Abstract:
The contemporary presence of images of
hypermasculine aesthetics in gay visual
culture results from gay men’s response to
being expected to behave like men (masculine
performativity) despite being told through
stereotypes and homophobia that they are not
men. By fashioning themselves after archetypal
masculine icons, like the cowboy, gay ‘clones’
represent a nostalgic, romantic longing for ‘a
man’s man’ that is traditionally associated
with heterosexuality and does not carry the
stigma associated with over-the-top, effeminate
queers. Visual manifestations of the ‘macho’
gay body, and its accoutrements, become sites
of resistance through which ideological notions
of gay male inferiority and heteronormative
male superiority are challenged, re-appropriated
and even subverted. Yet, such representations
of homomasculinity, which act as ‘templates’
of estimable physical qualities for gay men, are
based on a stifling stereotype of gay identity
that obscures the race-based power relations
within which it operates. The images conceived
of as gay ‘colonial’ representations in this
article originate from the gay media, fine arts
and advertising, and are investigated in order
to reveal the apparent standards of masculinity
in queer culture, the fetishisation and
commodification of the ‘frontier’, gay beauty
ideals, and the racist ideologies that exemplify
such homoerotic visual cultures.
