointing downwards suggested malice.” The exhibit follows masculine grooming into the 20th century with the photograph Ted with Comb (1977) by Chris Steele-Perkins. It’s a portrait of a Teddy Boy, a member of a teenage, working class subculture in Britain in the 1950s and ’60s. They wore flamboyant Edwardian-style clothing—long drape jackets with velvet collars, tight drainpipe trousers, bootlace ties, and thick crepe-soled shoes. Teddy Boys had heavily greased hairstyles molded with Brylcreem into a glossy ducktail. Ideas of mas culinity are reflected in male hair grooming. Photographs of Elvis Presley obsessively combing his coal-black hair into a pompadour in front of a mirror were legendary. In 1958, when he was inducted into the Army, his closely cropped G.I. haircut stunned his fans worldwide, becoming a historic pop culture event. Mapplethorpe embraces the ducktail as a symbol of coun tercultural nonconformity in Self-Portrait (1981), wearing a

motorcycle jacket with only the back of his head visible with a slicked-back punkish hairstyle. Male grooming behaviors can be seen as ritualized perform ances, and they pop up in several noteworthy films. In Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963), Bruce Byron, playing the lead character of Scorpio, while preparing for a night out becomes metamorphosed into an archetypal leatherman as the camera wan ders into adjoining areas of the bedroom in a fetishistic montage of sartorial accouterments—a motorcycle jacket, chains, and belts. The walls are decorated with photographs of icons like James Dean and Marlon Brando, whose portrayal of Johnny Strabler in The Wild One (1953) was influential in shaping homosexual iden tity through costume, particularly the asymmetrical motorcycle jacket, symbolizing—for some viewers at least—the rebellious ness that inspired the biker and gay male leather subculture of the era. That sensibility can be seen in the hypermasculine figures in the art of Tom of Finland and Rob of Amsterdam, which displays the sartorial bravado of biker jackets, chains, engineer boots, gar

rison belts, harnesses, key rings, neoprene wristbands, and police and highway patrol uniforms. Of Brando’s appearance in a torn, sweaty T-shirt in the Broadway produc tion of A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Gore Vidal later remarked: “There was an earthquake.” It signaled the postwar tra jectory of the T-shirt (previously an un dergarment) and the rise of street style, the semiotics of a “cool” and detached masculinity. Montgomery Clift wore a T shirt and leather jacket in A Place in the Sun (1951), his hip-slanted swagger hint ing at homoerotic availability. The exhibit includes a publicity photo of James Dean from Rebel Without a Cause (1955) in which he’s looking over his shoulder as seen from behind, wearing very tight jeans that accentuate his back side, as does his hand in a back pocket.

F IG . 4. Left: Billy Porter at the 2019 Oscars. Right: Lil Nas X at the 2021 BET Awards.

The G & LR

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